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ST. JAMES'S THEATRE AND THE OPERA. MttE....
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On Monday last she played Lady Ta/iufe. ...
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The Opera season closed on Thursday with...
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MADEMOISELLE RACHEL, {From a Corresponde...
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Mr. YVkmn has migrated with Uia excellen...
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The Great Wizard of tho North (Mr. J. II...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Books On Our Table. Frederick The Great....
TJU Mono / Flanders ; or the JBattU 0 /'* e Qolden Spurs . By Hendxik Conscience . ( Treated from the Flemish . ) . ! rT ^ . ° ' v ~ , * . ^ ths Wa r of the Peasants—an Historical Tale . By Hendnk Conscience . n £ k t ^ ed from tS Fl emish . ) Lambert and Co . rWtf ^ Lj Influence exerted by the Mind over the Body in the Production and Removal ^ o / ifotiid and Anomalous Conditions of the Animal Economy , By John Glen , M A . ( The Bultcer Lytton Prize Essay . ) William Blackwood and Sons . n * iti * nL of Pure Reason . Translated from the German of Immanuel Kant . By J . <> tf Tg : 5 e 7 kZejohn . Henry G . Bohn .
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Cto Itta
St. James's Theatre And The Opera. Mtte....
ST . JAMES'S THEATRE AND THE OPERA . MttE . Rachel concluded her brief farewell engagement on Wednesday by an exquisite performance of Adrienne Lecouvreur . The effect of her acting , however , was disfigured by an impossible Maurice de Saxe . M . Randoux , may be respectable enough as a noble Roman , but for the chivalrous and gallant Maurice ^ he is ludicrously unfitted in person , manner , and deportment , and the impossibility of his being the object of a passion is absolutely shocking-. We would strongly recommend the selection of smother Maurice for the American campaign .
On Monday Last She Played Lady Ta/Iufe. ...
On Monday last she played Lady Ta / iufe . We have often been asked , What do you mean by a maky woman ? As if the epithet did not apply more or less to every daughter of Eve ! ( Vide the Book of JasharS ) But if you want a living type of " snakiness , " go and see Rachel in Lady Tartufe , in the scene where Virginie de JBlossac , after destroying the fair fame of her tender victim , awaits the exposure , or the scene where she fascinates the old 3 farechal , and brings him to a declaration ; or , above all , the scene in which she conies to the rendezvous , and having taken off her bonnet and scarf , warms her feet at the fire ; and again , where she coils up to the man who has come to denounce her , till he feels his indignation fainting away ! Adrienne Lecouvreur is a poor play to hear after Andromaque and Phedre , cleverly put together , lively , and smart , but thin and flimsy in language , in thought , in emotion , and betraying every moment the JiceUes of the
playwright . We were going to say that such a play requires a Rachel to be effective , but we remember it has been equally successful ( in translation ) on the German , and on the Italian stage . The characters are hackneyed and conventional enough , but the " effects" are pointed with unerring aim . Mile . Rachel is charming in the early scenes , playful , tender , and graceful : her recitation of " Les deux Pigeons , " the devouring tenderness with which she murmured lingeringly and longingly— d ' amour tendre , " thrills through the memory like a passion . In the third and fourth acts she was in her own element— " the hate of hate , the scorn of scorn . " The last act — the death—was a terribly elaborate picture , with all its physical agony and delirium ; but the supreme moment , when she falls back as if suddenly transfixed , is an improvement upon her earlier manner of acting it ; it is chastened and subdued so as to leave an impression not so much of horror
as of grief and pity-On Thursday she played two scenes of Athalic at Drury Lane for the benefit of the French . Charitable Association . To-day she sails for America
The Opera Season Closed On Thursday With...
The Opera season closed on Thursday with the JEtoile du Nord . Tonight , there is an extra performance of the new opera for the welldeserved benefit of Mr . A . Harris , to whom so much of its effect at Covent Garden is to be attributed . On Tuesday Otello was given with great effect . Madame Viardot ' s Desdemona is celebrated for its passionate melancholy and finished grace ; and Tamberlik ' s Otello is one of the finest impersonations on the lyric stage . Lochesi ' s Roderigo was a sensible acquisition to the cast of the opera ; he sang the florid music with accomplished ease and refinement . Gbazian * is far from permitting us to forget Roncoju ' s lago ; his voice is delightful , within a limited range ; but as an actor he has everything to learn . Looking back to the past season , it may be pronounced on the whole a singularly successful one , considering the adverse circumstances of the year . The Trovatore was the success , the state visit on the occasion of the visit of the Emfkeob and Empress of the French , the event , and Mevkebkeb ' s superintendence of the Etoile du Nord , the illustration of
the season . We cannot say we think the last-named opera likely to hokl a permanent place in the theatre , after the interest of the spectacle has subsided . The Trovatore , on the other hand , we are persuaded , will bear many repetitions , if Madame Viabdot ' s dramatic genius and Tamberlik ' s splendid singing be not withheld . The reappearance of Madame Giusi can scarcely be considered judicious ; it will not have raised that great singer ' s fame , but we believe her name is still a fortune to the treasuiy of the theatre . Mario has certainly shown renewed power this year , and ho possesses a fascination for the habitues not enjoyed by any other tenor . It seems a pity that the selection of operas in which he has appeared with Madame Gbisi this year should have been bo limited . Wo cannot help believing that many of the old Italian operas would form a welcome novelty in the midst of so much of French and German extraction . Next your wo are promised Verdi ' s latest opera , Les Vcjprcs Siciliennes , and it is whispered that Meyerbeer has left England with some idea of composing an opera for CovjtiNT Garden— -but that ia a very distant dream , and what has become of VA fricctinc we know not .
Mademoiselle Rachel, {From A Corresponde...
MADEMOISELLE RACHEL , { From a Correspondent in Paris . ') Instead of satiating the curiosity of the Parisians , she tantalises our passion to aco her . She never remains with us , aho takes us by the way . For more than six years past she has done nothing but come and go ; her engagements at the Thkatre Fkancajs arc no many stages in the course of her travels ; the curtain of the Rue de Richelieu is a tent beneath which , on few und fur-between occasions , she cornet * to seek a little repose and money : she dedicates to our pleasure the conges accorded to her by foreign powers .
giving her the ingratitude of all these flights . The incomparable actress seemed to inspire her audiences with a somewhat frigid admiration unmixed with much sympathy or friendship ; they looked at her flying away like a bird of Paradise , crying out , " JJtm > beautiful the plumage ! " but not crying " Stay . " Never has there been a more brilliant farewell , often a more tender . Once , when Frkjdkrick Lemaitre was taking leave of his faithful Boulevards for a few months , in the midst of the applause and the emotion o £ the whole salle , the voice of a gamin was heard weeping and crying out , jP « va done paa ^ Tie ! bete ! This « eu / cry , more eloquent than a whole corbeille of bouquets , will not be repeated , I fear , in favour of Mile . Rachel . Forgetting , however , tho interests and the rights oC the Parisian public , we are forced to own that Mile . Rachel is right to go to America : her fortune and her fame will be the gainers . What does she gain at the Thkatre Fhaxcais ? Forty-two thousand francs to play two nights a week during a long year—of
Perhaps we deserve to be treated a little less cavalierly , for it is Paris that has given the beautiful artist glory , fortune , and that talent which she spends in England , in Russia , in the provinces ,, and in America . The " faithful" of the Theatre Francajs say , not in bitterness , but with deep regret , that we are in the midst of a Universal Exposition , that Paris ia showing all tSie world all the marvels she has created , except Mile . Rachel . Has Paris ever created anything finer ? She found in the streets a poor child neglected and forlorn . With a wave of the wand , she has made of that poor child a wonder of grace , of wit , of elegance , a great artist , a great lady , a lady of large property . Wo shall tell this fajry tale to our guests from Java , and they must take our word for it , for the living proof of that marvellous story will be no longer here . I may be mistaken , but I could not help fancying that the public who crowded to the last representations of Mile . Uachkl felt some difficulty in
forsix months . Racine would say that it was a good round sum , for be never in ma whole life got twenty thousand francs ( 800 / . ) for his droits dfauteur . The Americans tell us it is a trifle , and they prove it by offering a million francs ( 40 , OO 0 Z . ) for three months . I will not pass any judgment on that ambition for money which is said to torment the great tragedienne : I respect too much the liberty of religious worship . Besides , it has been quite enough talked about , and the public writers who lose their time in counting on their fingers the fortune of a woman display an austerity which is too like jealousy . These journals ought not to imitate village dogs barking after a carriage . Some even carry their indiscretion to such a point as to calculate the sums an actress may have gained out of the theatre , and the indirect revenues of is not th
her talent . I think the private life of an artist , however eminent , e Prop erty of the public , and that in the complex role of Valeria it is only the loman Empress that wo have a right to study . As an artist , then , and in the interest of her fame , Mile . Rachel is right to leave Paris . Her repertoire is limited , and I doubt if it can be extended . Seven or eight tragedies make up her stock— -a baggage more easy to transport than to renew . Whatever efforts she may have made to identify herself with works of a more modern and present interest , she has not succeeded : hors de ' Racine et de Corneille point de salut . The truth is , that immense talent has its limits . Why deny it ? The ocean is not dishonoured because it has a shore . Mile . Rachel can only play tragedy , which can be played by Mile . Rachel only . Her nervous and palpitating
beauty , her vibrating and passionate voice , her precipitate declamation , sometimes deep and smothered , sometimes vehement and p iercing , has had the power of reanimating an antique and solemn style , which was yestervlay forgotten and will be to-morrow- Tragedy , that majestic daughter of a formal and plumed age , revives at the voice of Mile . Rachel ; and appears to us , if not risen again , at least galvanised . The old Theatre of IIacine and of Corskille is as it were illuminated by the living beauty of that strange guest . It is just as the temples of Rome or of Corinth seem some two thousand years younger again if a Roman beauty or a Greek maiden like a statue pass by in the mid * t of the ruins . Mile . Rachel is an apparition . The contrast of that modern face with the dusty antiquities that surround her is a great part of her success . Her principal merit is to
introduce into the classic tragedy a certain dramatic and contemporary element which Racine and Corneille did not understand , and which they would be as far from understanding now if she who gives life to their masterpieces could give life to the authors . But it must not be imagined that because she acts tragedy dramatically she can therefore act drome , which requires a suppleness , and so to speak , a multiplicity of talents she does not possess . She excels in rage , in hate , in scorn , in irony , and all the blacker shades of feeling ; but she cannot render the soft affections , nor the pure joys , nor those fresh virtues , which nre tho fairest adornment of u woman ; her impulses are feverish , and even in her
smile there creeps the shadow of an imprecation . You might lind at Pans ten artists more capable of playing drame , and of satisfying the taste of our day , without having the je ne sais quoi which places her so high in public admiration . Such artists ns these have no need to go to America ; they can stay at home nnd appear every day , because every day they appear under a new aspect . We arc never tired of hearing n skilful violinist who [ : lays a varied music on a perfect instrument ; but , as to the marvel-mongers , who execute divinely five or six airs on a single string , we listen to them , wo admire them , we pay them , and we wiwh them bon voyage , looking forward to hear them again hvc or six years hence . " ....
Mr. Yvkmn Has Migrated With Uia Excellen...
Mr . YVkmn has migrated with Uia excellent OKymtic company nn < l repertoire to SAi > LKic ' a Wjjllh for a week or two , to the delight of tho highly-cultivated Ifllingtouiuns . It scema curious that within the limits of what is called London you may find three or four varieties of population , so that a leading uctor from a theatre this side of Temple Uur may at « r it to a provincial audience—provincial we mean in frc'dlmess of sensation—tonic five miles oil ' . At tho Adki . i'iii , The Writing on the Wall Una beon revived for Mr . WmaiiT .
The Great Wizard Of Tho North (Mr. J. Ii...
The Great Wizard of tho North ( Mr . J . II . Anderson ) has taken tho I > ycku » Thkatuk , and intends to commence hia Season on Mondii }' , September 3 ( being his first appearance in London einco bis return from America ) .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 11, 1855, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11081855/page/20/
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