The Press. — 1857-06-27 (London, England)

THE ITALIAN DRAMA—MADAME RISTORI. THE dramatic amateur must be in the late autumn of his days who can recollect a powerful piece of acting by a Miss Taylor (the original Jeanie Deans in Tom Dibdin's popular version of Sir W. Scott's " Heart of Midlothian "), at the Surrey Theatre, in a play called The Italian Wife, which, under the title of Fazio, was produced at Covent-garden Theatre in 1816, with the famed Miss O'Neil as Bianca, Charles Kemblc as Fazio, Blanchard as the miser Bartolo, and Mrs. Faucit as the Marchesa Aldabella. The tragedy was written by Dr. Milman, the present Dean of St. Paul's, a divine who has honourably distinguished himself in every branch of literature. Fazio has been and is a much-abused play, and yet it maintains its position on the boards. Whenever there is a new aspirant for histrionic honours, Bianca is generally selected as a prominent part to attain distinction. Miss Somerville, Miss Fanny Kemble, and Mrs. Charles Kean have all gained glory in its assumption. Miss Cushman, the great Ameican actress, always produced a p-o• digious sensa.rion in depicting the jealous wife, provoked to accuse her husband of murder, in order to tear him from the arms of a rival. Miss Glynn at the Sadler's-wells Theatre in 1853 took the Isling tonians by storm as the Florentine dame. Fazio was also translated for the famed Mdlle. Mars, and at the suggestion of Mr. A. Harris, we believe, the stage-manager at the Lyceum, Signor F. Dall' Ongaro, with the reverend author's express banction, adapted the tragedy for Ristori, who made her first appearance in the character of Bianca on Wednesday night. If, as it was bruited, the worthy dean was present, be must have been as excited as the remainder of the audience at one of the most powerful dramatic displays ever witnessed on any stage. There is something graceful in the conduct of Ristori, after her triumphs in the plays of the poets of her own sunny land, in acknowledging her cordial reception in this country by creating a part in a tragedy by an English author. Art reciprocity is the order of the day, and who can say whether Ristori's success may not eventually lead to a restoration of the British drama—a restoration not based exclusively on sbcw and spectacle, but one appealing  635  to the intellectual appreciation of a dramatio public ? The fact cited above as regards the vitality of Dr. Milman's Fazio shows that adverse criticism has been erroneous in its estimate of the play. That it has defects of construction are palpable. The two prison scenes are too much; one would have sufficed, after Bianca's vain appeal to .41dabella to save her condemned husband. The conversation of the courtiers might be omitted, and the scenes with Aldabella, the less of whom is seen the better, might have been abbreviated. But with even an ordinary actress in Bianca, the situations are telling(; and it is felt that the poet in making the wife the accuser of her husband, however deplorable her ignorance of Tuscan law as regards murder and robbery, was illustrated by human nature. Ristcri imparts an irresistible charm to Bianca in the earlier scenes ; the signs of dawning jealousy are indicated with exquisite skill. In the palace of Fazio, the change that has come over him is keenly watched ; and the maddening question put to the domestic whether her husband had passed the night at Aldabella's house, told how such an outrage would be fearfully revenged. The scene of accusation opens the way to the subsequent development of despondency and despair. From this moment Ristori rose with every point until the climax was attained in the scene of execution, and in the final scene, where Bianca's heart breaks under the effects of remorse and sorrow. As iu all her previous delineations, the play of the features marked the phases of passion with a truthfulness beyond all description, unless every passage was to be referred to in detail. The whole performance bore the impress of the highest genius. Never was an auditory mom moved.