THE THEATRES.

Tee new opera, Arnilie, or the Love Test, now performing at Covent Garden, has been the means of making the public acquainted with the merits of a composer who, as we are informed, has long wasted his talents hi obscurity, from the want of an opportunity of making them known. Fifteen years ago, we have been told, the greatest singer of the age endeavoured without success to prevail on the Drury Lane management to accept an opera of Mr. ROOKE'S—not impossibly the opera now so successfully produced by Mr. MACREADY. It is better, we believe, as it is. When Oberon was brought out only eleven years ago, the English public were not ripe for its reception. That glorious work was violently applauded for a few nights, because its author had a great name ; but the factitious enthusiasm speedily subsided, and the work and the composer were treated with a neglect which doubtless embittered the last days of Weeetes life. Mr. HOOKE's opera, fifteen years ago, would have been greatly in advance of the taste of the age in England ; and as there was no celebrated name to create a prestige in its favour, its probable fate, at that time, is hardly matter of conjecture. Now the case is different. The names of MOZART, BEETHOVEN, WEBER, and SWIM, are becoming familiar among us as household words ; and Mr. HOOKE, a worthy disciple of their school, will, we hope, find, "That, though a late, a sure reward succeeds."

RAMEAU was turned of fifty when he produced the first of that series of operas which engrossed the French musical- stage for half a century, and raised him, among his countrymen, to the pinnacle of fame Mr. HOOKE, in like manner, may yet have a long career of successful exer- tion before him.

The scene of this opera is laid in the Tyrol ; and the characters are

the chamois-hunters, gipsies, and mountain youths and damsels, of that romantic land. The composer has wisely given a local colouring to his music, by many happy touches of Tyrolese melody, and has thus heightened its character and interest. From the overture, that touch- stone of a true musician, the hearer is at once prepared for a classical and masterly work. It is not, as WEBER says in his posthumous satire, "a noise made in the orchestra, merely for the purpose of procuring silence, which in Italy is termed an overture :" it is a well-constructed and symmetrical composition, the subject of which is treated with that unity of design and variety of effect which characterize the chi f s-d'cruvre of the German school. The impression made by the overture is con- firmed by the airs and choral strains of the chamois-hunters in the first scene, which are full of freedom and freshness. By the way, there is a capital flight in the words of one of these. The ardent hunters are angry with the sun for not rising, and rate him thus—.

'• Say, shall the sun break his sleep of disgrace, When by Montle he might here be surrounded ?"

Very silly in the sun, truly, to disgrace himself by lying so long abed and keeping his loving friends waiting for him ! " But it matters little," says the Post, "how the sun is treated, if the music is good." We beg the Post's pardon : the sun is rising—and nobody is better aware than our contemporary of the propriety of worshipping "the rising sun." Mr. HOOKE'S music evinces richness of ideas, and facility in ex- pressing them. There is no stiffness or constraint—no appearance of his thoughts having been laboriously " squeezed from hard-bound brains." His mind is full of materials, and he knows how to use them. We may apply to him what a popular writer on music has said of Weeeit—" His mind was enriched and fertilized, if the expression may be allowed, not only by an extensive study of the works of the greatest composers, but by the observation of all the phenomena of nature from which musical impressions are derived.* In his vocal phrases, as well as orchestral effects, there are many things which re. mind US Of MOZART, BEETHOVEN, and WEBER; but these are agree- able reminiscences, indicating a mind deeply imbued with the spirit of those great masters. It follows of course that his taste is pure; a geirius so disciplined is necessarily incapable of any thing coarse, vulgar, or Inelegant. His instrumentation is full and powerful, but free from the unmeaning noise which prevails in this " brazen age's of music. He awakes, at times, the whole thunders of the orchestra, but never unless when there is a good dramatic reason for it. Upon the whole, the reception which this opera bus met with shows, (contrary to an opinion which is too prevalent,) that it is not at all necessary for an English aspirant to musical honours to sacrifice to the vitiated taste created among the frequenters of the Italian theatre by the unworthy followers of ROsSINI.

The drama is naught. In this respect Mr. HOOKE, we are sorry to

say, shows no better judgment than his brethren ; arid therefore, ad- mirable as his music is, and well as it has been received, the success of els opera will be but temporary. We have constantly endeavoured to impress upon English composers the necessity of pitying some atten- tion to the quality of the dramas in which they exercise (and generally throw away) their talents : on the present occasion we are glad to find our opinions corroborated and illustrated by an excellent writer in the Morning Chronicle.

" Arc mere sound and show to be always considered as the only requisites in

• its i.tsta's Musical Illotory. an English opera? There was a time when our sauecaletra us possessed lite- rary as well as musical merit ; and when the pleasure derived from comic scenes and affecting incidents was heightened by the gay and touching, melodies of our best composers. Now.a-days any thing will du for an opera. Provided.

there are moonlight scenes, insides of cathedrals, processions, pageants, tuad

dances, it matters nothing to the composer and manager, though the dialogue be fustian, the verses doggrel, the whole piece a farrago of absurdity and confu- sion. But to the public it still matters something, though not so much.. is ought to do: it will be found that though, from the mere gratification of the eye and the ear, a foolish piece may obtain a temporary run, yet it will never comiu,iud a solid and substantial success. It will never become a stock piece, like our old English operas, reproduced year after year with undiminished at- traction, and giving its composer a name in the annals of the art. The English

public will run for a while after a theatrical novelty which may happen, some

how or other, to have become the rage of the hour; but they will soon be weary of it, unless it afford some rational occupation for the mind. Want of dramatic merit, besides, has caused even the innuedi.ttc failure, in various recent instances, of operas the music of which was of acknowledged excellence. All the foreign operas—Italian, French, and German—which have become popular

on the English stage, owe their success to their dramatic as well as musical at-

traction. They are either interesting or amusing. Is it for the sake of the music only that our audiences have persevered so long in going to see Don

Giovanni, Figaro, The Barber of Seville, .211itsunicllo, Td!, The

Sonnantbula, or Fidelio? The.re,.and such as these, will keep their places on the stage long after all the Engli.h operas produced within the present century— those even which have been ' received by crowded audiences with the utmost enthusiasm '—shall have been utterly forgotten."

The Covent Garden management is entitled to great praise for the manner in which this piece has been brought out. The cast is very strong ; incIeding Miss SIIIRREtE, Miss P. HORTON, WILSON,

Pitmen's, and lIeevelts. And we have never heard these performers to greater advantage. It must have been carefully rehearsed ; for the

choruses and concerted pieces were sung with spirit and accuracy, and

the orchestra did its duty ably. The scenery, costumes, and decora- tions, indicated liberality and good taste. One scene in particular, representing a valley in the Tyrol, with castled crags rising up here and there, and the Alps towering in the distance, is finely conceived and admirably painted : indeed' they all reflect great credit on MAR.. SHALL'S talent.