ENGLISH OPERA.
THEATRICALS are certainly a dreadful bore in these times ; and the present has been the least successful season of the English opera. Nevertheless, we have contrived to bestow a couple of hours this week on two new pieces produced at the Adelphi, under the captivating description of" comic operetta,". and" vaudeville:" The operetta is called The Deuce is sn Her. The plot consists in the coquettish flirtations of the young Widow Volatile (MiSS KELLY) to tease into life a sombre, prosirig lover (Waimea), and • to defeat the formidable addresses of an old cit (BARTLEy) her guardian ; who is left by his chum her husband the refusal of her hand and fortune. The "Deuce" was of course in Miss KELLY; who played the extravagant part set down for her with her usual skill, but not without a languor, the combined result of recent indisposition and a sense of the absurd manner in which her very natural character was brought out. Upon her and BARTLEY rested the whole weight of the piece—heavy in its lightness ; and their exertions commanded a repetition,—which, however, will not be frequent.
The vaudeville (from the French of course) was brought out with better success upon the whole ; though its slender materiel consisted entirely of sentimentalities, which, like the household virtues, are best admired anywhere rather than!on the stage. Ther?so (Miss H. CAwsE) is in love with her cousin, Bertrand, (Mr. JAMES VINING), who is just returned home, having been discharged from his regiment, and thinks to marry her. His foster-brother, „Moot, a peasant, (Mr. J. RUSSELL), who has paid unsuccessful court to Ther4e, gains his promise to woo her for him by proxy, before he has mentioned her name. The veteran, with clap-trap disinterestedness, sets about cutting the throat of his happiness by courting his pretty mistress for his rival, and thus obliges her to make love :to himself. So far so good : but a hard-fisted, hard-featured, hard-hearted, and hard-voiced money-lender, Gripard, (well played by W. BENNETT), claims a sum ending in farthings, which he insists on being paid in an hour; in default of which, he threatens execution on the goods of Bertrand's mother, the aunt of TherOse. He is impenetrable, urging that he wants the money to procure a substitute for his son, who is ;drawn as a conscript. Bertrand resolves to be that substitute, and save his mother's cottage and goods ; but, though he talks of going instantly, to avoid meeting with ThtWse, he of course lingers till she appears ; and before he has had time to march off, Jacdt runs in and brings forward a substitute whom he has procured with the produce of his last year's crop. Had it not been for the neat manner in which our lively neighbours dress up these sentimental made-dishes, for the pretty looks and acting of Miss H. CAWSE, and the effectiveness of Mr. J. RUSSELL in filling a part that required all his skill to redeem from a maudlin insi- pidity, the piece could not have been successful. The dialogue was at times prosy, and the plot hung heavy; but it passed off as a pretty trifle, with these appliances. We forgot to mention Mr. HAWES'S music, which was melody upon crutches; Miss CAWSE was encored in one song, but only for the sake of its burden and her manner of singing it.
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