• THE OPERA.
"FLAT, stale, and finprofitable "—Semiramide, Le Carnival de Ve- nise, and their audiences. BLAsis is good, but it is cruel to try her in a character v hich had been filled by the genius of PASTA, and in an opera repeated to satiety. Madame PETRALIA is an agreeable singer, of competent skill, though not of a merit to give any new in- terest to the part of Arsaces. Signor SANTINI'S voice is a bass of power, which he does not manage ill ; and withal he is a very droll actor in a serious character. Imagine Assur in black petticoats, with a gilt flqunce, a golden canister on his head, and a little- red-riding sort of cloak on his back, the management of which completely fills his mind. Now he pulls it over the arm, now drags it over the shoulder, now tosses it this way and now that, and shows in a word that the sole plot in his thoughts is the effect of his mantle. Between his struggles and tustles with his cloak—which was in- tractably scanty, we must observe—and the pulling of fee-fa-ftuu faces, Signor SANTINI contrived to make himself very diverting. Au rate, there is nothing to be said; unless we may be permitted to ask why, in the finale of the first act, the Court of Babylon indi- cates such careless familiarity with ghosts. The apparition of Ninus, which is an extremely creditable apparition, and excellently ghastly, creates not theleast disturbance among the guilty Queen's attendants, who retain their ranks, and proprieties of demeanour, as though it were their custom to see spectres regularly every Tuesday and Sa- turday night. As for the Court, they conduct themselves with po- sitive bad manners, and exemplify the maxim that too much famili- arity breeds contempt ; for they turn their backs on the royal appa- rition during nearly the whole period that he favours them with his illustrious countenance. How much would the effect ofthis scene be heightened by scattering the crowd in terror and disorder—flinging some on their knees—others prostrate—others crouching in the agony of fear—and the principal characters murmuring their doleful sounds, with eyes not wandering over the dandies and the dowagers in the boxes, but fixed with the fascination of terror on the grim lurid figure in the sepulchre ! The attention to minor parts for the production of general effects, which made the success of Masaniello, might be carried with great advantage into all other dramas ; and it would soon be found almost as easy to do things uniformly well as ill. The Ballet is not strong at present, though presenting some per- formers of merit. Mademoiselle HuLLisr is pleasing, but scarcely first-rate. Monsieur Palms. is a dancer of admirable elegance, and the most finished execution. The figurante department, on which so much of the effect depends, is weak, and abominably ill- composed. We wish the Opera programmes would give instruction in the pro- nunciation of names. How painful it is to hear people talking of Blazes, Gosling, and Parrot ! This season they have not the oppor- tunity of speaking of Boxer ; and the and is, we suppose in conse- quence of his, the Harpist's (not Harpy's) secession, strengthened by the return of the old artists,—whose superior skill is very perceptible in the improved performance of the orchestra.
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