THE ITALIAN OPERA.
Norma has been revived at the King's Theatre. It was an opera origi- nally written by BELLINI for PASTA, and was produced here during her last visit. Our opinion of its merits as a composition was then given, and a second hearing has confirmed it. A few not inelegant melodies occur, of which the author has made frequent use in subsequent operas; but it contains not a single fine song, and is redundant in noise. " The Overture," says the Post, " is promising :" true; it is- promising—but it fails to perform ; and we cannot dignify with the name of overture a prelude of about a score bars, with hardly a con- nected musical phrase. It is scarcely launched when up goes the cur- tam. The plot of this opera has some unique features. The scene is in Wales; which, by a poetical licence that our Cambrian brethren ought to resent, is placed under the government of a Roman Pro- consul, by name Pollio. Norma is a Druidical priestess—a kind of Welsh Medea, attended by her two children ; on whom she meditates, though she does not actually perpetrate, murder. The Manager, resolved that no particle of absurdity should be lost on an English audience, exhibited Norma's abode (which our libretto told us was " a habitation in which the couch was spread with bear-skins") as an ele- gant saloon surrounded with Corinthian columns of Italian marble, and hung with moreen drapery according to the most approved taste of
the present day. In like manner, the Druidical temple was a spacious and elegant Grecian structure.
The chief attraction of the piece centers in Norma, and GRIST mani- fested no little confidence in her own powers in thus challenging a comparison with PASTA on that great actress's own ground, and in a character expressly written on the model of her most celebrated part. To sum up the respective merits of the rivals in brief, we should say that PASTA played the part better than Geist, but that Gates sung it better than PASTA. To an Italian of any taste, the glorious models of the human form which are there presented to the eye must serve as so many rules for its development on the stage, and Gaut has studied these to good purpose. Her attitudes were eminently graceful and dignified ; but she wants the stern and lofty demeanour of PASTA, and the look of bitter scorn under which her proudest foes seemed to quail. But whatever was deficient in acticn, Geist amply made up by her singing. PASTA'S intonation in this character (as of late in every other) was so faulty, that part of the band found it impossible to accompany her. No such blemish ever deformed GRIST'S singing; who, in truth, gave to the music whatever of beauty it possessed. Let any one who doubts this, play or sing through the airs as BELLINI wrote them, and he will wonder where are all the fascinations which enchanted him at the Opera-house. These are the property of the singer, and not of the composer. • The part of Adalgisa (originally performed here by Madame DE Ahem) was sustained by Signora ASSANDRI, a young debutante from the Conservatorio di Milano. A more pleasing first impression we have seldom received from a singer of her station ; which, to borrow the language of the Post, is that of " second prima donna." She ap- pears scarcely twenty : her figure and features are pleasing; her voice is clear and sweet, and her style exceedingly good. Every thing she undertook was well accomplished. Her fioriture were not redundant, but each was well placed and well executed : there was no attempt to surprise—no screaming or shouting ; but her performance throughout was a graceful and therefore pleasing exhibition of the vocal art. With such a vocal corps as LAPORTE has now mustered, the true lovers of the Italian opera ought to be indulged with some, at least, of its finest productions. We give up the attempt to revive any of MOZART'S, as hopeless. Were the singers willing and able, the Con- ductor is not ; and so long as COSTA retains that post, MOZART must of necessity be a stranger in the walls of the King's Theatre. But it may be presumed that the Conductor and the rest of the modern Italians are not altogether ignorant of the dramatic music of their own country, and that the names and works of CISIAROSA, PAESIELLO, and PAER—to go no further—are not absolutely strange to them. In the hands of Guist, TAMBURINI, and LABLACIIE, what a perfect exhibition would be the Agnese, or the Matrimonio Segreto But we fear these wishes are vain : the oracle of the fashionable world tells us that " BELLINI'S star is in the ascendant at the Italian Opera-house ;" and if this is true—if those who frequent it really believe that he is the greatest of dramatic writers—his predecessors must be content to "pale their ineffectual fires."
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