THE THEATRES.
thOftry LIND has fascinated all hearts in a second character. She has shown the wide range of her genius as well as its originality; her power of giving life and reality to imaginary beings the most widely different from each other. Amine, like Alice, is a peasant girl; but here the resemblance stops. Alice is lowly only in birth and station; she is the symbolical em- bodiment of the principle of good, conscious of a high and holy mission, and elevated even to sublimity in her thoughts and sentiments. Amino is all childlike innocence and purity, exalted only by that love, "strong as death," which woman only can feel; which endureth all things, and is un- shaken by cruelty, contumely, and desertion. Both pictures, as painted by Jenny Lind, were equally truthful, and equally beautiful. Each character was a creation, giving us the assurance that, in every one of the diversity of characters in which we hope to see her, we shall find a new creation, as original and as true to nature as those which she has already exhibited. Of all the performers we have ever seen on the Opera stage, Jenny Lind makes the truest use of music as a language of passion and feeling. She realizes the dramatic function of music so well described by Beaumarchais, as being to opera what verse is to tragedy, " une expression plus figuree, une maniere plus forte de presenter le sentiment on la pensee." Even when she is singing most divinely, and filling the ear with all the pleasure that musical sounds can bestow, the mind is unconscious of the pleasure, while in the most exquisite enjoyment of it. We do not think of the sounds, but of what they express; as when, in days of old, a Siddons dis- solved a whole theatre to tears by the thrilling melody in which Belvidere, with tones never to be forgotten, bade her parting husband "Remember twelve! " We can hardly think of Jenny Lind as a singer, or expatiate on the beauty of her voice or the perfection of her execution, any more than we would dwell on the voice and elocution of the greatest tragedian. It is enough to hear her once to perceive that she possesses every vocal gift of nature and art; and then we think only of the language she speaks with such "miraculous organ." Jenny Lind's Amino, simple and natural as it is, is altogether new; and, indeed, it is from its nature and simplicity that it derives its novelty. In every other representative of the part we discern the singer or the actress; desirous at one time to surprise or please by vocal execution, and at an- other to arrest the attention by making clever "points." Jenny Lind has nothing theatrical, nothing conventional; thoroughly imbued with her character, she places it before us in lifelike reality, and banishes every idea of the stage. We see the country girl, rustic yet graceful, glowing with affection, full of tranquil happiness, and giving vent to her feelings in ac- cents of the sweetest simplicity and tenderness. We see her receive the flattering small-talk of the young gentleman with timid shyness, a slight sense of amusement, a feeling of annoyance at the stranger's increasing boldness, and some uneasiness at its effect on her lover, from whom she seems to look for protection. We see her dissipate her lover's moodiness by a frank and truthful tenderness, which puts the green-eyed monster to flight. All these scenes are full of comedy, as delicate and refined as the tragic scenes which follow are intense and powerful. The sleeping girl's entrance into the young Count's bedchamber is marked with a thousand traits of nature and reality. Her walk across the floor—her eyes without speculation—the low suppressed sounds in which she uttered her dreaming fancies—were the most exact manifestations of that mysteri- ous faculty which guides the somnambulist in the absence of all communi- cation with the external world. Her terrible waking—her utter bewilder- ment, wild affright, agony, and despair—were a sight sufficient to move the most indifferent spectator. In the latter scenes she exhibited in every look, tone, and gesture, the picture of a broken heart—calm, resigned, uncomplain- ing, and full of undying love for him who had forsaken her. So deeply was- all this felt by the audience, that, at the moment when, waking from her trance she finds herself at once restored to happiness, her cry of joy was echoed by a burst, not of applause, but of rapturous sympathy. The whole performance was a triumph of dramatic art, all the greater from the art being so perfectly concealed. Her refined taste might be inferred from numberless unobtrusive graces—down to the picturesque beauty and nice propriety of her costume—even in the wild-flowers which decked the peasant girl's rustic hat.
Jenny Lind received great support from the admirable performance of Gardoni; who seemed to draw inspiration from her, surpassing his previous conceptions, and never for an instant losing sight of his assumed cha- racter. Taking his appearance and acting along with his singing, we have never seen so true and interesting an Elvino. We were gratified to ob- serve, that the pretty scene of quarrel and reconciliation, containing the beautiful duet " Son geloso del zeffiro errante "—so unaccountably and perseveringly omitted of late years in all representations of the Sonnam- bula—was now restored, with great advantage to the dramatic as well as
musical effect of Bellinfs opera. - The routine chronicle of events at this theatre, would be a sort of ba- thos. The three performances of Roberto il Diavolo, last week, drew audiences more and more crowded, more and more ardent in admiration. Jenny Lind did not perform on Tuesday; perhaps because she laboured under a slight cold. Her reappearance in the fresh character, on Thurs- day, was greeted throughout with such bursts of irrepressible delight as would scarcely look like sanity in cool description.
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