The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-12 00:00:00

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.

Saturday evening, the 10th of May, 1856,
will henceforth be a memorable date in the annals
of the Italian Opera in England. It will be re-
membered as the very noteworthy occasion upon
which her Majesty's Theatre was once more opened
to her Majesty's lieges, after the star of its for-
tunes had been for no less than three years totally
eclipsed. Re-opened that grand arena of the
lyrical drama in London actually was on Saturday
evening—and with an éclat so remarkable of its
kind that the season of 1856 could scarcely in
any way have been more brilliantly inaugurated.
Shadows of the coming event had been cast before
it—shadows thrown forward, indeed, very markedly
by the glare of the Covent Garden conflagration.
Everybody felt satisfied at once how it would be,
upon the morning of the melancholy sth of March,
when the Royal Italian Opera House in Bow-
street was nothing more than a smouldering ruin
that structure, once the historic scene of the
histrionic triumphs of the Kembles, where John
and Charles had in succession strutted and fretted
their hour upon the stags in the glorious days of
old, meaning the famous nights when Sarah Sid-
dons reigned supreme at Covent Garden, and
later on when Edmund Kean was at once the
glory and the prop of Drury Lane. Everybody
felt certain how it would be, directly the evil
news spread through London that the former of
these two great theatres had fallen a prey to what
the penny-a-liners conventionally write about as
the devouring element." And nobody was
mistaken. " It's an ill wind," says the proverb,
" that blows no one any good ;" and an ill fire it
roust be that crackles no one any advantage—if
it be only the glaziers and the bricklayers. But
beyond this, there was a Dramatic Nemesis to be
satisfied—a sort of avenging spirit of the
lyric stage, led on by Terpsichore, and
supported by Thalia and Melpomene. Without
entering into the rights and the wrongs of the
quarrel which, during several successive years, re-
kilted so far in good to the public at large, that
it afforded us Londoners the unaccustomed luxury
of a choice of operas all through the season—it
May be at once plainly and distinctly intimated
that Mr. Lumley retained to the very last a kind
Of imprescriptible right to avail himself of every
reasonable opportunity for the winning of golden
opinions out of any possible failure or misfortune
Which, iu the long Chapter of,Accidents, might per-
chance befal the rival establishment. That—we
take it—was obvious throughout. Diamond cut
diamond _Director against Director. Each strove
to out-do the other—and each alternately failed
or Prospered, accordingly as their fortunes fluc-
tuated in the "ups and downs" of every species
°I musical vicissitude. All this was perfectly
transparent to their patrons the public, even
While those patrons were wondering, as Swift had
wondered a hundred years previously, under
aornewhat similar circumstances—
" What all this difference could be
'Twixt T weedledum and Tweediedee."
Without otherwise taking part in the melodious
Contention, the public regaled themselves alter-
nately at the intellectual festivities prepared for
them, simultaneously or successively, here in the
neighbourhood of Bow- street, and there in the
Precincts of the Haymarket. - Struggling man-
„11117 against the most formidable odds, deserted
.7 One "Tower of Strength" after another, in the
Shape of singer after singer of rare celebrity, op-
Posed
by the ample riches of Mr. Delafield, and
afterwards by the still more formidable talents of
r• Gye, as one among the most gifted of our
uPeratic Managers—Mr. Lumley nevertheless
eoutrived by the sheer force of his own resolute
determination, aided by his inimitable tact and
14.18 extended experience as (during so many glo-
rious and memorable seasons) the solitary Director
of her Majesty's Theatre, to keep open that
vast establishment year after year in spite of
the very terrible array presented by this immense
mid combined opposition. It was only in truth
after the resources of not merely one, or two, or
three) but actually of four successive rival
managers at the Royal Italian had been squandered
upon the organisation of Covent Garden Theatre
4,8 a permanent lyrical establishment, that Mr.
-Lumley relaxed his really extraordinary exertions,
and withdrew from .the contest without the
Smallest discredit to himself or the slightest slur
Upon the prestige of his managerial reputation.
Three seasons have elapsed since then—three
Years, during which the Director of her Majesty's
Theatre is understood to have endeavoured
earnestly, but until now unavailingly, to resuscitate
the fallen fortunes of the natural home of the
lyrical drama in the Haymarket. At length the
catastrophe of the sth of March came as a beacon
lighting him the way out of all his difficulties.
So effectually, that while his undaunted competi-
tor still held together "his own" with a gallant
determination worthy of better news than came
flashing to him at Paris that miserable spring
morning
through the wires of the electric tele-
g‘raph---Mr. Lumley already by the 10th of May
(otherwise in a very little more than two months)
Was enabled to re-open her Majesty's Theatre with
all its ancient glories, scenic, orchestral, lyrical,
terpsichorean, et cetera, altogether unimpaired.
4, a achievement, we conceive this to be, of no un-
'l4Portant magnitude. A triumph of managerial
energy, and resolution, so remarkable in its
Way that we can ever imagine to ourselves, Mr.
looking out upon it from the " smooth
waters" of the little sheltering haven he himself has
'found in the Lyceum, we can even imagine him,
We say, looking out upon it with a strange sort of
a Magnanimously indignant admiration. There
was, indeed, on Saturday evening—incomprehens-
ihlethough it might seem in some particulars—this
great operatic victory won by the Director of her
Majesty's Theatre out of his own defeat and his
rival's misfortunes. A victory so signal of its kind
as to insure at one blow the triumph of an entire
campaign. After so triumphant an inauguration,
Mr. Lumley need scarcely feel any anxiety what-
ever as to the success of his undertaking.
La Cenerentola, as all the world (that is to say,
all the " world of fashion" within dining distance
of May-fair) knows full well already, was the opera
Selected for the opening of her Majesty's Theatre
on Saturday. Rossini's charming comic opera of
La Cenerentola ! A master-piece of lyrical drol-
lery, sufficient of itself to elevate its author to the
very highest rank among buffo composers. Ma-
dame Alboni, the eluicifiuous and bewitching
Alboni (after an absence of five years from Lon-
don), was again the " bright particular star" of
the night as Angelina, otherwise, the heroine
Cinderella. The Dandini of the occasion was
announced to have been an old favourite no less
welcome to the opera-going public than Signor
Belletti, but in consequence of the ill-timed indis-
Position of that basso, a substitute had to be found,
and fortunately a very creditable substitute was
found in the person of Signor Beneventi. In
the subordinate part of Alidoro, a new singer of
seize pretensions, named Signor Vario, made his
first appearance ; another singer, new to the
lyrical stage in this country, a basso cautanti,
named Signor Zucconi, making a very successful
ctebut before an English audience, in the wonderful
burlesque part of Don Magnifico. As for the
Regan and Goneril of the comic-opera, the spiteful,
eoquetish, and tyrannical sisters Thisbe and Cletilde
they were, as usual, ungrateful parts, rather
unusually and gratefully filled by Mademoiselles
Rizzi and Berti, cantatrici, no less strangers to the
musical public of our metropolis than Signori Vario
and Zucconi. The hero of the night (as Madame
Alboni was the heroine) was a tenor not unaccustom-
ed to that distinction in front of the footlights of
Rer Majesty's Theatre, as any country cousin
Who had never been there before might have
understood on the instant without any preterna-
tural degree of shrewdness, on recognising the
Welcome accorded by the immense audience on
S,,aturday to the Don Ramiro of the evening—
Signor Ca His reception, in fact, was
only second in cordiality to that which had pre-
viously greeted Alboni when the curtain first
f°sey disclosing her (in the chimney corner
blowing up the fire) in the cinderous dress of
Cinderella.
Before that curtain rose, however, before the
°Peni began: before the overture commenced, the

house itself was not unworthy of particular ob-
servation. Shadowed over as it hail been for
three years by darkness, dust, and vacuity, it
shone out in all its former splendour on Satur-
day evening, undimmed and untarnished. The
paintings looked as fresh as ever, the gilding as
brilliant, even the gorgeous box-hangings of
damask satin seemed to have the same rich golden
gloss upon them as upon the first season when
they " glorified " the interior, as that wonderful
interior had never previously (at any rate within
our recollection) been similarly " glorified ! "
Altogether the effect was such that the audience—
thronging the pit, and piled tier upon tier in the
boxes, and crowding the huge gallery from the
front row up to the very roof-beams—hailed the
burst of light from the great central chandelier
with visible and audible satisfaction. The ap-
plause breaking forth afresh when Signor Bonetti
assumed the conspicuous post occupied formerly
by Mr. Balfe, and earlier still by Signor Costa—
applause, first of all of good-humoured encou-
ragement, but afterwards, when renewed later in
the evening, by eminently well-merited approba-
tion. The principal evidence of which we con-
ceive to have been observable in the very brilliant
performance under theguidanceof Signor Bonetti's
baton of the exquisitely graceful and piquante
Overture. Rather in the Overture, in sooth (if
a little unwelcome truth may be uttered thus
plainly) than in the accompaniments. The latter
being in parts so vociferous and Verdi-ish, so to
speak, as to transform the vocalisation (occasionally
even not merely of a solo or a duet, but of a
quintette or a sextette) into so much dumb show—
at least be it said to the ears of the unlucky
groundlings ! The vocal harmonies soaring away
inaudibly over the blatant roar of brass and cat-
gut. A little less verve at these times in the
energy of the orchestral accompaniment and
Signor Bonetti will leave his auditors less cause
for disappointment, after the expectations roused
by his masterly surveillance, if we may so phrase
it, of the artistes threading the melodic intricacies
of an Overture in itself in every way so dulcet
and delectable.

As for the Opera as a whole, considered in re-
gard to its vocal rendering on Saturday evening
—what shall be said ? That it has seldom been
listened to with more genuine satisfaction since
the first night of its performance during the Car-
nival of 1817 (just nine and thirty years ago !) in
the Theatre Valle at old Rome, when the now
classic Maestro Rossini was in the early flush of
his precocious and brilliant reputation. From
the introductory outburst of the blithe, joyous,
jubilant " Si, si, si," to the full choral " Piano,
piano, a poco, a poco," closing the First Act ;
from the half-playful, half-pettish dialogue be-
tween Dandini and Angelina inaugurating the
Second, to that delicious outpouring of melody
which is the crowning triumph of La Cenerentola
—nothing appeared to us on Saturday night to
be listened to by the vast audience there and then
collected together in her Majesty's Theatre, with
the smallest token of indifference. The Chorus
of Cavaliers—(very stiff in the joints and
apparently somewhat confused, and even, it
seemed, a little ashamed of themselves somehow,
as they trooped in again and again during the
evening in a slovenly kind of shambling double-
procession)—evinced, at the very outset of their
steady unison in "Oh, figlie amabile," the pains-
taking of the last three or four weeks of laborious
rehearsal. As for Alboni—what though her
voice " gave" once rather unaccountably, and
though here and there some two or three of her
notes seemed to us rather subdued in their into
nation occasionally—she sang the
,night before
last as she sang five years ago—exquisitely ! Her
first sweet dainty solo aria, " Una volta c'era un
Re," the lovely inaugurative melody of Ceneren-
tea, was as bewitching as ever : and more be-
witching than ever, it, seemed to us, was that
final triumph of song, already hinted at as the
crown and glory of the opera, the renowned
" Non pin mesta" —encored, as a matter of
course, and greeted from first to last, at every
momentary pause, with acclamations. Nobly did
Alboni win the laurel wreath, and the flowers
thrown to her as the performance closed, and the
hearty call which summoned Cinderella and her
companions in the dramatised love-story before the
footlights between the two comprehensive acts.
Several abbreviations occurred according to wont,
shortening these two, however, rather consider-
ably—scenes 10 and 11 in Act i., and scenes 3
and 7 in Act ii., being bodily " cut out " with
shears as remorseless as those of Atropos. Cal-
zolari's great triumph was of course in "Si
ritrovarla io giuro," and in the lovely duet with
Angelina, "Un soave non so che." Beneventi
gaining a hearty round of applause by Dandini' s
ever welcome aria, " Come un' ape ne' giorni
d'Aprile," Zucceni winning to himself both " hands"
and "laughter' by Don Magnifico's marvellous
assinine dream " Miei rampoli feminini ;" these
two very clever buffo singers together rendering
afterwards with delightful humour the ever-fresh
and ever-famous comic duet " Un segreto d'im-
portauza." Once and once only there was a
" hitch" in the stage management, and a " hitch"
occurring awkwardly enough as it happened in the
midst of that most important scene 5, Act ii.,
in which a thunder storm (contrary to all our ideas
of the natural) rolls up in about two minutes, and
Don Ramiro's carriage is supposed to be over-
turned. Calzolari's gaucherie in keeping the stage
waiting during several minutes, however, was
allowed to pass over with just the faintest token
imaginable of the " goose," drowned immediately
afterwards in a good deal of well-tempered
laughter, when the Don at last managed to make
his appearance. For—was it not the " first
night," of a season prepared for with an astonish-
ing display of promptitude in every department
of that vast lyrical establishment, from Mr.
Marshall, with his splendid scene painting down
to the humblest of the stage carpenters ? Alto-
gether, Saturday evening was the occasion of a
brilliant success for Mr. Lumley as the reinstalled
Director of her Majesty's Theatre—and such that
gentleman must have felt it to be, when, after the
performance of the National Anthem, at the con-
clusion of the opera, he was summoned upon the
stage by his first night's patrons, to be there wel-
comed by them with the very heartiest outburst
of enthusiasm. A ballet divertissement " Lis
Quatre Saissons"—extracted from the opera "Les
Vepres Siciliennes "—crowned the evening's en-
tertainment. Mademoiselle Katrina (a Russian
danseuse and debutante) being " Spring," Made-
moiselle Lizereux, " Summer," Madle. Albert
Bellon " Autumn," and Mdle. Boschetti " Win-
ter" —M. Nadaud leading the music in the
orchestra, and M. Petit having acted judiciously
as the maitre de Ballet. Among the very brilliant
and fashionable company present were the follow-
ng

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, the Duchess
of Montrose, the Duchess of Wellington, the Duke
and Duchess of Somerset, the Duke of Devonshire,
the Marchioness of Bath, the Marquis of Sligo, the
Marquis and Marchioness of Clanricarde, the French
Ambassador and Madame de
,Persigny, his Highness
Aali Pacha, the Earls of Westmoreland, Malmesbury,
Cardigan, Lonadale, Wilton, Durham, Stamford and
Warrington, Hopetoun ; Ladies Jersey, St. Leonards,
Lichfield, Bective, Stamford and Warringtln, Glengall,
Harrington, Kelly, Stafford, Dungarvon ; Lords Ward,
Mountcharles, Cavendish, Bnrghersh, Canterbury,
Sandys, Exmouth, Newark, Lichfield, Adolphus Fitz-
clarence, H. Thynne, Clifden ; the Lord Mayor, Sir J.
Bailey, Bart., Sir Wm. Fraser, Hon. Reginald Capel,
Hon. Dudley de Ros, Sir Thos. and Lady B. Lennard,
Bart., Capt. Bateson, Mr. Maclean, Mr. Magan, the
Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Lyttleton, Mrs. Twiss,
Hon. Mrs. Dudley Ward, Mrs. Trelawney, Hon. 0.
Ward, Dr. Young, Sir Alex. and Lady Woodford, Mr.
W. Frazer, Hon. Mr. Chichester, Sir P. Cautley, Mr.
Theodore llzielli, Sir John Lowther, Bart., Sir H.
Webb, Bart., Sir W. Abdy, Sir Joseph Bailey, Bart.,
Mr. Hubert de Burgh, Sir Thos. Sage, the Hon. Mrs.
Vernon, Col. Dixon, Mr. W. E. Wilkinson, Mr. Henry
Brown, Mr. J. Williams, Mr. H. Hope, Mr. Vansittart,
Mr. N. Macdonald, Mr. Crombie, Capt. Lyon, Mrs.
and Mrs. Tudor, Gen. the Hon. H. Cavendish, Hon.
Mr. Craven, Sir G. Wombwell, Mr. Doyle, Capt.
Hamilton, Col. Morton, Capt. Webb, Capt. Gage, Mrs.
Cooper, Col. White, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. A. Peel,
Miss Poole, Mr. A. Lumley, Mr. Campbell, Mrs. and
' the Misses Godery, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, the lion.
We, Boyle, &c.