The Express.
London, England, 1863-07-11 00:00:00

MADAME SWORE'S PERFORMANCES.

The original tragedy of Norma by M. Sonmet,
better known to English audiences by the necessarily meagre
version which Is made the medium of Bellies branortal
melodies, was produced in an Italian translation but night
at Her Majesty's Theatre—Madame Ristori performing the
character which has so long been associated with the name
of Grisi. We &moot aware that Madame Ristori has ever
before appeared in this part. Her performance in it is cer-
tainly new to English audiences. Those who are familiar
with the opera will readily perceive the many opportunities
which the story affords for the display of her peculiar powers.
She is, indeed, never more at borne than is a drama which
turn, upon the rivalry of a haughty and majestic heroine
with a meeker and more gentle lady whom her perverse
lover persists in preferring. It is in the situations which
such a theme as this naturally produces that her fierce, im-
peerioned declamation, her sudden fits of tenderness and
oompaseion, har exhibition of conflicting emotions, her rapt
enthusiasm, and her favourite display of heroic self.
sacrifice appear in all their force. The tragedy of Norma, as
compared with theopera, is somewhat monotonotm Ile soenes
are naoagortlY longer—its chief situations more elaborated.
The disappointed love of the guilty priestess And her rival,
Adalgisa, appear, when presented without the aid of music,
to be too slender a theme for a five-act play. It has, how-
ever, the advantage of keeping Madame Ilitori on the stage
in every act, while it presents for the other characters some
opportunities of rising above that dull level of insipidity
which has so often been inflicted on her audiences. The
scene in the first act, in which Adalgiss confides to Norma,
her unsuspecting rival, the fact of her love kept the audi-
ence in breathless attention. The climax of this scene is
reached in the seemed act, when Adalgisa confesses that her
loser is Pollio—and Norma exclaims in an agony of sato-
nislunent and indignation.
ld! No ; giammai ringanni.

Ei epos° too ! to meoti.
Equally fine was the momentary tendernese with which she
conferee to Palle that her love for him—which she attri-
butes to her affection for their child—would compel her to
follow him anywhere and in any character—
Spam, atoante, captive—ameba captive. !
the anaemia being evidently moved no less by her mar-
vellously expressive and picturesque attitudes than by her
lofty declamation and remarkable play of features. Her
acting in the last act, in which she appears maddened and
overwhelmed with her 'betrayal and despair, is that by
which the produces her greatest effects. Her exelamatlon
when Adalgisa pronounces her mad—
Io fuor di senno ? Chi lo dice? Stolti I
Non son gas quests le gallicbe salve
Populate da Dmidi ? lo moo in Roma
—and again, the passage beginning
Al mom rite
'Mama ens vittima. Ma il cielo
I* menden).
—were delivered with a pathos and intensity like nothing
but those great outbursts with which she has rendered her
admirer' so familiar. A new actor, Signor Bisambi, per-
formed the part of Polito with much spirit. Madame
Glech's performance of Adalgies also secured for her some
special marks of approbation ; and Signor Tesoro, one of
the few good actors among Madame Ristori's supporters,
made the moat of the pat of the Druid Oroveso.
Madame Rioted makes her farewell appearance on Monday
in Alfieri's tragedy of Roarmunds, in which, if we re-
member correctly, she appeared during her first series of
performances in England to 1856.