The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-20 00:00:00

THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

Wachtel as Arnoldo in " Guglielmo Tell.'
Rossini's grand four-act opera of " Guglielmo
Tell"—produced (as already notified in Die Sun)
for the first time this season at the Royal Italian
on Saturday—was repeated with magnificent effect
last evening to a brilliant and molt appreciative
audience. Whenever this noble composition is pro-
duced at any one of the great lyrical establishments
of Europe, its performance, quite as a matter of
course, takes rank among the "events" of the year.
It is not simply that " Guglielmo Tell" has the re-
putation of being the great maestro's masterpiece,
it enjoys the fair fame of being—in its character as
such, as Rossini's masterpiece—one of the most
superb product:one ever contributed by operatic
composer to the treasures of the lyrical drama. The
pathetic beauty of the " Gazze Laths," the tragic
power of the same gifted (in some respects incom-
parable) master's " 0 tello," the sparkling, rian t, one
might almost say, dazzling comicality of the " Bar-
biere di Sivigtia," great though they are and
widely though they are appreciated yield
the palm to the rarer combination of con-
trasting yet harmonious merits, constituting the pe-
culiar and exceptional charm, fascination, witchery,
even, may we not call it ? of Rossini's latest,
of Rossini's greatest opera " Guglielmo Tell." It is
not—let us say this at once, however, now that we
are referring thus pointedly to the especial and dis-
tinctive claims of " Guglielmo Tell" upon our admira-
tion—it is not that this Grand Opera can be said to
abound in those most exquisite crowning gifts to us
all from the hand of any great musical composer—
golden largess (squandered around by some of them
so affluently !) that we treasure up thenceforth, so to
speak, as so many precious amulets—those Haunting
Melodies, we mean, that are the Glories of Song, me
lodies that once heard are never forgotten, each of
them complete in originality, each, so to express it,
"one entire and perfect chrysolite." It is not, we say,
that Rossini's " Guglielmo Tell" commands our ad
miration as an operatic masterpiece " set" with
these the rarest of all the g' ms of song. For—spat t
from that lovely choral jubilation of the Swiss pea-
santry, familiarly known in this country as coupled,
in our English vernacular, with the words " Green
hills of Tyrol," a warbling, exhilarant, hilarious
melody, that seems to breathe of the mountain air
of those lands of freedom (it matters little whether
it refers to the Tyrol or to S itzeriand)—apart
from this one world-famous choral melody, and
from E the delicious dance music lavished in
prodigal variety upon the great scene of the Opera,
the market scene, that is, in the third act, im-
mediately before the apple is shot from the head of
Tell's boy by the arrow of that Hero-Marksman—
there are in Rossini's operatic masterpiece but very
few, if indeed, for that matter, there be any other, even
momentary snatches of those peculiar and Haunting
Melodies we are here speaking of, those melodies
that, once heard, cling lovingly thenceforth to our
most grateful remembrance. It is in the weaving
together of the harmonious witcheries, or wizardies,
it should rather be said, of his marvellous gifts as
the great maestro among Operatic Composers that
Rossini, has, in this glorious work of art, revealed
powers attesting his full right to precedence; to
pre-eminence, to supremacy above them all. From
the first ascending notes of the eiolincellos, with
which the wonderful Overture opens, throughout the
whole of the four acts of the Opera itself, to the final
chorus of the emancipated peasantry, the exultant
chorus chaunted as the curtain falls at the close of
this patriotic drama—
I boachi, i monti, a la citta
Alzin tonante un grido solo
Pe' cieli a to spiegasti it vole :
Vitoria e libert
:
the score of Guglielmo Tell proclaims by every note
and bar woven into that marvellous maze of sound
Rossini's absolute mastership as a musician. The
concerted pieces are perfect studies, indeed, as so
many veritable feats
~of art in musical composi-
tion. There is one passage occurring—like a
distinct episode, as one may say—in the great
Overture, that has a wondrous beauty of its own,
typifying. as it almost seems to us, precisely this
paramount and distinctive merit of the whole
Opera, as a very labyrinth of intricate and
dexterous harmonits. It is a passage—this—in
which, by astonishing involin ions and inter-
minglings of most delicate sounds, the violins,
the hautboys, the triangles, and the horns
not only " weave the warp and weave the
woof" but, together, make up, as\it were, a very
embroidery of harmonies, Altogether, surely—
(not the overture alone, but the whole of this grand
opera)—a wondrous composition! The libretto of
it—even with the exquisite historical incident it and
dertakee to illustrate—like the rue of these unhappy
librettos—is, if the truth must he spoken, very much
indeed, of a failure. The love story about Arnold and
Matilda, intertwined, most mistakenly (as we for
one must ever think), with the patriotic historical
tale about Tell and Gossler—is with the very feeblest
imaginable interest, as a love story. There is but
one effective situation, in truth, it the whole Opera,
meaning, of course, the Shootin; of the Apple, if,
we hero except only that one )f the Gathering
of the Cantons at the end ef the second act,
an incident, happily, suggesting to Rossini that
inimitable finale, in the working out of which the
spirit-stirring crescendo leads, at last, with a start-
ling aplomb to that sudden rush down to the foot-
lights of all the choruses, swore in hand ! Their
rush down to the footlights to the single (and
signal) cry, All; arra .I—uttered, just once,
to the crash of the whole orchestra, as the
curtain descends ! The cast of tie opera yesterday
at the Royal Italian was identically the same, of
course, as the one which attractec eo large an audi-
ence to Covent Garden on Saturday night, the
night of the first performance it this season
in that great lyrical establishment. And the
impression then produced by the principal
artistes to whom the chief characters had been
allotted, was, let us say it briefly
and at once, to
the full confirmed. Signor Wachtel, who took the
town by storm only the other day with his Man-
rico, has now,
by his impersonation of Arnoldo,
securely and (so long at least as his rare powers
shall in the mere course of nature lag) permanently
established 'pis reputation. Marvellous though that
wonderful high chest note of his, the C above the
line, the at de poitrine, the C di petto, unquestion-
ably is in the silvery and resonant fullness of its
vibration—it is not simply by any such "cape.
d'Operea" that he extorts that nightly crash of
white kids end those choral shouts of
bravo, bravissimo. As appertaining to a
primo tenore the whole ample compass of his
noble and lovely voice, charms his delighted audience
into admiration. Besides which, his management
of that voice of his, has so clearly and so vastly im-
proved, it has so advanced, expanded, and zisen since
the date of his appearance originally at the Royal
Italian, for a very brief interval only, a couple of years
ago, that we have full confidence in his future as a
young Chief of Song, who will not rest satisfied
merely with the high position he has already at-
tained but will, on the contrary, sedulously continue
his efforts as hitherto, (let him exult, if he will, to
remember, up to this hour, his triumphant
efforts), still further to rise and to advance in the
general development of his powers as an Artist.
While he is yet in the golden and hal-
cyon outset of his career in his art—as
one of the recognised exponents of which he
already occupies the foremost rank—he has the satis-
faction and the encouragement, though he should
also bear in mind, too, the responsibility, of having
so completely won a mastery over his audience, that
they go "with him" whithersoever he lists,
whithersoever he chooses to lead ,them, with that
tnagicel voice of his ; and they (his audience) not
only go with him, be it said, but they go with
him enthusiastically. llerr Schmid's majestic
organ as a veritable basso profondo, an one
mistakeable successor at last to the great Lablache,
produced as favourable an impression upon his
Covent Garden hearers in Walter as that grand voice
had done already a few evenings previously in Ore-
vise. Madame Rudersdorff's Jemmy was, we would
say, hero, distinctly, as thrilling in its passion, (13 it
wascharming in its tenderness, 'Wile. Marie Itattu's
Mathilde secured to her several brilliant triumphs
during she evening. With a little more out-singing,
and a trifle more animation in his acting, Signor
Graziani would Iwo us nothing to desire in the