MADAME MALIBRAN.
Tins queen of song has arrived among us again, to distance all her competitors, and to exhibit her unrivalled powers in whatever form, style, language, or character she may choose to assume. MALIIIRAN is, beyond all doubt, the greatest mistress of her art that the present or perhaps any former age has produced. She has the power to enter into the lists with every European rival in succession and to come otr conqueror. At Naples and at Milan, they know her only as the greatest of Italian singers. In fact, the music of their operas is, to them music. It takes no other form or colour. But so sensible are the Milanese of her supremacy, that her engagement at La Scala is extended to seven years, awl amounts to a sum rather exceeding 17,0(X1/. ; and this, too, is but fOr the feeblest development of her powers. We know her as the representative of Legneru—as the purest and the most perfect sieges of MOZART'S songs—as the only woman by whom thg impassioned strains et I Isxnes can be uttered we know that there is not a vs:sil miter of any age or language with whom she is unable to fil!y her:ell; but the Italians recognize in MALTBRAN only a Ar.orata, iti Ambra, (Cr al! Annie Barna. Is it to show her proficiency in music:a fllI Cliv, her power of transmuting lead into gold, that she chooss-A one sf these characters to reappear in at Drury Lane ? She certainly voterives to invest the part of sbnina, in Bessiees humdrum opera, with great vocal beauty as well as strong dramatic interest. Bat we scarcely revoenize Irsissei in her version of him. She is not only sieges but composer ; and her conStlipmate musical knowledge, iiil led to her luxuriant fancy, enables her to sub- stitute variety for monotoey, and to make the desert ldossom as the roes. Glum should avidd tIejeharacter while NI LIBRAN is her rival. Having heard Geist cried., ‘v! are fully possessed of all that she can or means to accomplish. She 1.•,; learned her character, ineluding the embroidery of every air ; end this is repeated, with parrot-like uni- formity, at every successive reprdeentation. ALIRRAN Sttldies it, not as a singer merely, but as a musician. She knows the structure of every song; and impulse, troidt d by this knowledse, an the rest. What a song shall happen to be on any given night, depends 0O her temper, Oa her excitement or the want of it—on her sudience. She has a very quick perception of the taste of her hearers : if they know bow to value pearls, she will bestow them ; but she will never (except in sport) cast them before swine. She was welcomed on Monday night with enthusiasm by a crowded house, and is shortly to appear in a new opera by Muse.
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