THE ITALIAN OPERA.
NOTHING can more strongly evince the sinking- condition of the Italian Opera, than the exhibition of Tuesday evening. In the very height of the season, with a company consisting of PASTA, CINTI, DE MERIC, DONZELLI, RUBINI, ZUCHELLI, and TAMBU- HINT, the manager is compelled to have recourse to that outrage upon common sense and good taste, the performance of two acts of different operas. We say compelled, for it is not conceivable that he would wantonly mutilate a work of art for the mere bar- barous enjoyment of the mischief. Yes—with this company, we were obliged to put up with the first act of La Gazza Ladra and the first act of Anna Bolena. What should we say of a manager who announced " the First Act of the Maid and the Magpie, to conclude with the First Act of Henry the Eighth ," And yet is this in any degree more ludicrous or more barbarous than the heterogeneous jumble of Tuesday night? In its perfect form, the Italian Opera is a concentration of all the fine arts, of which music is the vivifying principle. Its present degradation in this country may be attributed to the ignorance and abominable taste of those who frequent it ; to whom the language is indifferent be- cause unintelligible, the music esteemed in proportion to its worth- lessness, and the singing most applauded whenever it is most faulty. La Gazza Ladra is an opera which, when committed to competent singers, it is a luxury to hear. And such was the case on Tuesday night. We never heard the terzetto "0 nume bene- fico," more perfectly sung than by CINTI, TAMBURINI, and ZUCHELLI. The fine rich bass of the latter came rolling down to the lower F, like the full mellow tone of an open diapason; while every part was linked to the other in the most perfect and delight- ful concord. And just as we were getting into the full enjoyment of the piece, the curtain fell, and rose again to exhibit the abject poverty and nakedness of BELLINI ! No words can express the sensation which this change created. Let the gourmand imagine a dish of the highest flavour succeeded by a boiled potato without butter or salt; let him drink a glass of champagne and then quaff a goblet of stale small beer ; and he will have some faint notion of the effect of Anna Bolena after La Gazza Ladra. We have heard it before, but never in such juxtaposition; and it was dull and stupid beyond all power of description. PASTA produced an effect by the energy and declamatory power which she threw into some of the recitatives ; but here the merit was all her own, for a recitative is just what a singer chooses to make it. Her singing is very much what it was : it has the same excellences, and the same defects. The stage is her element, and she should never quit it. Her declamatory power has here full scope; and we almost pardon her faulty intonation (a defect which appears to have increased upon her) when weighed against the power and truth with which she portrays the strongest passions and emotions of the mind. RUBINI is just the singer for such trash as the music of BELLINI. It is a fit vehicle for his endless and unmeaning roulades, of which we had it complete surfeit.
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