ITALIAN OPERA.
Tam last scene of Lucrezia Borgia, as represented for the first time this season on Saturday night, produced so grand a display of tragic energy and passion on the part of Gum and MORLSIO, as floated the work successfully, albeit in its general character no very favourable specimen of the talents of Dommerre The running hand of the voluminous Maestro is sensibly impressed on the score ; which is deficient in serious and elevated purpose, and more stocked with conventionalisms than with the melodious elegancies that characterize his happier moods. Not but there are beautiful things here, which now and then reward patient attention ; but they are too fugitive. The colouring of the work, moreover, is deficient in depth and melancholy : festive and car- nival music hear so large a proportion to the whole, that the effect of the catastrophe is dissipated, and unity of purpose destroyed. This is a false calculation in a work of art, which it will become Doutzerri to amend when he desigus a masterpiece in the place of sundry finished scenes.
The division of the opera of Lucrezia Borgia into Prologue and In- troduction with two subsequent acts, is a curiosity in its structure. The heroine, who enters in the second scene of the Prologue masked from a gondola, brings with her a decided improvement in the music. GRIST shone here in the pathetic and bravura styles. MORIANI sang also a sort of barcarole in F, " Di pescatore ignobile," in which he would have been more advantageously heard but for the frequent breaking of his voice near the region of his falsetto during the first part of the even- ing. These misfortunes, which happily did not continue, were leniently received, as they certified but too truly his recent indisposition. The close of the Prologue has a situation of a very moving character for the prima donna. The mask is torn from the face of Luerezia, and she receives the insults and reproaches of a set of men who rise before her like the ghosts before the tent of Richard. Here Gaist finely portrayed the agony of womanly despair ; and the spectator, who had no leisure to revert to history for the crimes of so charming a creature, gave her due sympathy. That plots, poisonings, and other monstrous forms of crime, should lurk under the candour of her white muslin, seemed a thing impossible ; and it is a dramatic question how far such a charac- ter can or ought to be judged by a foregone conclusion.
The first act introduced the Duke of Ferrara, a Borgia, predestined by his dark deeds to gruffness, and personated by LABLACHE with his usual ability and picturesqueness of costume. In his singing, how- ever, he was less fortunate than usual. He has had the good sense to turn his figure to account, as Falstaff "diseases to commodity" ; bit it is evident that his obesity, which renders locomotion proportionably laborious, shortens his breath and impairs his efforts in sustained song or when compelled to exhibit as a basso cautante. The air which he sings in this place, expressive of his meditated revenge, seemed to cost him more effort than we ever witnessed : the sounds were thrown out and sustained with difficulty, as if under great physical oppres- sion. We hope that LABLACHE is good for some years longer on oar Opera-stage, but it must be with a contracted circle of characters. His notes of accompaniment are as effective as ever, especially when short; his attempts at the cantabile alone discover the progress of years. In the poisoning-scene towards the close of this act, Mortessu began to show to advantage. A terzetto takes place here between the Duke, the Dutchess, and Gennaro—" Oh ! se sapessi "—by encoring which, in spite of the strongly tragic business that marks the situation, the ad- mirers of MoRIANI embarrassed the singers. A second assassination— a death over again—has ceased to be an absurdity since the days of Mr. Romeo CoATEs. And we must say of the actors, that they on their part take small pains to poison themselves with propriety, or with due respect to the decorum of make-believe. In the energy of action, the chalice is continually inverted; and then the actor affects to drink, in defiance of all the laws of philosophy—and of gravity in both senses. Of this en passant. The terzetto suited MORIANI, whose voice had now lost its crack ; and he sang out with so much power as to throw Gain and LABLACHE almost wholly into the shade. It is the fault of Moslem that he tends in every thing to exaggeration. His fine natural talents want refining : his concerted singing requires more of that tact which restrains within a given point, and beautifies itself in beautifying the voices of others—his acting, more of the troth of Nature's mirror. His faults are, however, what are called "good faults"; and, when experience, and familiarity with the best models of the London and Paris Opera, shall have tamed his wildness and im- petuosity, they may be mellowed down into excellences—if his intona- tion be not in the mean time spoiled by over-exertion. His death- scene, from poison, in the last act, was a fine and terrible scene of physical suffering. Like the rest of his exhibitions, however, it was somewhat over-done ; and the hearer turned from the painful verisimili- tude of his groans and throes in this prolonged scene, to view the grand and impassioned attitudes with which the imaginative Gamer filled the stage. This was quite a triumph of art; and the truth and beauty with which she invested the scene excited general admiration. DONIZETIE is, however, not to be commended for the bravura passages which he has given to the mother of the dead Gennaro: this is a compliance with stage-conventions which enfeebles the general effect. We have omitted to notice, among the pleasing parts of the opera, the duet in octaves between Gennaro and Lucrezia, with which the first at closes. There are also two choruses of soldiers, one in the first act and another at the commencement of the second, both exceedingly good compositions, though generally unnoticed. In the latter, in F major, " Ma silenzio," there is a point in which the basses answer the tenors, that is most beautiful. Such indications peeping out here and there, amidst a world of trash and makeweight, render us still hopeful of Dontazwri, when he shall -think fit profit by his leisure.
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