Covent Garden Operahouse was crowded to overflowing on Thursday night,
and the audience were in a state of extraordinary excitement' during. the whole performance. Yet the opera was only the well-worn L uerezta Borgia, with Grisi, Mario, and Ronconi, as they have often been before, in the principal characters. The opera has many a time been bet- ter performed at the old house, when Grisi and Mario were in their prime, when the matchless Lablache was the terrible Duke Alfonso, and when the part of Orsini was filled by Brambilla, the most charming con- tralto of our day : and it has often been as well or better performed at this same theatre. How, then, are we to account for a scene of enthu. siasm hardly exceeded in the unparalleled days of Jenny Lind ? Is it because those fine performances, once so frequent as to be taken as mat- ter of course, are beginning to be looked upon as precious things, he_ coming rare, and likely, in the increasing poverty of the Italian stage, to be lost altogether ? The reign of the queen of tragic song is drawing to its close, and the return of every season gives us joy to see it prolonged ; and it is with a like feeling that we enjoy the still exquisite tones of the great tenor. The enthusiasm is a mixture of pleasure and regret ; only heightened by the question we all ask ourselves, and to which there is no answer—when they are gone, who shall succeed them ?
Previous page
