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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.
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actress , and a born singer . We cannot associate the notion of effort -with anything that she does . All her changes of expression and attitude -when she is acting are spontaneous—they seem like the natural suggestions of the moment , not like effects that have been pre-considered and carefully prepared for . So again with lier singing- In the days when her magnificent vocal gifts were in their perfection , people placed in remote parts of the theatre used to remark that Grisi ' s voice " always sounded , as if it was close attheir ears . " And yet , when you looked at her on the stage , you saw no strain , no effort that suggested an idea of resulting fatigue . It seemed her natural condition to be singing as she was singing then—to he letting the notes ppuc . from her lips , just as the song pours from a bird . The natural beauty of the singing , the natural beauty of the acting that
accom-GRISI IN LUCREZIA BORGIA . Okb night more , and the Ojpbba audience will have seen the last of Grisi in the gr&aiest of all her parts . In Lucrezia Borgia , she has reigned , season after season , unrivalled and unapproached . Throughout the whole range of her characters none have more lavishly displayed her wonderful stage acquirements , and her matchless stage gifts , than this ; and none can be more fitly chosen as a text from which to speak our few farewell words of admiration fr > an artist who has deserved warmer recognition from , public gratitude than any other singer of her time . It has always struck us that the rare charm of Grisi is the natural beauty thet ^ is in -everything that she does . Neither ber singing nor her acting suggest the idea that she ever had any stage defects to get over at any Denod . of her career . She is not more evidently a born beauty , than a . born
panied it , the natural beauty of the -woman herself , were all one ; were all harnapnised , in the most easy , graceful , and perfect accoid with eact other . Tbis we believe to have been the great secret of Grisi's unrivalled popularity . The public have had to make allowances for other favourites ; they have never had any to make for her . They have never been obliged to forget ber face in her acting ^ or her acting in her singing . She has -not had her dhare of stage attractions—Nature and Art together have given her the monopoly . of jB&L ' ^ ' " ~ ' ' ¦ ¦¦ . '¦'• ' ^ ¦' ¦ ' JBE ^ r ' perwrnaance in Lucrezia Borgia t on Monday night , was , as a piece of acting , worthy ^ and more -than worthy , of her great reputation . From her first entry to Jier death scene , she was as grandly , as perfectly , as enehantingly as ever , the terrible mother of Victor Hugo ' s terrible tragedy . No stage situation , in any other opera in her repertory shows the inherent
beanfcjr that there is in her acting so remarkably , to our thinking , as the situation , in the second act of Lucrezut , from the time when she is forced into pbiiiing out the poisoned wine for her son , to the end of the act . The terror , the agony , the despair , the wild hope , the frantic exultation which she is required to expresa in this ; scene , she does thoroughly and unflinchingly express ; but-while she shrinks from none of the tremendous dramatic necessd | ies of that tremendous situation , she-preserves tie charm , the irresistible fascination of her presence throughout it . The fatal , fearful Borgia beau ^ pierces through every action and every look . That beauty is in the desjww of her'attitudey wlien she sinks back into her seat after pouring out the poisoned wine—that beauty is in every rapid change of her expression
in the after-scene with her son—that beauty is in the fierce exultation with which she throws herself before the door on his departure , and bars the passage of at to the men who enter the room immediately after he has gone . Throughout the whole scene there is no repelling distortion of feature , no ugly angularity of gesture ; there is always beauty In the terror—always gra-ce in the despair—the actress , remember , being all the while equal to every one of the most rigid dramatic requirements of the scene . Such a performance of Lucrezia . as this we must not expect to see after Grisi has leu : the stage . The part may be admirably acted by other women in other ways—in her way it will never be acted again . As to her singing on Monday night , it would be idle and insincere not to
say At the outset that hex voice is altered and worn . But we remembered vvita gratitude and respect that it had been worn daring an unexampled career of public service ; we remembered the many , many seasons during -which this admirable and conscientious artist had exerted herself for the delight of her audiences ; never trifling with them , never forgetting what was due from herself to her art—we remembered this ; we still felt the influence of the "beauty and the grace that cannot leave her , in her management of her voice ; and though some of its notes might bo less soft and less clear than of old , it filled us with sensations which younger and fresher tones would have failed to awaken . She sang finely in the second act—magnificently in the third . Whem the curtain fell , we left the theatre witli the conviction that
¦ w e Bhould not hear Lucrezia ' s last famous u air" before Gennaro ' s death , sung as Grisi can still sing it , for many and many an opera season to come . Of the other performers in the opera , it is not necessary to speak . We shtJl have future opportunities of referring to them ; . and we cannot prevail on ourselves to echo the usual commonplaces about such admirable acting us Ronconi's in Don Alphonso , in a line or two at the end of an article . AV ~ e prefer filling the last place in this notice with a concluding word of protest against the ungrateful coldness of Grisi's audience on Monday night . A more exaaperatingly nnimpressible set o > f people wo never remember seeing in Covent-garden or any other theatre , on any former occasion . Mjuy the Law of Chances be true to its scattering mission , and prevent the remotest possibility of their ever assembling in a place of public amusement again 1
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SUNSHINE THBOUGH THE CLOUDS . Ukdeb this title yras produced at the Ltcjeom , on Thursday night , an English adaptation o £ La Jove Fait Peur . Everyone who takes the smallest interest in dramatic affairs must have heard of Madame d ^ &irardhTs admirable play . Most persons , though they may not have seenL it acted at the St . James ' s Theatkb , know its story by report . To the faw who do not , it is only necessary to say that the interest of this exquisite little drama turns on tfie difficulty of disclosing to a heartbroken mother teat the son
she has mourned , as dead , has been unexpectedly preserved , ^ nd has returned to his home , undiscovered , in the first instance , by anyone but an old servant of the family . The manner in which this good news is gently , gradually , and tremblingly communicated to the mother by her daughter , by her son ' s betrothed wife , by her son ' s friend , and by the old servant , Comprises the whole " story" of the play—a , story embodying , as it appears to us , one of the most natural , touching , and admirably dramatic ideas ever worked out on the sta ? e . We detect but one blemish in this otherwise
perfect work . The daughter tries , at the outset , to prepare her mother ' s mind for the disclosure which is to come , by telling ber that the son of a poor woman in the neighbourhood has not perished , as had been reported , in a shipwreck . The mother goes immediately to this poor woman ' s house , finds that no sucli good news has been reeeired there , and returns with her first faint vague suspicion of the truth . We must confess to having felt at that part of the play that the feelings of the one mother had been unfairly trifled with , in order to spare the feelings of the other . This defect—for it is assuredly a defect—we should hardly have noticed if the drama had not been so pre-eminently excellent as a work of art , and had not appealed so delicately and tenderly to the sympathies of the audience in every other
scene . The adapter ( Vhose name was not in the bill ^ has performed his task with great literary skill , and with a thorough appreciation of the subtle beauties of the original drama . Here and there a -word or two of the comic kind , which produced a laugh from the audience , at the time when the play was rising to its climax of pathetic interest , would be better changed , or omitted . Barring this very slight objection , Sunshine through the Clouds deserves the warmest approval , as a graceful and deli g htful picture of English family life ; and we are happy tote able to add that it met with the complctest success . Hearty and prolonged applause followed the fall of the curtain from all parts of the theatre . Befoie we say a word about the performance , we must premise that this play presents great and unusual difficulties to be overcome in the
actingespecially in th . ( i principal male character , that of the old servant . All Ins little eccentricities are set forth with the most perfect truth to nature ; "but with a certain quietness and tenderness , wherever his oddities approach , to humour , beautifully in harmony with the touching and solemn interest of the story . To preserve this harmony in the acting , and to make the spectators so feel it that their smiles shall constantly tremble on the confines of tears , would be an arduous achievement to compass with any audience . With an English audience—depraved , as to taste , by the doggrel ridicule of all the higher and purer illusions of the stage in which burlesque-writers have been suffered to indulge for many years past—the difficulties of making such a character as that of the old servant pathetic as well as amusing , must be necessarily of the most formidable kind ; and when we state , in common candour , that they wer « not overcome by Mr . Frasik Matheirs , who acted
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LA PROMISE . Ajuthocoh the new opera , La Promise , had a run of 100 nights at the Tbeatbe Litbiqub , we must confess to have derived very moderate entertainment indeed from its performance at the St . James s Theatric . The drama turns upon th& old story of a lady being promised in marriage , by her father , to a gentleman whom she does not love , but whom she is , nevertheless , heroically ready to marry just at the moment when the gentleman
whom she does love appears on the scene , and complicates the proceedings in the usual way . The bridegroom in the present instance is , of all the eccentric characters in the "world , a generous Corsair , with the strictest notions of lonour ! The unhappy lover is a sentimental French sailor a character which we pronounce to be , upon th « whole , invested with even more enormous powers of stage boredom , than the sentimental En glish s ailor of our own nautical drama . The brave marin is represented at the St . James ' s T he atre Jiy a very short gentleman of superhiiman energy , who expressed his emotions with such violence , by incessantl y flinging his arms about and slapping his breast , that we quite felt for him m a physical point of view . Active and noisy , however , as he was , the Corsair ( represented by a eentlema . il twice his size , with four times his volume of voice 1 vtjlr mm < A
than a match for him—for the Corsair never stood still on the stage for a moment , and never , either in speaking or singing , pitched his voice a note below the learty piratical roar with which he ** hailed" tbe stage on his first entry . Whether the sentimental sailor and the honourable Corsair fatigued themselves by their exertions we cannot say , but we can assure them that they succeeded , to all outward appearance , in thoroughly fatiguing their audience . The music to La- Promise is composed by M . Clapisson—a young musician , we believe ., and . as such entitled to he judged with all forbearance and kind * ness . His- music is in many places very bretty and verr lively , but show 9
as yet , judging by La Promise , no " decided originality of idea . His recollections of other composers seem to be still a little too vividly present to liis mind . The overture to La Promise begins and ends , for example , with Donizetti ' s air , "Oh , luce di quest anima ; " and our old , old friend , the 'I Highland laddie , " has tad more to do with the invention of one of the liveliest doruses in the first act than M . Clapisson himself . However , little defects of this kind constantly accompany the early practice of musicians in , their art ; and we hope to hear more of Ml . Clapisson on some future occasion , when his style may be formed , and when he may also , it is to be hoped , have a better drama than La Premise to set to music . Madame Cabel acted a poor part with delightful grace and vivacity , and sang charmingly ; her ease , sweetness , and marvellous execution of florid passages drawing forth tie only hearty applause of tie evening . When
are we to have the pleasure of hearing her sing some of Auber ' music ? The next novelty is to "be Adolphe Adam ' s JRoi des Holies . The theatre was well filled on Monday night , and the speculation lids fair already , -we hope , to be remunerative . Nothing is wanted at present to make the troupe of the Theatre Litbiojixe successful h > ut a little less noise and exaggeration in the singing and acting of the principal male members of the company .
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572 THE LEADER [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), June 17, 1854, page 572, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2043/page/20/
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