The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1875-04-10 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

OTHELLO AT DRURY LINE. Shakespeare's "Othello" was represented in Italian by au Italian company at Drury Lane on Thursday, and the performance introduced to the London public Signor Salvini, an actor who, in the character of the Moor, has made a great reputation on the other side of the Alps. The version of the tragedy played is a pretty close translation of the original, preserving its spirit always, and generally its word-form, but its language is at times curtailed, which has the effect of making some of the most familiar passages appear to an English audience to have lost a portion of their force with their redundancy. We have had as many Othellos as we have had Hamlets, and, although Shakespeare only wrote one Othello and one Hamlet, all our great actors have varied either hi their conceptions or renderings of the characters. Signor Salvini's performance shows some features of novelty, but the novelty does not take away from its force. He begins quietly, with the dignified bearing of the chief and sinking the rudeness of the soldier of fortune in the lover. His defence before the Council is delivered very slowly, and with pauses of some seconds at two or three points; his handsome person and splendid voice giving powerful effect to the simple tale of his courtship. The first scene with Liesdemona at Cyprus is a fine piece of comedy; the look of semi-fatuous admiration with which he regards her as she retiree is magniticeut. The long struggle lsrtween his trust in his wife and the evil influence of lago constitutes nearly the whole play, and it preseuts too many episodcs requiring much of the actor for all to be mentioned. These are, however, bronght out in a way to show every phase of the change from calm and almost servile devotion to absolute but still loving savagery, which is saying all that is required. You see every shade of the transformation, and are carried irresistibly away with the artist towards the terrible denouement. There is a fine outburst in the third act, where Othello, mad with passion and agony, crashes lago to the earth with the lines beginning, " Villain! be sure thou prove(' but, forcible as it is, it is no more forcible in its way than the admirable acting by which it is preceded and followed in the other episodes with the same character and with Desdemona and Emilia. It is the masterful truthfulness of his by-touches which, aided by his great natural advantages, makes the Italian Othello so great. The action with which he emphasises his words and tells volumes of suffering and internal strife is supplemented by facial play, made striking by expressive features and extraordinary eyes. The brutal manner of his murder of Desdemona, whom he drags across the stage to the back, and the horrible form of his own death, may perhaps be objected to by those who do not approve of too intense realism. But both these circumstances are only natural to the state of mind which has been artistically broughtabout slowly and logically in the earlier parts of the play. The struggle has been so terrible that nothing less would satisfy the requirements of the conception—a half. barbarian, awed and civilised by love for a being he holds to be of superior kind, driven step by step to renounce all acquired restraints, and go back to nature The enthusiasm of Signor cialvini's reception was indescribable. After ene act he had no less than three calls before the curtain, and the half-suppressed expressions of sympathy .which followed some of the short phrases were as telling as the thunders of applause which greeted other parts of the performance. The minor parts are respectably but not strikingly filled. A word of praise, however, is due to Signora Papa Giavagnoli as Desdemoua, and Signor Fernante as Brabsatio.  Signor-I  Tin number of readers at the Library of Fine Arts at Paris in 1874 was 5,917, thus classified :-2,081 arAiteets, 1,901 painters, 751 sculptors, 187 engravers, and 987 of the general pubis&