Donizetti's best opera, La Favorita, was produced at Covent Garden
on Tuesday, with a new cast. The heroine interesting even in her frailty, was personated by Grisi. We may observe by the way, that we see no ground for the charge of immorality made against the drama on the score of the position of Leonora. If she is represented as sinning, she is also re- presented as heavily punished. Excommunicated by the church—spurned by her young bridegroom whom she adores, as the cause of his degradation and disgrace—and at length dying of a broken heart—she is one of the most impressive examples that the stage affords of the necessity of virtue to happiness. The character, we think, is drawn with great beauty, and essentially dramatic; and the effect of the outline is highly enriched by its musical colouring. Grisfs performance was admirable throughout— soft, gentle, subdued, and deeply pathetic. As a singer, too, we have sel- dom heard her to greater advantage. Mario, in Fernando, sang exqui- sitely, but as an actor was wanting in passion and earnestness. In these respects he had been surpassed by Gardoni when the opera was performed at the other house last season. The representative of the King, Signor Cor- radi Setti, was equally unsatisfactory as an actor and as a singer. We ob- serve that Ronconi complains that this part was not given to him: certainly it would have fared better either in his hands or Tiunburini's. It thus ap- pears that the opera, as a whole, was imperfectly acted; but the splendid music made considerable amends for deficiencies in this respect La Fe- Vents aspires to propinquity with the great works of the German school in the masterly elaboration of the concerted pieces, the strength of the choruses, and the richness of the orchestral accompaniments; and the resources of the theatre, as is well known, afford ample means to give such music its full effect. Tuesday's performance however, was rendered heavy by the glow and lagging manner in which many scenes were represented—the want of proper rapidity in the delivery of the dialogue in recitative—the long delays between the acts—and the interpolation of a dull and tedious divertissement. The scenery was magnificent; the last scene especially WAS a masterpiece.
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