THE OPERA.
'NE discerning people of this country ate what were called golden pippins long after the graft had worn out and they had returned to the primitive nature of crabs, under a firm persuasion that they were to be esteemed and relished as golden pippins, only because they had been gathered from the trees which had for years produced the fruit. The palate gave no intelligence corrective of the habit • of estimation. A similar obtuseness is observable in other pro- vinces of the taste. Some operas have been tolerably got up, and accordingly approved ; inferior performers have been substi- tuted for better artists in material parts, and casts have thus been passed off in repetitions which would not have been endured on a first presentation. The gradual metamorphosis of S.r JOHN CUTLER'S stockings has been played off upon an audience whose perceptions seem unequal to the apprehension of an alteration. The silk has been darned to worsted, but as silk it passes to the last botch. R Matrimonio Segreto has been the most successful, nay the only successful production of the season. Miss BELL- CHAMBERS was a fault, but LALANDE and MALIBRAN redeemed the blemish. For MALIBRAN, however, after a time, Ses:ciii was substituted, and the effect of the whole opera by this change de- stroyed. SPECHI can neither sing the music, nor act the part al- lotted to her. • Yet the maimed, performance has gone off without disapprobation, and apparently as much to the satisfaction of the gentle audience as when it was effectively cast. By virtue only of keeping its name, the crab has been relished as golden pippin. We must, however, do the patience of the audience and the in- trepidity of the management the justice of admitting, that pieces have been presented this season with a illany of cast admitting of no deterioration. In several instances, the management has began with doing its worst, and then admirably observed the epic rule of consistency. —"Servetur ad imum Qualls ab inecepto." For example, we never had a notion how very badly ROSSINI'S Barbiere could be done, till we saw it this season, with all of the performers in characters the most unsuited to them,—MALIBRAN as Rosina ; CURIONI, the Count ; LABLACHE, the dapperF4aro ; AMBROGI, Bartolo. What shall be said, too, of the last act of the . ,Romeo e Giulietta, with CASTELLI in the part of Giulietta, the representative of youth, graCe, and loveliness ! Nor was Meet- wax's Romeo a much more exact personation ; and so meagre and ill-conditioned did she contrive to look in the part, that we could have easily mistaken it for the starved apothecary paying a resurrectionary visit to the tomb. After Giulietta's revival in the person of CASTELLI, we fancied we saw the lean and squalid man of medicine duetting with the nurse of the story. MALIBRAN destroys the effect of her undeniable talents, ley overdoing what- ever she attempts. In Gli Orazj, she upbraids her brother with that peciiliar contraction of visage, and mode of gesture, observ- able to this day in the vehemence of basket and barrow women: the shrugged shoulders thrown forward, narrowed chest, clenched hands, and butted head, were all true to the irate genius of the market. This may be called nature, but it is the nature of a vul- gar species, and too easily imitable. All these, however, and di- vers other blemishes, pass without censure, or with applause, for -extravagance of any kind is pretty sure of favourable acceptation with the large proportion of ill-judging persons which enter into the composition of every audience. BROCARD, a third-rate dancer, has been for some time past the first in the Ballet ; and the Somnambule has been acted night after night with the drowsiest effect, and sent us sleep-walking from the house. Three ballets have run through the season,— Guillaume Tell, a failure ; Masaniello, two years old; and La Bomnambule, the same. " Quosque abutere ?"
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