SUMMER THEATRES.
HAYMARKET.
THE summer campaign has opened at the two theatres without any demonstrations of strength beyond the ordinary. They are singing the Marriage of Figaro and the Barber of Seville at the Haymarket with not much applause, and have already deformed one or two stock comedies. Miss Bartolozzi, the novelty of the day, is amiable in Miss Bartolozzi, but the audience miss Susanne, whose sprightliness used to cheer their spirits. As herself merely, the new singer is welcome no doubt, but she should try to fall in with the humour of the moment, and occasionally step out of her- self, if only from respect to the prejudices of the audience, who have not been used to such naked propria persona exhibitions. It certainly does produce an odd effect, to see a young lady walking up and down the stage, during the performance of a piece, and playing no part therein ; though in this respect Miss Bartolozzi was far from singular. No very vehement efforts at personation are looked for in a vocalist, and therefore there is the less excuse for the absence of what little acting is required. The gentle pub- lic is so indulgent to any one who regales its ears, as to be ready to connive at almost any departure from propriety of character, and is grateful for the least semblance of acting. But this indul- gence must not be mistaken for a licence to walk the stage with- out regard to character at all. Otherwise it will be necessary to have Mr. Prologue in, after the fashion of old times, "to make all things plain to the gentles"— "This man is Pyramus, if you would know, This beauteous lady is certain—Tilisbe." Indeed, since the enmity between good singing and good actin, —though in Pasta, for example, they are on the most friendly tams,—seems on our stage to be irreconcilable, we had better at
once disjoin the vocations, and give action to one and singing to another. Let each actor have at his elbow a person to sing for him on occasion, as formerly the man-at-arms had hie 1;ght-heeled attendant to skirmish in front, or retreat behind, a,..cording to emergencies. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that in the present constitution of the musical drama, the singer can maintain his ground respectably on the merit of veice alone, unless indeed it be of a most rare quality, and rarely managed. Whereas, good melo-dramatic acting, sustained by vocal powers of even less than first-rate excellence, constitute at this day the surest title to popu- larity. The generation cannot have forgotten one whom the public loved with singular fondness, not more for her silver tones, than for her graceful and natural deportment. Miss Tree was of a figure and countenance so peculiar and almost so poetical, and infused so much life into parts which are usually understood to be but an apology for the introduction of song, that the audience could never decide whether it was the actress or the singer it applauded. In passing from one to the other, she never dropped the mask or outraged probability, and preserved so happy a demeanour that song seemed in her as proper a conveyance for sentiment as speech. Her looks, voice, and gesture were in perfect concord, and reconciled the incongruities of the dramatist and the scene- painter. A portion of her own spirit was communicated to the objects around, and gave a sort of reality to the glistering cas- cades, moon-lit lakes, and other vagaries of an extravagant fancy. In her the musical drama found and lost its heroine ; and to those who may be ambitious of filling the void, which her removal from the stage has created in the affections of the public, it may be consolatory to remember that the Tree did not shoot up, like Jonah's gourd, in a single night, but grew insensibly into an ob-
ject of admiration, and merited applause long before she obtained
it. Her walk in the drama is open- to the first whom Nature shall have gifted with a pleasing voice and person, a sufficient degree of sensibility, and diligence to improve her natural gifts by study and observation. What latent powers reside in Miss Bartolozzi- what fund of native archness and amenity she may have to draw on, is for time and herself to develope. In the absence of all other indications, the audience must be content to take her faults for such ; and set down the want of confidence, natural to novices, as an evidence of superior merit. Meanwhile, let her choose suc'n gentle characters as may borrow a charm from an apparent diffi- dence, and leave alone, for the present, the bold, the sprightly, and the coquettish. The celebrated Mrs. Oldfield, we are told by Cib- ber, " muttered out her words in a sort of misty manner," that at first gave him a very low opinion of her abilities :—"I thought she had little more than her person towards the forming a good actress ; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain„ 'a to say) flat manner of speaking ; nor could the silver tone ■,1 1:2:- voice, till after some time, incline me to hope in her favour." Yet it was not long before she made so sudden and so decided "a step into nature," as quite overset all critical rules of judgment. L. Miss Bartolozzi take this step. Mr. John Reeve's Figaro has been conceived in the fogs of November's day in London,---crasso ai;re not us. The real Figaro is a creature of clear .skies, light diet and invincible spirits. Mr. John Reeve has a quiet humour of his own, which lurks furtively and waits quietly its time to kill. But this reserve throws a damp on Figaro, as it did on Acres. It would be amusing to put Mr. Reeve's Figaro alongside of M. Laporte's. The Barber of Seville would not recognize himself. Yet the French edition is not satisfactory ;—there is room for another, with additions and emendations. A tone or look of De Begnis has more rich humour than the whole conception of either, whether Englishman or Gaul.
ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.
We have barely space to name the Bottle Imp ! but then it is his wont to be confined within narrow bounds. He is a devil, ac- cording to Keeley's treatise on imps, (which is very properly made to keep company with a German sausage in the pocket of a German traveller's valet,) resident in a bottle, which is as valuable to its possessor as Aladdin's lamp, or the philosopher's stone. A slight condition is annexed to the possession of it, which persons tolerably well read in diablerie will be at no loss to surmise, unless the Fortunatus for the time being contrives to dispose of his commodity before his death for less than he gave for it. A needy German traveller greedily swallows the bait offered him by one who had wearied of his bargain ; how Von Albert gets rid of it, we did not stay to find out. As neither his singing nor his acting were worth a sou, it will be no loss if the green dragon should have flown away with him. It is but a stingy demon after all ; for when the hungry German demands gold—gold, and you look for ingots to shower down and overwhelm him, a miserable half-starved purse falls at his feet, with a beggarly account of buttons and half-pence. The acting and singing were not much richer than the invention. It was a well-looking demon, but he had too civil and humane a voice ; and the scene-painter had been studying Palladian architec- ture in Regent-street. Unless little Keeley's German sausage lasts through the piece, and keeps . the audience in good humour, we fear the Bottle Imp will prove as stingy a devil to his new posses- sors as he did to the German. The sooner they part with him the better, lest a coin should haply not be found of a denomination low enough to effect the exchange with, and Mr. Herries should not prove obliging enough to strike a lower to save the unhappy last proprietors from the clutches of the " Old One"—the actual condi- tion of the compact, as expounded in Keeley's essay on devils.
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