The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-21 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON, MOND t V EVENING JULY 21, 1F62,

noblemen and gentlemen, conspicuous among them VICTon HUGO was made a viscount by Lots'
a large gathering of influential members of both PHILLIPE, just as ALEXANDRE DUMAS was—just
Houses of the Imperial Legislature again assem- as M. DE MORNY and M. WALEWSKI and M. PER-
bled on Saturday afternoon, again (thanks to the SIGNY are made Zukes by the Emperor NAPOLEON
generous permission of the Earl of ELLESMERE) at 111. Who remembers, or cares to remember, that
Bridgewater House, again in answer to the sum- the great Flemish Painter was Sir PAUL RUBENS ?
mons of the hon. and gallant member for West Who troubles himself, when quoting the author of
Lancashire. the Genie du Christianisme to particularise him as
As the immediate result of this augural meeting the Iriscomte de CHATEAUBRIAND ? What matter is
of the promoters of an entirely new movement it that the" Spectator' was a Right Honourable? Or
in behalf of the principal sufferers now rapidly thduatstAhechaortiegsinsaTtEorELoE, was k‘
ng
fthe‘ Spectator," AnioTasisuoNNs
multiplying in the manufacturing districts—up-
rictus
of the First NAPOLEON'S own most happily_
wards of £lO,OOO were collected there and (
then before the close of the proceedings on chosen Dukes) perhaps hit off the absurdity of all
Saturday. The noble Earl, the Leader of the this folly about ancient descent and titular honours,
Opposition, heading the list with a donation of a and the like old -world rubbish and new-world
thousand! An example immediately followed with trumpery, when, in answer to the boasting of some
kindred munificence by the Marquis of WEST- of the old nobles as to the length of their line of
MINISTER, by the Earl of ELLESMERE, and by Lord ancestry, the newly-created Duke D'ABRANTES
EGERTON, of Tatton. Other subscribers putting cried out with a shrug of the shoulders—" Ah, ma
down their names upon the catalogue of sympa- foi ! je n'ea sais rien ; moi je suis mon ancestre !'
thisers for sums graduated according to their capa- Old lamps for new—new lamps for old—it is all
city, from £5OO to £5O each. And what is espe- as the homely idiom has it, much of a muchness.
cially worthy of note in regard to the proffering this " A rose by any other name"—et cetera. And so
of aid to the victims of the cotton famine, is the fact very possibly MM. DE MORNY, WALEWSKI, and
particularised by the noble Earl (Lord DERBY) PERSIGNY will do quite as well as Dukes as they
who occupied the chair at Saturday's meeting : have already done well (for themselves) as Corn-
thereby leading off the discussion which took place
on Saturday, and,
gaisw(es in truth becamehavealreadyseen him) the,himsel
list of himself
heading
with
thegenerous donations subscribed. Referring
to the circumstance that the labouring classes in the
distressed districts have already themselves made
very considerable sacrifices to compensate so far
as might be for their frightfully protracted
lack of employment, Lord DERBY particularised
a very remarkable evidence of the fact of their
having done so—when he mentioned that at Preston
alone the withdrawals, in excess of the average,
from the local savings bank, had been no less, within
a very interval recently, than £17,000! ,‘ That
fact," remarked the noble Earl on Saturday, " indi-
cates a great amount of suffering on the part of a
class who have not become pauperised, and I should
wish distinctly to stateto this meeting, and to have
it generally understood, that certainly my own ob-
ject in proposing, and, I hope, your object in sanc-
tioning, the raising of a general subscription, is
not the relief of paupers, but to relieve by private
charity those persons who are still struggling to
maintain their independence, and to prevent them
from being added to the list of paupers. Indi-
rectly, of course, that will tend to relieve
the ratepayers, but it will be in a manner that
separates the recipient of the charity from the
habitual pauper—which will not interfere with the
feeling of self-respect which has been so meritori-
ously manifested, and which will enable a large
proportion of those who are ratepayers, and who are
themselves upon the verge of suffering, to keep
their heads above water—to maintain the position
they have hitherto held, and which they are still
desirous of maintaining." Of all descriptions of aid
that could be afforded to the distressed districts,
that is surely the most desirable and the most
generously thought of! The mere knowledge of
the fact that it is assistance of this character that
is being prepared for them will be more calculated
than almost any other tidings that could be brought
to them—savingand excepting only the happy news
that the war in America has somehow been brought
to a definitive conclusion—to hearten on the labour-
ing classes of Lancashire in their struggle against
the lamentable trials brought upon them by
the consequences of the Cotton Famine.
While the Lords and Commons were thus on
Saturday, at Bridgewater House, organising a sup-
plementary aid to the inhabitants of the afflicted
districts in Lancashire—subscribing £lO,OOO as an
earnest of their good intentions—the London Relief
Committee was still pursuing its generous career at
the Mansion House under the auspices of the gene-
rous-hearted and public-spirited LORD MAYOR.
According to the statement put forth by the trea-
surer of that Committee, the total sum sent to the
LORD MAYOR, down to Friday evening inclusively
was no less than £15,785 15s. Bd., more than eleven
thousand pounds sterling of which sum had already
been promptly remitted to the distressed districts
for distribution under the wise, supervision of the
local committees of relief. Particulars such as these
indicate as distinctly as possible that the Legisla-
ture has not had the solution of the momentous
problem of this terrible distress left entirely to it-
self—but that all ranks and classes of the commu-
nity are already co-operating in the endeavour to
mitigate as far as casual efforts of this kind can
mitigate—these deplorable sufferings down in the
manufacturing districts, but more particularly in
the County Palatine of Lancaster.

moners.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO.
The subject of the Marriage of Figaro is one o
the most striking instances of vicissitude in the his
tory of the comic and lyric drama. Whether as
comedy or opera it has most signally illustrated the
revolutionary epoch which brought it into being.
The world has long since forgotten its political
celebrity. Whilst the' Barber of Seville" owed its
success to its dramatic merits simply—as a resuscita-
tion of French comedy which had undergone a cen-
tury's declension from the force and nature of
Moliere, to the formal graces of Reynard, the affec-
tations of Marivaux, and the dull and dawdling
pedantries of Des Forges and La Harpe,—the
Marriage of Figaro—which repeated all its spirit
and its wit—made the force of their incisions ten-
fold by rendering them political. It was unques-
tionably one of the most efficient of the proximate
causes of the Revolution. Whilst the Encyclo-
paedists merely appealed to the higher and
cultivated classes in their attacks on State abuses,
Beaumarchais, with a wit and vigour which even
they did not possess, appealed to the world at large,
and by that world was at once responded to. With
a freedom wl- oily unparalleled he assailed, in the
Marriage of Figaro, the Ministers of the day—the
Bastile—the censorship—the state of the press—
and the police ; and the excited Parisians, who
crowded the Comedie Francaise for nearly fifty
nights of its first production by their loud laughter
and acclamations, gave the earliest public manifes•
tation of the feeling which, five years afterwards,
was destined to take shape in the great event of
modern times. Everything connected with the pro-
duction of the comedy had a strange public signi-
ficance. The King, on hearing it read, was so
amazed at its audacity that he peremptorily forbade
its performance; but Beaumarchais, whose resolu-
tion was quite on a level with his humour, and who
said in regard to this repulse, "Only give me enemies
and obstacles enough, and I consider my success
certain,"—actually succeeded in getting it privately
performed before Marie Antoinette—when no less
a person than the Count d'Artois, afterwards Louis
XVIII., became the original Figaro—the great
preacher of revolution—whilst the Queen was so de-
lighted that she obtained permission for its produc-
tion, and thus egain helped to promote the crisis
which was to be so fatal to her and hers- The
lyrical history of this subject is quite in keeping
with its dramatic. Joseph 11. of Austria, whose
liberalism was so extraordinary that Voltaire called
him the " royal razormaker who was forging a
blade for his own throat"—was so delighted with
the novel sarcasms and spirit of the " Marriage of
Figaro, that he invited Mozart to make it an opera,
and appointed his own poet to write the libretto—
the Abbe de Ponte"—who, to complete as it were,
the circle of its revolutionary features, was actually
a Jew in the disguise of a Christian priest. Mozart
accepted the subject with avidity, and produced in
a few weeks a work which many have considered his
masterpiece, and which he himself at times,—accord-
ing to the statement of his widow, ranked above his
" Giovanni." Michael Kelly, who performed in it,
describes, in his pleasant Memoirs, its extarordinary
success, which was almost on a level with that of
the comedy in Paris—the encores being so frequent,
and thereby its length being so prolonged, that at
length the King was compelled to forbid any encore
taking place. Transferred to other capitals, its
impression was quite as great, especially in London,
where it was produced in 1812 by Mdme Catalani,
the great songstess oddly enough selecting the
character of Suzanna. Fifty years have since
elapsed, and the attraction of the subject has ceased.
As a comedy it has not been played in London
since its original adaptation, nor as an opera on the
English stage—but in the hybrid form of a
comedy with songs—whilst on the Italian boards it
has only come to us at intervals of several years. Now,
if on account of its politics we can explain its decay
as a drama, how are we to explain its comparative
neglect as an opera, when the latter unquestion-
ably contains some of the finest and most distinctive
inspirations of Mozart, as well as several solos, which
in our concert and our drawing rooms have always
maintained their popularity. The reason we believe
lies in the unusual difficulty of the concerted pieces,
more especially the two finales, which require an
amount of musical knowledge as well as of dramatic
expression which are very rarely found combined
uncle the roof of any theatre. The opera is also
distinguished by containing five leading characters,
each of which has a speciality, both vocal and
dramatic, the want of any one of which is a
serious bar to its due impression. We see little
in the circumstance that there is no love interest in
the story, and that the hero is a barytone instead
of being a tenor, since both of these peculiarities
attach to the Giovanni. At the same time, we can
understand why "The Marriage of Figaro" of
Mozart is much less performed than " The Barber
of Seville" of Rossini. It is not only the more diffi-
cult, but it is also the less comic. Indeed, in the
true sense of the word it is scarcely a comedy at all.
Whilst its movement and its incidents are in the
highest degree diverting; its characters have an
earnestness which at times almost becomes serious.
They oppose rather than unite with the situations
they are involved in. The large-hearted Mozart
was so full of truth and sensibility that he could
not like Rossini transcribe or heighten comic treach-
eries. He had no taste for musical persiflage and
roguish double entendre. His natural goodness
compelled him to elevate his ecoundrels with some
sentiment, and both in the Count and Figaro give
an ardour that is very commendable, if not yaw
appropriate. This is an honourable fact as respects
the man, but rather a fatal one as respects the
opera. The Marriage of Figaro is, accordingly,
rather an operatic play than a comic opera, in which
the feeling and the tenderness are quite as apparent
as the humour. Its music, however, is of a charac-
ter that must always maintain its reputation,
and, as we have already said, in its due rendering lies
the difficulty that explains its comparative neglect.
Its adequate production, therefore, must be regarded
as a test of the artistic capocity 01 a lyric theatre,
and such a test on Saturday evening her Ma-

The fun that M. FORCADE make, in the Revue
des I)eux londes, of this new distribution of titles
in France by NAPOLEON 111., is. after all so justifi-
able a pleasantry ! Beyond which—alas ! that we
should have to say as much—it is so frightfully
applicable elsewhere. The illustrious men of now-
adays in France, argues M. FORCADE—and really
(may we not say it ?) with just a dim :glimmering
of reason—are such men as MM. GulzoT, THIERS,
VICTOR HUGO, and LamaRTINE! And yet—we
have now added to the bede-roll of " the illustrious"
(conventionally) in France, three bran-new Dukes
in the persons of—M. DE MORNY, M.PERSIGNY, M.
WALEWSKI ! When the brilliant satirist and critic
in the Revue des Deux Mondes ridicules the
founder of the Imperial Dynasty (l'Oncle de son
Nevue) for inasmuch as while he could exclaim
magnanimously " If CORNEILLE had livedin my
time, I would have made him a Prince," he (Napo-
leon the GREAT) depreciated the dignity of that
high title, by making a Prince of a clever and
and accomplished gourmand like the Arch Chan-
cellor CAMBACERES—M. FORCADE should have re-
membered, at any rate, at the same time, that the
First NAPOLEON really did contrive (as well) to
award his " bran new" titles not unfrequently to
men just a trifle, we will say, more than acciden-
tally fortunate ! It is not quite fair again for M.
FORCADE to draw the invidious distinction he has
done, between the really illustrious men of letters
above enumerated—to wit (their names will bear
repetition) MM. GUiZOT, THIERS, VICTOR HUGO,
and LAMARTINE—and the three new Dukes of the
Empire, whose names—don't somehow bear any
such repetition! It is not quite fair, we
say, for M. FORCADE to draw a distinction
thus superficially invidious, and invidious we must
insist only superficially. For—can it be possible
that M. FORCADE has forgotten that his Majesty,
Mr. ,SMITH, otherwise King Louis PHILLIPPE,
actually did raise (?) one of those four great
authors of France to the dignity (such as it was)
of a Viscountcy ! And hence possibly it has come
to pass that out of the whole four M. le Viscomte
VICTOR HUGO is the only one who has dared to
perpetrate a meanness like that malignant brochure
(n" almost forgotten) "NAPOLEON le Petit," and
still more recently the yet more degrad-
ing meanness. of penning 6 fulsome pane-.
gy Upon
toe very commonplace man by
:ha:eh:ter titled writer, was
whose hand, he
(save the m„k
c'a'bled—that nauseating
of Mr. SgiTH,Aguring
cal..ogium upon the
k'oncADE:alitiPoPne,
(appropriately enough, as it , .
It3s)forignetLiet:
ffiserables! No•--111

jesty's Theatre amply sustained. No such per-
formance of this charming opera has been heard in
London for many years, whether in respect to the
individual or the collective power employed ; and
had the season furnished no other evidence of skill
and zeal in its direction, the production of this
opera must have stamped it with distinction. A
brief survey of its execution will suffice to sustain
our praise. Madame Titiens, by assuming the
Cot,lntes for the first time in England, placed that
character before the public in an entirely different
ight from that which 'it assumed at the hands of
the Caradoris annd Ortolanis of a few years ago.
Ffhp gave it a dignity as well as a tenderness that
struck at once the key-140e of the elevated feelipg

of the work, and prepared the audience all the more
freely to enter into the more earnest rendering
of the Count and Figaro especially. He de-
livery of her opening aria, the " Porgi Amor,"
and the still more exquisite " Dove sono" were in-
stances of tlrAt union of the deepest feeling and the
most perfect method which distinguish our great
songstress, whilst her share in the concerted music
tended not slightly to convey its superb impression to
the audience. Not inferior in merit was the Susanna
of Miss Louisa Pyne, however wanting in the
due buoyancy of its dramatic illustration. Ten-
derness rather than gaiety has been her charac-
teristic always, and it was accordingly in the con-
veyance of this sen timent that her efforts were most
successful_ Her share in the " Sall Aria" was one
of the loveliest things of the night, whilst her deli-
" Deli vieni nor tardar," one of Mozart's
very of the
most perfect gems—was one of the most striking
instances of deep-feeling, melodious sound and
faultless intonation which has ever been heard upon
these boards. The result was a most ardent and well
deserved encore. Equal in vocal and certainly supe-
rior in dramatic quality was the Cherubino of Mdlle.
Trebelli, which was one of the most charming im-
personations which have as yet secured her fame.
Nothing could be more spirited or delightful than
her acting of the ardent page, whilst her delivery
of the " Voi the sapete" was an instance of pure
vocalisation which could scarcely be surpassed, and
certainly the most perfect rendering of the air which
we have ever yet enjoyed. In this case again was
won a well deserved encore. The Almavira of Mr.
Santley, if wanting somewhat in its bearing of the
dignity of a Spanish nobleman, lacked nothing of
the earnestness required by the music; his delivery of
the " Crudel Perche finora," but more especially the
recitative and air, " Vedro mentrio sospiro," being
admirable in the extreme, and amply vindicating
his claims as the most perfect English bari-
tone which has as yet adorned our stage. The
Figaro of Monsieur Gassier was also a most able
effort, thorougly grasping the Mozart conception
of the uneasy barber, who is transformed from the
common assailant of domestic happiness to that of
its defender, in his own person, a retribution
rather necessary to the enjoyment of the story,
and giving admirably the music in sustainment of
such a view. In the "Se vuol ballare" he wanted ra-
pidity and humour, but in the " Nonpiu
Andrai" he had every quality that was required,
his share also, as well as Mr. Santley's, being
thoroughly adequate in the concerted music. The
Bartolo of Signor Zuccheni was a very careful and
able effort, and the Basillio of Signor Bettini
not unworthy of the general excellence. In
conclusion, we have only to say that the band
and the chorus were irreproachable, and that
the entire impression of this noble opera was
one of the highest gratification to one of the most
crowded and intelligent audiences which have
honoured the theatre for the season.