THE ITALIAN OPERA SEASON.

The conclusion of a season unparalleled in-the musical annals of England for the degree in which it has excited the attention of the public, naturally suggests a few retrospective reflections on its results as affecting the pro- gress of musical taste, and the fortunes of the Italian lyrical stage in this country. It has been the first season of a new theatre, opened in direct opposition to the long-established Italian Operahouse of the metropolis; and the close of the season is a point at which we may form some judg-

ment respecting the effects of the experiment, in so far at least as public objects are concerned, directly and indirectly. The question is, Has " the Royal Italian Opera at Covent Garden" conduced, and in what degree, to

the improvement of the Italian musical stage, either by its own exertions, or by the exertions to which it has stimulated the management of Her Ma- jesty's Theatre?

In reviewing the proceedings of the two houses, there is an evident dif- ference in the tests to which they ought to be subjected. Her Majesty's

Theatre has necessarily adhered in a great degree to a system of manage- ment imposed upon it by its position for a century and more as the pecu- liar entertainment of the aristocracy, and consequently subject to many fashionable and " conservative " influences. The Covent Garden Opera was founded on avowed principles of " reform." It professed, in the words of its preliminary prospectus, to be established "for the purpose of ren- dering a more perfect performance of the lyric drama than had been hi- therto attained in this country." According to the demi-official representa- tions of its confidential partisans, it was set on foot for the purpose of

breaking up a giant monopoly, which had engendered a mass of abuses—

of raising from its degradation the character of the opera stage—of pla- cing its enjoyments, hitherto confined to the great and wealthy, within the reach of the general public. An enterprise setting out with such pre- tensions is bound to render an account of the manner in which it has made them good.

Let us glance, in the first place, at the season of Her Majesty's Theatre. Mr. Lumley, in his general prospectus, alluded to the "circumstances of peculiar difficulty " under which he had made arrangements for opening his house. And certainly his difficulties were of no ordinary kind. After the close of the previous season, the first news of a rival establishment, and of the general desertion from his own camp to that of the enemy, came upon him like a clap of thunder. Without calling in question the motives of the movement, or inquiring how much of private and personal feeling was mingled with the professed views of public benefit, we have only to recollect, that, in consequence of plans laid within his own walls, he found himself all at once deprived of every important member of his company with the single exception of Lablache, and of the whole of the magnificent

orchestra, so long the glory of his theatre. He not only found this, but found also, when he set about recruiting his army, or rather raising another,

that be had been forestalled by the enemy, who had ransacked the Con-

tinent before he was aware of their existence. It would have been no wonder, then, had his company been greatly inferior to those of previous

years. It was inferior, no doubt, but by no means greatly so; and his efforts to make it what it was did credit to his energy and judgment. His engagement of Jenny Lind, Gardoni, Coletti, and Staudigl, and his retention of Madame Castellan and Lablache, formed the nucleus ' of a strong company; which was well filled up by the addition of Fres- chini, Superchi, Bouche, and the younger 'Lablache. It was, indeed, not

well balanced; containing a superfluity of basses, while it had neither a second soprano nor a tolerable contralto; defects which were sadly felt in the course of the season, and which go a good way in accounting for, and excusing the poverty of the repertoire.

In this respect, Mr.. Lumley has certainly disappointed the public very much. In his programme of the season, he made a number of promises, the non-fulfilment of which has exposed him to a great deal of obloquy. He promised Meyerbeer's Camp of Silesia, produced under the composer's direction; and Mendelssohn's Tempest, produced in the same way, with the cast of parts specified. These promises were not redeemed. It turned out that Mendelssohn's opera was a work not in ease, but in posse; and it was vehemently denied by the par- tisans of the other house that Mendelssohn had ever engaged, or even intended to write it. Our conviction is that he did both intend and engage to do so, but that Mr. Lumley was too sanguine in reckoning upon it du- ring this season. The obstacles to Jenny Lind's appearance, which delayed her debut from the beginning of March to the beginning of May, and would have prevented it altogether had they been met by a man of less energy than Mr. Lumley, must have deranged his plans for the production of operas: for it cannot be doubted, that had Mademoiselle Lind arrived at the beginning of the season, she would have performed a greater variety of parts, and the operas in which she appeared would have been more delibe- rately and completely brought out. Between the opening of the theatre and the advent of Jenny Lind, the following pieces were performed—La Favorites, Lucia di Lammermoor, and L'Elisir d'Amore of Donizetti; Nino,

Ernani, I Due Foscari, and I Lombardi, of Verdi; La Sunman/mil: and I Puritani, of Bellini. The pieces in which Mademoiselle Lind appeared were—Roberto i1 Diavolo, La Sonnambula, La Figlia del Reggimento, Not-ma,

I Masnadieri, (Verdi's opera promised at the beginning of the season,) and Le Nozze di Figaro. Such was the repertoire of the whole season; and it was certainly no improvement upon former years. We had no fewer than five feeble operas of Verdi, but not a note of Rossini. The charming Matrimonio Segreto and the colossal Don Giovanni, for the first time these

many years, were not forthcoming; and of Mozart we had only Figaro, produced after the season was properly over. But the non-performance of these and other works of a high class (as we have observed) was pro- bably rendered impracticable by the composition of the company.

In the department of ballet, Her Majesty's Theatre has shone with even more than wonted lustre: the great Taglioni and her youthful rela- tive, Carlotta Grisi, Cerito, Lucile Grahn, and the young and rising Caro- lina Rosati, with Perrot, St. Leon, and Pan' Taglioni, formed a combina- tion of talent scarcely ever equalled.

Let us now turn to Covent Garden. The company there, formed under the advantageous circumstances already mentioned, was of unprecedented strength and completeness. It embraced not only all the great performers but one who have appeared for many years on the Haymarket boards, but some of the most distinguished who could be drawn from the theatres of Italy, to appear in London for the first time. It was a company enjoying a superabundance of strength, and able to meet any exigence of the Italian stage. With such objects as were professed by this establishment, and with such means of accomplishing them, what has been really effected? Has the selection of operas assumed the classical and elevated character which there was reason to expect?—a question which may be answered by a sim-

ple enumeration of the pieces performed. They were—of Rossini, &mire- mide, L./talk= in Algieri, Barbiere, La Gazsa Ladra, and La DORM, del Lago; of Bellini, La Sonnamlnda, Norma, and I Puritani; of Donisetti, • dAmore, Maria di Bohan, Lucretia Borgia, Anna Bolena, and Lucia di Lammermoor; of Verdi, Ernani and I Due Foscari; of Mozart., Don Giovanni and Figaro. This selection is better—more extensive—than that of Her Majesty's Theatre; but, all circumstances considered, is it as much better as it ought to have been? Every musical reader will at once answer in the negative. If we compare the manner in which the operas have been got up and performed at the two houses, the new theatre has a decided advantage on the whole. At the Haymarket, the mutilated Roberto it Diavolo, the Norma with the principal scenes marred by an incompetent Adalgisa, the Figaro without a tolerable Cherubino, and spoiled by coarse and incorrect accompaniment, contrasted unfavourably with the complete and highly- finished representation of the Semiramide, the Don Giovanni, the Donna del Lego, and the Figaro, at Covent Garden. But all the performances were not so good as these. In Maria di Rghan, not only a worthless opera, but an inefficient prima donna, was a second time forced upon the public after an unequivocal condemnation; and in this opera, as well as in the Italians in Algieri, (one of Rossini's poorest productions,) and the Barbiere, the ad- mirable Alboni was brought forward in parts either unworthy of her or unsuited to her. In regard to the power, precision, and delicacy of the instrumental accompaniments, the discipline of the chorus, the nicety of execution in the concerted music, and other things which constitute the ensemble of a performance, the preference is due to the Covent Garden house. To form a great orchestra is a work of time and painstaking, even when the individual talents exist in abundance. The new theatre possessed the whole of the magnificent band of the old house, with its expe- rienced conductor, who had only to add to its strength and its discipline. Mr. Lumley had to collect a crowd of people drawn from foreign theatres, of whose qualifications he must have been imperfectly informed, and to place them under a chief to whom most of them were strangers. There were fine players among them—such orchestral performers as Piatti, L'Anglais, Lavigne, Tolbecque, Pillet, Deloffre, and Watts, are not easily surpassed; but the body of ripieni stringed-instruments, the great strength of an orchestra, were of an inferior stamp; and it is not wonderful that Balfe—let him have all due credit for ability and zeal—could not bring them to the high discipline and efficiency of Costa's troops.

On the whole, we are inclined to conclude that the Italian opera in England stands, at the end of this season of unprecedented excitement, pretty much where it did at the beginning. At the new theatre, there have been very fine and complete performances of several of the best operas: but we have seen them, in bygone years, performed nearly and sometimes quite as well at the old house. At Her Majesty's Theatre, Jenny Lind has enchanted the public by her simplicity, freshness, and truth as an ac- tress, and by the exquisite purity, grace, and expression of her vocal style: but Jenny Lind must have visited England, as the Catalanis, the Sontags, the Malibrans, and the Schrceder-Devrients have done, had no rival opera- house ever been dreamed of. Neither the one theatre nor the other has done anything to extend the knowledge or elevate the taste of the public by reviving any of the great classical works of a former age. The new theatre has confined itself to the narrow round of pieces already hackneyed by the old; and its most assiduous frequenter can have learned nothing from it that he might not have known before it began its career. Of the success of the new theatre as a speculation we know nothing. There are rumours of financial embarrassments, intestine dissensions among the parties concerned, and impending changes in the management; but of such matters we are not called on to take cognizance. We may say, how- ever, that there are indications of a disposition to adopt, for the future, a re- duced scale of expenditure, to abandon the ballet, and to rely for support on the general body of the public; leaving Her Majesty's Theatre to its ancient and established patrons, the aristocracy and fashionable

At Her Majesty's Theatre, the tide of success set in with the arrival of Jen- ny Lind, and continued to flow till the end of the season. The extraordinary attraction of the fair Scandinavian was due certainly to her own merits; but much of it may also be ascribed to extrinsic causes—to the impediments which retarded her appearance and rendered it for some time a matter of doubt, and to the partisan warfare which carried the interest of the subject into every part of the kingdom. Before she arrived curiosity and suspense had risen to a feverish excitement, which exalted the enthusiasm of those who witnessed her earliest appearances, and whose cries of admiration con- tinued to stimulate the eagerness of the public. Mr. Lumley must not (and probably does not) look for a continuance of this state of feeling. If Jenny Lind return next season, she will receive the welcome so justly due to her great qualities; but the mania of the season of 1847 will have sub- sided, and her presence will no longer throw " glamour" in the eyes of the public, rendering them blind and indifferent to every person and thing on the stage saving herself and her performance. Next season she will not be applauded to the echo in Norma; nor will her appearance serve as an excuse for a maimed opera of Mozart, or for a worthless opera of Verdi. In a word, Mr. Lumley must not, another season, count on the influence of any "bright particular star," even though that star be Jenny Lind. The Haymarket audience, as well as that of Covent Garden, will demand a satisfactory ensemble; and will not be satisfied with perform- ances in any degree inferior in completeness and general effect to the best of those which they have witnessed in bygone years. It must not be for- gotten, that his theatre no longer possesses the great feature which so long distinguished it par excellence—the unrivalled " Opera Band." Even should be accomplish the difficult task of forming such another, it will no longer stand alone and unequalled : and thus, weakened in one of his chief points, it is the more necessary that he strengthen himself in every other. In the long run, the preference will be given, not to the theatre which pro- duces a succession of isolated stars, however brilliant, but to that which, in the entire performance of an opera, fulfils most completely the design of the author and satisfies the taste and judgment of a critical audience. After all, the question of the expediency or practicability of two Italian Operas in London is not decided by the experiment of this season. Too Many disturbing forces have been at work. The first formation of a new theatre on so great a scale was of itself sufficient to create a temporary ex- citement and interest in operatic affairs; an interest immeasurably increased by the acquisition of Jenny Lind—for it is no doubt that she contributed greatly, though indirectly, to fill the walls even of Covent Garden. On the other hand, the difficulties and embarrassments under which this theatre is said to have labour ad, have probably been owing to errors in management and expenditure, which experience may correct.