THE THEATRES.
ALBERTAZZT, of the Italian stage, took a benefit at Drury Lane Theatre on Monday; and the house was crowded to suffocation with a more brilliant audience than ordinary. Even the white.haired hero of Waterloo was there; and, by "sitting it all out," gave evidence that his powers of endurance are not decayed. The main entertainment consisted of a concert, to which the principal Italian vocalists—except TAMBURINT, who has left England—contributed their quota of song. They looked jaded and haggard ; even Guist seemed to have grown rousse, and sang as if vulgarizing her style to suit the place : her voice, too, sounded hard and sharp : results of the fatigue of a London season. The only novelty of the concert was the performance of a young Polish violinist, APOLLINAIRE DE KONTSKI, a boy probably not much older than the twelve years announced in the bill: and he is unquestionably a youth of remarkable skill, and rare promise ; his bowing is firm, his execution neat and delicate, and his tone clear and liquid—vie:sting, however, that fulness and power which maturity alone can produce; and he plays with feeling and expression, in many passages reminding OS of Da BERIOT.
The opera—one act of BALER'S poor Catherine Grey—did not com- mence till near midnight; when Fttezea and E. SEGUIN, coming after RUBIN! and LABLACHE, were not likely to render English recitative endurable. The object of the performance, we suppose, was to exhibit the beneficiaire as an English dramatic singer : but as most persons know that Madame Asueserazzi is an Englishwoman, the effect of this novelty was lost. A divertissement introduced in the opera was rendered unexpectedly amusing by the performance of a lady, whose name we are content to be ignorant of for her sake. Fancy a figure as much below the ordi- nary height as TERESA ELLSLER is above it—in a dress flounced up to the waist, the short, full petticoats revealing a pair of legs making up in circumference for their deficiency in length—bustling with pro- digious activity through the mazes and involutions of the voluptuous Cachuca ; a dance of all others requiring flexibility of body and elas- ticity of limb, and commonly chosen to display the symmetry and graceful movements of a finely.proportioned form ! The effect was irresistibly droll ; and when in the triumphant strutting step, the stout little legs described an angle of five-and-forty degrees at their full sweep, the portly body all the while restlessly rocking to and fro "with a short uneasy motion," the house roared with laughter : a turtle dancing a hornpipe would not be a more strange impossibility. The danseuse nevertheless executed the steps very deftly ; and was, happily, so uncon- scious of the oddity of the exhibition, that the mistook the jocular applause for an encore. DUVERNAY, who was present in a private box, was overcome with laughter.
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