3gagir• ENTERTAINMENTS OF THU WEEK.
WHATEVER wonders the approaching season may be about to do for Italian opera in London, the prospects of our less favoured national opera are certainly not very brilliant. While no less than three rival lessees will shortly be straining their utmost efforts to rain each other in the production of the costly exotic, the "unfashionable" season allotted to English opera is rapidly drawing near its close without any more marked event than the success of a work by a veteran of European fame, and without adding one to our limited number of native operatic vocalists. One opera-house only has been open, and the one opera alluded to has held possession of its stage for fully two months. To such straits, indeed, has English opera been reduced, that Mr. Howard Glover, the ambitious composer of an all but successful grand opera, has been content to devote his energies to the production of a one act operetta which serves as a mere lever de rideau for the Drug Lane panto-. mime. Such utter incongruity of time and place is well matched by a Babel-like confusion of tongues ; the libretto of Once too Often being adapted from the French for the English stage, and mispronounced by German singers. The plot, which has already done duty in England under the title of Cauyht at Last, combines improbability and impropriety in the proportions which might be expected from its original source, Mademoiselle de Merange, a very French vaudeville. Count Marcillac Men Reichardt), a desperate lady-killer, who has been banished from the court of Louis XV. by the Queen, who finds his presence there incompatible with the peace and quiet of her maids of honour, returns before the expiration of his sentence, and, to make up for lost time, immediately devotes himself to the conquest of Blanche de Mery (Mademoiselle Jenny Baur), one of the forbidden maids of honour. He soon persuades her to fly with him. Pompernik (Herr Formes), a German baron, who has been driven from home by his virago of a wife, the Grisjinn Piyglehed, and has, in consequence, made a vow of undying hatred against all her sex, consents to disguise himself and officiate as a priest, and everything is arranged for once more carrying out Marcillac's favourite ruse of a mock marriage. This time, however, it turns out to be "once too often," for Hortense de Caylus (Miss Emma Heywood) has seen through the trick, and so managed matters, that, on the arrival of Marcillac and Blanche at the rendezvous, instead of Pompernik, they find the Queen, accompanied by a real priest. There is no
i escape, and Marcillac soon finds he is married n earnest. At first he is furious, overwhelms the astonished Blanche with abuse at what he imagines to have been her trick, and finally threatens to leave France, the accommodating Pompernik disguising himself as a coachman in order to assist him in a secret flight. The French Don Giovanni, however, is not destined to undergo the unpleasant fate of his Spanish prototype, but is so moved by the tears of his victim that he repents, implores her forgiveness, and all ends happily, even the misogynist German being persuaded to return to his detested Plyglehed.
The music of this trifle will not add much to Mr. Glover's reputation. The songs and duets of which it chiefly consists are light and occasionally pretty, but all strikingly devoid of originality. The most favourable specimens are perhaps the opening duet for Blanche and Hortense," The glorious age of chivalry ; ' the romance for Marcillac, "A young and artless maiden ;" and last, though not least, the aria buffo. for Pompernik, "In my château of Pompernik." With regard to the four artistes, two of whom—Herr Formes and Herr Reichardt—made their first appearance on the English stage in this operetta, it must be said that, putting aside the imperfect pronunciation of the two debutants, Mr. Glover's vocal music mild not have been given with mach better effect. Mademoiselle Jenny Baur is too well known as a vocalist to need any praise. Miss Emma Hey-wood both sung and acted her rather insignificant part with spirit. It is doubtful, perhaps, whether Herr Reichardt's pleasing and highly cultivated voice is quite sufficient to redeem his lack of vigour a4an actor; but Herr ormes's well-known tremendous voice and racj humour concentrate almost all the interest of the operetta on the buffo part of Pospernik. The irresistibly ludiarous
effect, indeed, which he gives to the euphonious and constantly repeated name of his wife, is alone worth a visit to the theatre to hear. The orchestral requirements of the operetta are, of course, very slight, but Mr. Glover's compositions are certainly entitled to better treatment than they receive at the hands of the Drury Lane orchestra.
Herr Ernst Pauer has announced a repetition of his arduous labour of crowding into six Saturday morning performances specimens of pianoforte music of every period and style. In order to give the earlier pianoforte compositions their proper effect, Herr Pauer will perform on four different instruments, one being no less antique an affair than a grand harpsichord by Ischudi, made in 1771, and the other three instruments being all by Broadwood, and varying in date from 1820 to the present time.
Since I last wrote, two Monday Popular Concerts have taken place, each of which proved as attractive as any of its predecessors. On Monday week, the place of Miss Arabella Goddard, absent through indisposition, was filled by Mr. Lindsay Sloper, whose brilliant performances of Weber's grand sonata in G major (Op. 24), for pianoforte alone, and, in conjunction with Mr. Lazarus, of the scarcely less beautiful sonata (Op. 48), for piano and clarionet, were the main features of the evening. On Monday last, Hummel's grand septuor for pianoforte, flute, oboe, horn, violin, violoncello, and double bass, was produced for the first time at the Monday Popular Concerts, Messrs. Charles Halle, Pratteu, Barnet, C. Harper, H. Webb, Paque, and C. Severn being the executants. As might have been expected, this great work met with as warm a reception as it has always met with elsewhere, and the scherzo, the combination in which of recondite musical science, with a profusion of fresh and flowing melody, proves its composer to have been no unworthypupil of his great instructor, Mozart, was heartily encored. The quartet in flat (Op. 12), for stringed instruments, composed by Mendelssohn when a boy of less than sixteen, was performed by Herr Ries, Mr. Watson, Mr. H. Webb, and M. Paque, to the satisfaction of the audience, the exquisite canzonet in G minor being encored; and Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata was played by Mr. Charles Halle, as Mr. Halle only can play Beethoven's music. The concert was brought to a close by Haydn's Quartet No. 65, one of the finest of that wonderful series of 83, so well known to the audiences at the Monday Popular Concerts. The only vocalist was Mr. Tennant, who was much applauded in both his songs—Beethoven's "Des Wachtelschlag," and Blumenthal's "Evening Song."
Monday next is to be a "Beethoven night," when M. Sainton and Miss Arabella Goddard will resume their posts.
AMATEUR.
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