EIJRYANTHE.
The most splendid musical dramatic performance we ever witnessed -was to-night. We have long been familiar with this opera on paper ; we have frequently urged its performance ; we have beard bits and scraps of it now and then, at the Philharmonic and Vocal Concerts ; but we were not prepared for any thing so surpassingly great as its en- tire representation on the stage. Though resembling, in bold origina- lity and poetic genius, WEBER'S other operas, it has a character com- pletely its own ; and we can fully understand why its author ranked it as his greatest work. To describe its various beauties, would be to fill as many columns as would contain the words of the play, and we can • only point to a few of the most striking ones : the scene in which the wager is laid—the lovely Cavatina " Glocklein im Thule "—the joyous finale to the first act—the bass song which succeeds—the exquisite air by A.dolar, " Wehen mir liifte Ruh ! "—and, above all, the finale to the second act. So perfectly original in design and so masterly in ex- ecution is this whole scene, that we freely confess the power of music was unknown to us before. It is one of those emanations of ge- nius which, at certain intervals of time, flash new light upon our musical path, and open a new world to us.
We have before hinted that the story is derived from the same source whence SHAKSPEARE drew his Cynibeline : Adolar is Post/mamas Leo- notes ; Lysiart, Iachimo ; and Euryanthe, Iniogen. It is differently (we may rather say indifferently) handled by the German playwright : but if we could conceive Lnogen to have sung, assuredly she would have sting like Euryanthe. We expected much from SCHROEDER'S perform- ance of the part ; but the reality far, very far, surpassed the anticipation. It is impossible to say which was the more perfect, her acting or her singing. Her power over the audience was quite marvellous, spite of her "unknown tongue." At Berlin, a more heartfelt burst of enthu- siasm could not have followed her delivery of these lines, than in Co- vent Garden-
" Waihor ich! Lysiart errungen,
Ihr, -mein here? den blick erhobt ihr nicht en mir."
Need we add, that the piece was completely successful ? It was given
• out for representation on Monday night, as the only time of its repeti- tion. We know not if this be true ; but we earnestly exhort our mu- sical readers to abandon every other engagement, and not even run the risk of missing Euryanthe. They may witness some kind of repre- sentation of it, but deprived of SCHROEDER, it would lose more than - half its interest.
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