The Bride of Lammermoor was produced on Tuesday at Covent
Garden; Mr. Sims Reeves and Mademoiselle Nissen performing the parts of the hero and heroine. Reeves's Edgar Ravenswood is his happiest effort: taken as a whole—as a dramatic representation, andjuhexhibition of vocal power —it will stand a comparison with that of any performer on the musical stage. He was eveemore successful on this occasion than when he first appeared in the character at Drury Lane. He has got rid of the occasional exuberance of action into which he formerly fell; and, in the " maledic- tion " scene especially, he put forth More real power, along with more quietness of manner. Mademoiselle Nissen was more successful in this opera than in- Norma. The comparatively light character of the mimic was better suited to her vocal acqffirements; but the defects of her voice and the un- certainty of her intonation were painfully apparent. Her acting of the part was about as good as that of Castellan or Dorus Gras: it was a tole- rable representation of the conventional Lucia of the Italian stage; but Jenny Lind alone has given the Lucy Ashton of Scott. Mademoiselle Nissen, like foreign singers in general, excels our native performers in elocution, and actually speaks English words more distinctly than our Englishwomen. A foreigner, who has a tolerable knowledge of the language, has little difficulty in performing in the Italian operas brought on our stage. The greatest obstacle, the foreign accent, is ob- viated by the circumstance that the whole dialogue (as in the original) is carried on in recitatives, airs, or concerted pieces; so that the national accent of the language is superseded by the inflexions of the musics. Mere pronunciation may be got over with no great difficulty. We have no ob- jection, therefore, to foreign Normas and Lucius on our stage, provided the singers belong to a better school than our own; though the case is different in those operas, taken from the German or French stage, in which there is spoken dialogue,—as in the case of Haydee, which on our stage demands an English prima donna.
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