The Belgian Company at Drury Lane have added two pieces,
within the last week, to their list of performances; the first exceedingly successful, the other much the reverse. On Saturday and Monday, Rossini's last and in some respects greatest work, Guillaume Tell, was represented in a very complete and satisfactory manner; the hero of the piece, who is certainly Tell himself; being placed in his true position in the drama by means of Massol's dignified and energetic personation of the character, and his ex- cellent execution of the music. Ever since the opera first appeared, the part of Arnold has been the most prominent and effective, in consequence of its having been always in the hands of two of the greatest tenors of modern times, first Nourrit and then Duprez; while Tell did not find a representative of equal powers. On Saturday we saw the part adequately performed for the first time—Massol gave it its proper ascendancy; thus adding immensely to the dramatic interest as well as musical effect of the piece. Laborde, in Arnold, copied Duprez sedulously, and successfully; though his exaggerated action and overstrained vocal efforts sometimes contrasted unfavourably with the quiet manner in which Massol exhibited his strength. Madame Laborde made all that could be made of the insipid part of Arathilde ; and the choral and orchestral parts of the performance were excellent.
The other performance was that of La Juice ; an opera by Halevy, which had great vogue in its novelty, some dozen years ago; but it has been long laid aside at Paris, and there was no use in reviving it here. As a drama, it is the horrible caricatured; the catastrophe, the immersion of the heroine in a caldron of boiling oil before the eyes of the spectators, being lecessanly either insufferably revolting or thoroughly ridiculous. It is needless to say which of the two it was at Drury Lane. The music out- herods Herod in " sound and fury." Its only effect on us was a headache, caused by the pitiless storm of dram and trumpet from the orchestra, and the shrill screams of the women on the stage. It was, too, inordinately -long—some four hours and a half; and the consequence was that numbers of people went away before its close.
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