Mozart's Entfiihrung aus dem &rail has been produced by the
German company at Drury Lane. The Seraglio will always be an object of in- terest to the amateur, but will not, now-a-days, be generally popular. It is constructed after too antiquated a fashion ; having been written before Mozart's genius had enabled him to shake off the fetters of the Italian school
in which he was educated. Hence the airs are too long and verbose-spun out by repetitions, divisions, and passages of display, quite at variance with dramatic effect. They are beautiful nevertheless, and are still heard with delight in our concert-rooms. These lengthy and elaborate airs, and the comparative paucity of concerted pieces, make the opera move heavily on the stay, while there is little to excite interest or amusement in the drama, which is a commonplace story of the deliverance of a pair of lovers from a Turkish seraglio, enlivened by the humours of a comic domestic and waiting-maid, and a ridiculous old Turk, the Pasha's ma- jor-domo. Through all these disadvantages however, Mozart's genius sparkles from the beginning to the end of the piece. Madame Ruders- dorff personates the heroine very gracefully, and sings the immensely diffi- cult III11810 with the force and truth of a thorough German artist. Mademoiselle Bury is a lively soubrette, and sings her music very nicely. Formes, as Osmin the old Turk, is amusingly comic : his great air, " 0 wie will iota triumphiren," is a fine vocal display.
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