THE ITALIAN OPERA.
IT will appear to many, a startling discovery, to observe that Pasta
is improved. We thought at least that her'Semiramide at Ebers's Benefit, on Thursday night, was in a style of truer passion than we had ever heard it. Madame Pasta is an anomaly among the singers of 'ace day—and a creature so exquisitely interesting from her great natural endowments, that she must be referred to no or- dinary and common-place standard of excellence, but be set apart and compared with herself. What in another singer would be faults, only serves to heighten the moral and intellectual beauty of her performance. As Mirabel says of his mistress, in the old play, we like her the better for her defects—whether ii is that a husky note now and then appears like an emotion too big for ut- terance, or that here and there one a little short of the mark shows her something less than a goddess, and fallible. We know very well that Mr. — and Mrs. --, and Miss —, will cry out and tell us that this is an unfair method of judging of their pro- fession, and that to praise a singer for being husky or flat, is a monstrous proceeding in a critic of any age or complexion. We know it, ladies and gentlemen—and, moreover, that were these qualities once made the ground of panegyric, the papers would teem with it. But Pasta's defects are spots in the sun—to dwell upon them would only argue the writer's feeling and observation limited and contemptible. The pervading soul, genius, and com- pleteness of her entire personifications, absorb the mind of the spectator, and there is no leisure for petty detail—nor is this an injustice to other singers, for were they as great, they would be equally set above common rules. As matters stand (except the delightful Polly q Gay, Miss Stephens,) we bind down the whole party to keep the tune. Miss Sontag walked through the second act of her well-known part in Il Barbiere—but she did not look the
perfection of locomotive vivacity. If Spanish girls are so phleg-
matic in their amours as she was with the Count Almaviva. on Thursday night, all we can say is that they take things easily in Spain. Sontag sang Rode's air as well as De Beriot would have played it on his violin. The house was crowded ; as we left it, we asked ourselves how it was, that this Giacomo Rossini being so good should be no better a musician ? for a vision of fame some- times haunts him. He has actually had the good taste to pilfer the "Di scriver mi" from the " Cosi fan tutti." Truly a virtuous and praiseworthy theft.
Previous page
