The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-30 00:00:00

a vital principle to the efficiency of county
and borough gaols." It is impossible to say more
than this, and when it is considered that this is
the decision arrived at after minute investigation,
careful analysis, and extended experience, it must
be conceded that the greatest regard should be
given to the advice. Sometimes a simple treatment
of a bad case will prove more efficacious than a very
complex and elaborate one, and if some of the most
important features that appear in this report be
strictly adhered to and steadfastly upheld, there is
good reason and well grounded expectation to hope
that beneficial consequences will ensue; at all events
it is worth the trial, and without the exercise of
any undue severity, or inflicting injuries on the
health of the prisoners, it is high time that a
stop be put to the permission of comforts and
sometimes luxuries which honest poverty,struggling
in unaided toil at home, can never dream of.
There is something very wrong in the
penal system, when prisoners prefer the prison to
the workhouse. They commit offences to be trans-
ferred to the former; and if this is not an unanswer-
able argument in favour of a radical change, it
would be difficult to find one at all. Prejudice and
partiality do a great deal to deter the introduction
of remedial measures in all things; but their day
must pass away at last, and let men walk in the
light of truth and be swayed by the dictates of
reason. Surely the time has arrived for common-
sense to come to the rescue, and let us call things
by their right names. Let not all prisons be such
a lamentable failure that they may be styled the
nursery of crime and the fostering influence of
guilt ; but let their rules and regulations be so con-
structed that, in so far as human means can effect it,
all possibie checks be put in the way of crime, that
the man of sin may find no refuge for him, where
his evil ways are lightly thought of, but that the
knowledge may go forth surely, if slowly, that there
is no peace for those who make evil their profession,
and increase their crimes tenfold by drawing others
into the same evil ways which their own footsteps
I are pursuing to perdition.

THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA,

Madlle. Lagrua's Norma,

The eighteenth season of the Royal Italian Opera
commenced last evening. And Mr, Gye ought,
certainly, to be satisfied with the succeds of its
inauguration. For, an opening night could hardly
have gone off more brilliantly or more auspiciously.

The magnificent house itself was filled throughout.
It is never, in the ordinary acceptation of the word,
crowded—each occupant of a seat there (even those
relegated to the pit and amphitheatre) having plenty
of elbow room : but last night, we repeat, it was
filled in every part, and looking superbly. If there
was no conspicuous novelty apparent in the mere
selection of the opera chosen for this first night's
performance—there was, at least, one especial
attraction (there being also several minor attrac-
tions, visible at a glance to the eye of any habitué)
in the cast of the chef d'oeuvre thus, and with good
reason, picked out for the first night, from the
Royal Italian Opera's ample repertoire. Belliai's
lovely lyrical tragedy of " Norma" has often, of

course, been (as it certainly never can to often
be) heard in this country— heard season after
season, and that alternately, sometimes simulta-

neously, at both houses—at Her Majesty's of late
years with Madlle. Titiens as the High Priestess—
at the Royal Italian (until now) with Madame
Grisi as the love-lorn Druidess, a character in truth
which, it will long be remembered, was high up
among the glories of la Diva! But last evening
" Norma" was heard for the first time with Made-
moiselle Emilia Lsgrue, as the heroine of the grand
lyrical tragedy. The first night of the season was
the first night of Madlle. Lagrua's appearance, here
in England. The debutante was there, moreover,
upon the scene of so many of Grisi's triumphs,
was there to rival one of Grisi's most reuowned
impersonations, was there, in fact aspiring to
occupy the position of Grisi's successor. And, as
the result of her triple daring, we may now say,
at once that she has not only aspired to it,
she has assumed it. Mademoiselle Lagrua's
success last night was unmistakeable. Even
from the frigid and fastidious audience of
Covent Garden she extracted round after
round of applause. Called before the curtain at the
end of the first of the two acts—her success being re-
cognisable from the very commencement—the fair
soprano was again summoned to the footlights at
the conclusion of the opera, thence retiring, at the
close of her first night, amidst a burst of acclama-
tions, the cordiality of which had about it, as a token
of her success, a very manifest
significance. The
wonder, perhaps, would have been—remembering
her antecedents—had the result been otherwise.
For, during several yeaes past, Madlle. Lagrua has
enjoyed a high reputation, among the highest repu-
tations, as a leading soprano in both hemispheres,
in America as well as in various parts of the Euro•
peen continent. Hence, possibly, the early fresh-
ness of her lovely
voice has apparently passed away
already, before
her advent to England. Though,
thi
when saying
--a, we cling to the belief that our
impression, as to its being so, may prove
to have been suggested by the not unna-
tural nervousness incident to every debutante, no
matter how familiar already that d6butante with
the lyrical stage elsewhere. Judging from appear-
ances there was certainly no one touch of timi-
dity about the Norma of last night, either in her
acting or in her singing, but—in lieu of any signs
of timidity—every token of the most complete self-
possession. Nevertheless, either from the hidden
nervousness we have supposed, or from the disap-
pearance already of the earliest freshness of her
voice, the exquisite organ of Madlle. Lagrua
(excepting only upon three or four rare and for
that very reason, of course, thrice-welcome occa-
sions) seemed to lack the resonance requisite to fill
the immense building, and the capacity to soar
now and then above the harmonious tumult of
the
ac, thatorchestralti
alvtidile. ccompanirl
is
the most part singing ent. It appeared to us,
f
Lagrua last night was for
it may be frankly said at
undeornhcee,rwcaaps no-
ticeablethabileitimeso.stThis
have in Norma
been the least accustomed
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whatever
of
where,d deficiency,
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ioern
yy Sears,
ewe l
y,
oionk
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tu ytt
mn that m
en the impassioned scene
with Pollio and Adalgisa, and immediately after-
wards
the "0h! di qual sei
in this, probably, has
taught us to be over-exacting, as Pasta must have
a.,,Gsrais
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done—in that character which was hers especially,
hers par excellence—ia the former generation.
Having made this one exception in regard to
the Norma of Madlle. Lagrua, we have said
all that we have to say—in the way of
exceptions. Otherwise her impersonation of the
High Priestess of the Druids was a triumph both of
acting and of vocalization. Her every movement
is grace—her attitudes again and again were pre-
eminently statuesque. Personally she has the all-
essential advantages for a leading soprano, of hand-
some and intellectual features, of a finely developed
form, and of a noble bearing. Her rendering of
the famous " Casta Diva"—in which the Priestess,
armed with the golden sickle, apostrophises the
moon as the Goddess of the Druids, in the midst
of the kneeling multitude---eras delicious through-
out, in every phrase, and note, and cadence : the
audience at the close of it evidencing their appre-
ciation by their plaudits. Usually, this prayer is
sung by Norma with her arms extended towards
Heaven. Here, in the very manner of her delivery
of it, the Norm of last night, stood before us—excep-
tionally : her hands, from the first note to the last
—that is, of the ' Caste Diva," and of its con-
tinuance, the " TemprA to de' oft Ardenti"—being