THE THEATRES.
On the occasion of the Queen's state visit to Her Majesty's Theatre, on Tuesday evening, Jenny. Lind appeared: for the first time in Noma. The announcement of this assumption excited much curiosity and interest, and would, even independently of her Majesty's visit, have drawn as great an audience as the theatre could possibly Contain; and its performance has produced a corresponding quantity of Speculation and tritleism. The new prima donna placed herself in direct competition with one Who has held rot years the undisputed title of the Queen of Lyileal Tragedy; and that in the grandest and most tragic Of her characters—a character which she may be said to have inherited from Pasta, its Original OWner, and to have made entirely her own, till a youthful competitfor started up to dis- pute its possession. Mademoiselle Lind has performed Narma in Germany, and accounts difihr as to her degree of succeed; but the had never till now performed it before an audience whose imptessions of the character are intimately, and perhaps indissolubly, associated with the person of her great rival. Whatever conclusion may be fbrmed as to the comparative merit of the two performances, it is certain that they are widely dissimilar. 'the 110- tresses differ widely in their Hadiny of the pat; the One giving ptoutinenee tb its fierce, vindietive, and terrible features; the othet gazing and fieveler ing such traits as it possesses of wbmanly softness and tenderness. We do not say that either takes the one view Of the part to the exolusiOn of the other; but the elements are mingled in such different proportions, that the general result is an almost totally different character. It has been said that views thus dissimilar may be taken of a character, and that both may be right; but such can be the case only when the character has been feebly and vaguely drawn by the dramatist—when it is lace Locke's tabula rasa, or the meagre outline of a modern Italian melody, filled up at the plea- sure of the singer. But this, we apprehend, is not the case with Norma.
The government of the ancient Gauls, as represented in this drama, was in the form of a theocracy. The people were governed by the supposed will of their god, revealed to them by the Druidical hierarchy. Norma, the daughter of the chief Druid, is the priestess of the deity, and the in- spired interpreter of his decrees. Exalted in rank, unbounded in power, and regarded as more than human, she presents to the imagination an idea of sublimity which must be realized by whomsoever assumes her bodily like- ness. She has, indeed, broken her vestal vow, and is guilty and degraded in her own eyes; but this feeling, while it embitters her heart, only adds to the severe and unhanding loftiness of her outward bearing. Her first words are a stern reproof to the people: for daring to clamour for war with Rome before the altar of their god; a reproof received with faint remonstrance, but complete submission. Fierce and violent passions, nourished by hidden misery, are indicated from the very outset. Her husband, or paramour, while she is still ignorant of his infidelity, regards her with terror. In the very first scene, he shudders at heating her name pronounced by his confidant, and trembles to think of her vengeance—" atroce, orrenda "- when she shall discover the tenth. Still ignorant of his guilt but suspect- ing his faith, she desires their children to be kept out of her sight for safety, afraid of the oonsequenees of her own violence. The discovery is followed by a tempest of fury, vented in fierce threats and imprecations, and sinking into a settled purpose of revenge. The natural feelings of a mother save the children from her uplifted dagger; but she consummates her vengeance by denouncing her lover as well as herself— the penalty to both being instant death. To Pollio's supplication that she would spare Adalgisa, she replies that it is through Adalgisa that she will reach his heart; that she will feast upon her death and his deepen-
" Nel tuo car ti so ferire; Gia ml peace no' tuei sguardi Del tine duo!, del sae morire."
All these fierce and terrible passions are mingled with soft and feminine traits, sufficient on the whole to excite sympathy with her sorrows and in- terest in her fate. In the scene with Adalgisa her rival, she is gentle and generous. She is resolved to die, but forgives her betrayer, and prays that he may be less cruel to her friend than he has been to her. Adalgisa flatters her with the hope that he will return to her; but it is soon dissipated, and, with some inconsistency, her fury breaks out more violently than ever: she swears that Roman blood shall flow in torrents, strikes the shield of Irmin- sal, declares war of extermination, and calls on the warriors to raise the hymn of betas. even the scene with her children, the most pathetic in the opera, is a struggle of the maternal storge with fierce and terrible pas- sion. It is only in the elosing scene that the tempest is laid, and the softer elements of her nature gain entire ascendancy. She is dissolved in a flood of filial affection and of love for the repentant partner of her punishment.
The character of Norma is thus very fully developed in all its features, and no reading of it can be just in which any of these features are sup- pressed. There may he varieties in its representation, depending on the idiosyncrasies of different actresses; but these must not reach its essential elements. The pictures of Grisi and of Lind differ too widety to be both right. Grid is, in perfection, the arch-priestess of the god, the ruling power of the state, the outraged woman, fierce, vindictive, and desperate; but deficient in those seft and redeeming traits which create compassionate interest. Jenny Lind is exquisitely feminine and tender; but she is too much the woman of ordinary life, driven by despair to extremes, both of passion and of deed, quite foreign to her nature. The one representation is grand and terrible; the other is exquisitely beautiful and irresistibly pathetic; but both are to a certain extent onesided, and fail to give that complete picture of the oharacter which has been realized only by the Sid- dens of the musical stage, the unrivalled Pasta.
Mademoiselle Lind's vocal performance in the part exhibited all the qualities as a singer which she had shown in her previous appearances. In the "Caste diva," the vocal gem of the opera, in the duet " Deh, con te," and other passageabelonging to the softer phase of the character, her sweet- ness, purity, and delicate finish, were inimitable. In some of the bursts of stormy passion, her physical power evidently fell short of her intentions. , The opera, in other respects, was not uniformly well performed. The part of Adalgisa, which is beautiful in itself, and on which the effect of the part of Norma in several scenes entirely depends, was put into the utterly incompetent hands of a certain Madame Barroni. Why did not Madame Casten= perform it? The public have nothing to do with points of green- room etiquette. The part is quite worthy of a first-rate soprano. When Miss Rainforth performed it along with Adelaide Kemble's Norma, she divided the public favour with that accomplished person, to exhibit whom theEtaglish version wee produced. Fraschini displayed energy and feeling in the part of Polices; and the Oraaeso was Lablache. There was on Thursday, to use a cant phrase of the day, a " monster " entertainment—bits of operas, a profusion of dancing, and a vast concert, including musk of all schools, with Jenny Lind as the chief attraction. It is wasting a great dramatic singer to use her in mere concert music; but perhaps it spares her some exhaustion, without depriving the house and the admiring public of her presence for a night. Among other things, Made- moiselle Lind sang a few national airs of Sweden and Norway—full of spirit and purpose—with all the natural life of a peasant, the art of a great singer, and the singular beauty of her own sweet voice.
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