MADAME SCHRCEDER-DEVRIENT.
Jr PASTA'S failure be signal, Scutum:lea's triumph on the boards of Drury Lane is complete. We had some doubts and misgivings as to her power to sustain, in a new and till very lately RH unknown tongue, her former very high reputation : but these have all vani:hed, and the lustre of her fame is unobscured by even the shadow of failure. So perfect is her realization of the character of Fidelio—she is SO com- pletely in every look and motion the person she is representing—that the foreign accent in which she delivers the dialogue hardly engages the attention of the hearer. She was intelligible to English hearers even when acting in German. The burst of sympathy, for example, which used to follow the disclosure of her real name and character to Pizarro, was as general and vehement as now, when in plain English she exclaimed, "I am his wife !" On Monday (her first appearance) she was evidently embarrassed ; but last night no want of confidence or self-possession was discernible, and every subsequent repetition of the part will place her more at ease.
MALIBRAN was the first English Fidelio but even MALIBRAN must have yielded the palm to SeHRTEDER. There were occasioual gleams in AIALIBRAN'S singing that were dazzling ; but the brightness of SCHRtEDER is more equal and steady—she is absorbed in her part, and,
apparently, has no thought of herself. Her reading of the character, too, is more correct—more classical than that of MALIBRAN. She ap- proaches the music of BEETHOVEN with a feeling akin to reverence. She knows that if she can develop all that therein lies hid, she has accomplished all that the greatest singer can aim at ; and this feeling checks and subdues all vocal impertinences. We have the very soul at BEETHOVEN laid open to us—all that he thought, as well as all that he expressed by notes. This is saying a great deal, but it is strictly sad to the letter true. Can we add more in her praise ? The opera is sustained but feebly in comparison with the German representation of it that we had a few years since. We emphatically except WILSON; whose singing in Florestan was throughout beautiful. Of his acting we cannot say so much : his transports were too dis. erectly subdued and tempered down. SecsoiN's Rocco was next in point of excellence ; and the charming trio in the second act was admi- rably sung. The round in the first act was murdered, and the cho- ruses were coarse and vulgar. But &Ilan:DEB. " covered' a multi. tude of" such " sins ; " and every night that she plays Fiddio we skin willingly join the number of her devotees.
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