The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-01 00:00:00

t with which she comes to us, in spite of the evi-
dently refined and in some respects wonderful
cultivation of her voice. The organ itself is hardly
yet formed, so to speak, has certainly yet to be
mellowed by time and by practice. Thin in quality,
at any rate, in its lower and middle registers—want-
ing somewhat in sustained power—it is in the higher
part of its range, in (technially) the upper register,
deliciously clear, just almost all that one could well
wish it to be as a high soprano. Painfully, distress-
ingly nervous as she evidently was on Saturday
night upon her first appearance before that most
formidable audience, the audience of Her Majesty's
Theatre, Miss Harris, though gaining something
like reassurance, little by little afterwards, can
hardly be said to have perfectly recovered her self-
possession even once throughout the night. The
agitation embarrassing her was visible in the very
restlessness of her movements, in the dancingly
apologetic curtseys with which she acknowledged
not only the kindly welcome that greeted
her first appearance before the footlights,
but the encreasing applause that, later
on in the opera, began to reward her
efforts—an applause that in the end amounted to a
genuine furore, evidencing her complete success.
Very possibly by reason of nervousness, her open-
ing recitative, " Care compagne," with its imme-
diately conse luent aria " Come per me sereno !"
passed almost with a sense of disappointment. Her
unmistakable triumph came indeed not until the bed-
room scene after her first display of somnambulism,
when Amina remonstrates with Elvino in the lovely
duet " D'un pensiero, d'un accento"—a duet re-
warded, to the honour alike of tenor and soprano,
with a thundering encore ! Already by that time
the young debutante no doubt had been steadily
winning favour with her audience, in spite of her
exceeding timidity, but that was her first quite un-
mistakable success. And it was one that developed
itself afterwards into the absolute enthusiasm which
greeted her in her in every way really remarkable
delivery of that delicious outpouring of joy, " Ah !
non giunge, uman pensiero," with all its as-
tonishing adornments and elaborations of vocal
ingenuity in the way of chromatic passages
of marvellous rapidity and intricacy—fountains, ,
cascades of sound, ascendingand descending scales—
the wonder and delight to this day of those who
bear in their tenderest remembrance the genius, the
soul, the nameless charm and fascination of Maria
Felice (née Garcia) Malibran do Beriot ! So far as
—without the soul or the genius or the nameless
charm of Malibran—a young girlish Amina, with a
wonderful organ of her own, and an organ already
wonderfully cultivated, could effect what Malibran
effected (vocally) in that marvellous warbling of
ectastic joy, the "Ah ! non giunge " the young
American soprano effected to the delight of the
audience at Her Majesty's on Saturday. It was
a genuine success, marked at the fall of the
curtain not merely by the enthusiastic re-
call of the debtitante, as at the end of the two
preceding acts, but by her re-recall—alone—at the
end, after her appearance there with the Elvino and
the Count Rodolpho of the night. Madlle. Redi's
debfit, on Saturday, as Lisa, was in many respects
highly satisfactory. An opinion that we would
express yet more emphatically in regard to the new
Tenor, the Elvino of the occasion, a Spanish singer
of much-used but still vigorous power, a skilled artist,
whether regarded lyrically or histrionically—Signor,,
or more strictly speaking, Don Emmanuele Carrion
by name—who won the heartiest plaudits by his
tender rendering of the mournful " Tutto e sciolto !"
and yet more by the impassioned pathos of the
"Ah perche non posso odiarti "—that won-
drous outburst of melodious lamentation ! Re-
turning to London fresh from his triumphs at
Barcelona, Mr. Santley was greeted imme-
diately upon his appearance upon the boards
of ,Her Majesty's, on Saturday evening, as well
became both the great artist himself and his
right cordial appreciators ! He was greeted,
in other words, as an artist that we are all proud of
—as one who thoroughly holds his own, to employ
a popular idiom, in the front rank among the chief
actors of the Italian lyrical drama—as one of the
most rarely gifted and accomplished among living
baritones. His Count Rodolpho is incomparably the
finest heard in London since the days Tambourini.
He established this fact beyond the reach of dispute
on Saturday—singing the tender, lamenting, lovely air
of the "Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni" to very pert
fection. Remembering that exquisite melody—and
what other tender, lamenting, lovely melodies from
the same bewitching opera of "La Sonnambula!"—
one is almost tempted to say of Bellini that if we
might describe the effusions of other emotional
composers as resembling the musical drop-
ping of water, his we should speak of as re-
sembling rather the musical dropping of tears.
As affording the happiest augury for this new season
at Her Majesty's, Saturday night's performance
altogether has given us good hope, among other
things, that really this year we may at last after
all witness on those boards Wagner's masterpiece
" Tannhaiiser."

A mong those who honoured the performances at
her Majesty's on Saturday with their presence were
the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, the Duke and
Duchess of Wellington, the Marquis and Marchioness
of Hastings, the Marquis of Clanricarde, the Marchio-
ness Dowager of Conyngham, the Countess of Har-
rington, the Earl of Wilton, the Countess of Jersey
and party, the Earl and Countess of Uxbridge, the
Marquis and Marchioness of Blandford, the Vis-
count Grey de Wilton, his Excellency the French
Ambassador and party, the Viscount Clifden, Gen.
Sir George Bowles, K.C.B. ; Sir Wm. Abdy, Bart.,
and Lady Abdy, Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, Col. Brown-
low Knox, M.P., &C.

The Last of the Great English Actors.

(From the New York Herald.)

Mr. Charles Kean, the last of the great English
actors, is now in this city on a passing visit to his
American friends. After an extensive tour of a
great portion of the globe, embracing in its range
the golden lands of Australia and California, as well
as the islands of the Antilles, he has once more bent
his steps to the magnificent metropolis of the
Western world. Like Rienzi, the Roman tribune,
this distinguished man is the last of a noble race of
actors whose triumphant fame has filled the land.
Such another actor does not live at this day. • His
style is pure, chaste, finished and highly intel-
lectual. To see him is to see at once the im-
personation of perfect art and a true specimen
of the most careful cultivation. In his acting
we find nothing of the coarse, vulgar " Black-
hawk" style which " tears a passion to rags" and
" splits the ears of groundlings"—a kind of acting
that has unfortunately been coming too much into
vogue of late. This, among many other reasons, is
cause enough why Mr. Kean should be earnestly
welcomed among us.
Of Mrs. Kean, who has gained laurels wherever
she has gone, we may make the same remarks.
The thousands of play-goers in this city who re-
member her will bear in mind her warm, impas-
sioned and energetic style of acting, which speaks
at once to the intellect as well as to the heart of
her audience. She returns to us with more power
than before—with a larger and a richer store
of pearls gathered from the depths of the histrionic
sea. The opportunity afforded the public of seeing
and hearing these accomplished artists is brief ; but
let all who can take advantage of it. As the last of
the great illustrators of his profession in his own
land, Charles Kean will necessarily attract great
attention. With the close of his career the race of
great English actors will have passed away. He will
leave us to go to his place in Westminster Abbey—
the sacred precincts reserved by his country for those
who have distinguished themselves in the profession
of arms or of art. To this republic, with its inex-
haustible resources, is given the mission of hereafter
producing the great interpreters of all scenic and
dramatic art. And now that, for a brief period, we
have the last of the English actors among us, let
every one who can go to see him, feeling assured
that he is the last link that binds us to a system
now passing away.

THE " FINE ARTS QUARTERLY REVIEW" is sus-
pended for a season. As a commercial speculation it has
not yet had time to prove a success. _

THE PRINCE OF WALES has accepted the presi-
dency of the Acclimatisation Society of Great Britain.