Covent Garden has got the start of Drury Lane, and
suddenly pro- duced, on Monday, almost without previous notice, a version of AUBER'S Bronze Horse, which BUNN has so long announced. If the Bronze Horse which is in the stable at Drury Lane be no better than that " trotted out " on the boards of Covent Garden, its run will win no great stakes. We suspect, however, that the Covent Garden ver- sion serves rather to give on idea of the absurdity of the drama, than to convey an adequate notion of the splendour of the spectacle or the merits of the music. Of the operatic portion, therefore, we shall say nothing at present ; for how much of it belongs to AUBER, and how much to Mr. RODWELL, it might be troublesome to determine. There is plenty of bray and elarg, interspersed with some pretty tootling. The scene is laid in Chitia,—a circumstance fatal to the serious in- terest, while it does not enhance the comic. The Bronze Horse is the medium of communication between the earth and the planet where a Princess of Mogul is spell-bound by the Cloud-King; and the inci. dents chiefly consist of the turning into statues of all who venture to mount this locomotive steed, for some breach of the conditions on which they take the aerial ride, and their reanimation by the release of the Princess by one more successful than the rest. The spectacle is not of so gorgeous a kind as to throw the absurdities of the story into shade ; indeed it would appear as if the Munager had taken the oppor- tunity of parading all the old china of his wardrobe, with the ad- ditional garniture of a few tea-board banners. Worthless as these un. meaning pageants are, they require the gloss of novelty to make them tolerable: nothing is worse than a shabby show of dingy dresses and tarnished tinsel. The scenery is the best part ; and it is really good of its kind. As an afterpiece, it will last at any rate till the opera itself is brought out at Drury, where it is shortly to supersede the Siege of Rochelle; though is yet the combined attraction of the Siet,e and the Jiwess is suffi, inn to fill the house nightly.
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