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^6 ¦ TfmmV X E A 3FE1W [Nog 381,; BkTraD...
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Tk.IAon<SFl^^ or *eBa«Utfth* Spurs. By H...
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ST. JAMES'S THEATRE AND THE OPERA. Mllk....
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On Monday last she played Lady Tartufe. ...
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The Opera season closed on Thursday with...
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MADEMOISELLE RACHEL. (JT.rom a Correspon...
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Mr. Wioan has migrated with his excellen...
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The Great Wizard of tho North (Mr. J. H....
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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.
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St. James's Theatre And The Opera. Mllk....
ST . JAMES'S THEATRE AND THE OPERA . Mllk . Rachel concluded her brief farewell engagement on Wednesday by an exquisite performance of Adrienne Lecouvreur . The effect of her actin g , however , was disfigured by an impossible Maurice de Saxe . AI . 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 another Maurice for the American campaign .
On Monday Last She Played Lady Tartufe. ...
On Monday last she played Lady Tartufe . We have often been asked , What do you mean by a snaky woman ? As if the epithet did not apply more or less to every daughter of Evb ! ( Fi & r the Book of JasharJ ) But if you want a living type of " snakiness , " go and see Rachel in Lady Tartufe , in the scene where Virginie de Blossac , after destroying the fair fame of her tender victim , awaits the exposure , or the scene where she fascinates the old Marechal , and brings him to a declaration ; or , above all , the scene in which she comes 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 Anaromague and Fliedre , 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 graceftu : her recitation of u Les deux Pigeons" the devouring tenderness with which she murmured lingering !) - and longingly— " d ' amour tendrc , " 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 . Oh 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 Etoile 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 passipnate melancholy and finished grace ; and Tamberlik's Otello is one of the finest impersonations on the lyric stage . Luchesi's Roderigo was a sensible acquisition to the cast of the opera ; he sang the florid music with accomplished ease and refinement . GrAziahi is far from permitting us to forget Ronconi ' s Iago ; 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 Emvekor and Empress of the French , the ecent ., and Meyerbeer ' s superintendence of the Etoile du Nord , the illustration of the Bcason . We cannot say we think the last-named opera likely to hold 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 "Viardot ' s dramatic genius and Tamberlik'b splendid singing be not withheld . The reappearance of Madame Grisi 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 treasury of the theatre . Mario has certainly shown renewed power this year , and he 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 Grisi this year should have been so limited . We 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 year we nrc promised Verdi ' s latest opera , Les V & pres Siciliennets , and it is whispered that Mkykrbebr has left England with some idea of composing an opera for Covent Gahdkn— 'but that is a very distant dream , and what haa become of L'Africaine we know not .
Mademoiselle Rachel. (Jt.Rom A Correspon...
MADEMOISELLE RACHEL . ( JT . rom a Correspondent in Paris . ) Instead of satiating the curiosity of the Parisians , she tantalises our passion to see her . She never remains with us , she takes us by the . way . For more than six years past she haa done nothing but coino and go ; her engagements at the Tuicatris Francais are bo many stages in the course of her travels ; the curtain of the Rue de Richelieu is a tent beneath which , on few and far-between occasions , she comes to seek a little repose and money : she dedicates to our pleasure the congas accorded to her by foreign powers .
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 Francais say , not in bitterness , but with deen regret , that we are in the midst of a Universal Exposition , tba , t Paris , is showing all the world all the marvels she has ^ reated , 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 , * great lady , a lady of large property . Wo shall tell this fairy 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 . Rachel felt some difficulty in forgiving 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 , "How beautiful the plumage J" but not crying "Stay . " Never has there been a more brilliant farewell , often a more tender . Once , when Frederick Lemaitre was taking leave of his faithful Boulevards for a few months , in the midst of the applause and the emotion of the whole aalle , the voice of a gamin was heard weeping and crying out , 'Pen va done pas he ! bete ! This watery , more eloquent than a whole corbeille of bouquets , will not be repeated , I fear , in favour of Mile . Rachel . Forgetting , however , the interests and the rights of 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 Franc , ais ? Forty-two thousand francs to play two nights a week during a long year—of six months .
Racine would say that it was a good round sum , for he never in his whole life got twenty thousand francs ( 80 O / . ) for his droils d'auteur . The Americans tell us it is a trifle , and they prove it by offering a million francs ( 40 , 000 / . ) 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 her talent . I think the private life of an artist , however eminent , is not the
property of the public , and that in the complex role of Valeria it is only the Roman Empress that we 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 ct de Corneille point dc 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 deer > and smothered , sometimes vehement and piercine , has had
the power of reanimating an antique and solemn style , which was yesterday 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 Racine and of Cornbiuue is as it were illuminated by the living beuuty 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 midst 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 drame , 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 are the fairest adornment of a woman ; her impulses nre feverish , and even in her smile there creeps the shadow of an imprecation . You might find at Paris 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 as these nave no need to go to America ; they can stay at home and nppear every day , because every < lay they appear under a new aspect . We arc never tired of hearing a skilful violmhst who plnys a varied music on a perfect instrument ; but , as to the marvel-mongers , who execute divinely fiva or six airs on n fiinglc string , we listen to them , we admire them , we pay them , and wo wish thembon voyage , looking forward to hear them again live or six years hence . " . T .
Mr. Wioan Has Migrated With His Excellen...
Mr . Wioan has migrated with his excellent Olvmtic . company and repertoire to Saijlkk ' s Wells for ft week or two , to the delight of tho highly-cultivated Iulingtoniuns . It seems curious that within the limits of what ia called lx > ndon you may find three or four varieties of population , bo that a leading actor from a theatre this side of Temple Bar may atar it to a provincial . uudiunee—provincial we mean in frcahness of sensation—eoino ( Wo miles ofl " . At tho Aukli'UX , Tho Writiny on ( he Wall has been revived for Mr . Wn « o"T .
The Great Wizard Of Tho North (Mr. J. H....
The Great Wizard of tho North ( Mr . J . H . Anukr » on ) 1 i « s taken the I , yciujM Tiibathm , and intends to commence his Season on Monday , S 3 o » tciul > cr 3 ( being his first appearance in London since hi » return from America ) .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 11, 1855, page 776, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_11081855/page/20/
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