THE OPERA.
ONE of the moat exquisite performances of the melodious and effective opera I Puritani that has ever been heard took place at the Italian Theatre on Tuesday; signalizing the return of the great singers, Grisi, Lablache, and Mario; reinstating them in triumphant supremacy; and restoring Charm of vocal performance and combination which might be half supposed lost or forgotten, so long is it since the public have heard the like. From the commencement of the present brilliant instrumental season the vocal art has been at a disadvantage. The rare appearance of performers fitted by nature and education to excel in it place its real capabilities out of Eight; and when we turn for the counterpart of the magnificent Philhar- manic Symphonies, or the finished performances of the Beethoven Quartet Society, to such effects as the concert-singing of the day, with its inundation of commonplace solo performance, affords, the result is a decided indifference, if not dislike, to that branch of the art. But one night at the Opera such as that of Tuesday reclaims our allegiance. Song is still divine, though, except in the tones and bow of Sivori we have had for long months nothing worthy of the mane. When Grisi comes, whose least notes delivered under the breath in extremest pianissimo penetrate the house, we hear music that is worth pearls and gold; the charm of the vocal art is no longer a fiction, and its proof positive stands before us in the person of the enchantress her- self. The admiration with which she inspired her audience on Tuesday was as fresh a sensation of wonder and delight as if they bad never heard her before. This is the true prerogative of genius. After long years of familiarity with a certain style and organ, we wonder that the vivacity and excitement of our first impressions should be restored; yet this faculty of reviving freshness of effect has always distinguished singers of the first order: of Malibran, of Pasta, of Grisi, it may be truly said that "custom could not stale their infinite variety." The quality of Grisi's middle tones still represents in that particular the ideal of womanly loveliness. Nothing that we ever heard equalled the charm of these notes; and we place certain liThe subdued passages, of no moment to herself; as superior in point of effect to even her most ambitious and premeditated flights. When she sustains a long high note, (the A, for instance, in the celebrated polacca of the first act,) the extreme purity of the intonation and the nice art with which she dimin- ishes it make every nerve vibrate in unison. If the execute an arpeggio
or volata, we are delighted at the delicacy of tl, conception, and the beauty of the articulation. But these triumphs of s..:ll yield to the repose and grace of her performance as to a superior charm; and nothing of the great vocal artist can add to the interest of the Puritan's daughter in her picture of womanly feeling expressed in native heart-felt music.
Signor Mario appears to us a good deal altered in style and quality of tone, and for the present to be out of the read to improvement. In the
opening of his first scene on Tuesday, he was considerably flat, and not entirely free from the huskiness with which he has been often beset during late seasons. He, however, recovered himself, and went through his part well. The unadorned, simple, and manly style of the tenor, in which Mario first distinguished himself—singing, especially in 11 Barbiere, with
perfection rarely heard—he has now abandoned, for a more florid manner, with a very frequent and elaborate employment of the falsetto. In the exhibition of roulade and compass of voice, it must be confessed that he
does not shine; and though his present method may increase his popularity with superficial hearers, it will certainly not find favour with the expe-
rienced and soundly-judging. Lablache entered in his picturesque Puritan costume, the same in amplitude of figure, in geniality of bearing, and in volume of tone, that we have long known him. Applause and gratulation
were without end on the first glimpse of his portly form. He was in ex- traordinary voice for the occasion; with all his full, weighty, and sononner tones, entirely at command, and with so little occasion, apparently, of try- ing, like Mathews's musical traveller, whether he had " lost his G," that we heard him occasionally in the concerted music sporting with a double D,, as if in the luxuriance of power to test the compass and force of his dia- pason.
Nothing more admirably adapted than 1 Puritani to display the powers of Grisi, Mario, and Lablache, could have been selected for the reopeainie of the house. It brings all their finest notes into play; and it is sou thoroughly known by them, and by the audience too, for its pleasing and elegant melodies, as to be of unequalled effect amidst all the stores of tbo. modern opera. The music concerted with principal singers and chorus was executed with great beauty. Stimulated evidently by the exquisite. musical talent before them, the chorus and orchestra vied with each other in nicety of accompaniment; and the whole formed a treat, that challenges comparison with the highest recollections of the Italian Opera. Lovers of music, detained in the country during the holydays, will have reason to regret that Easter Tuesday is a day proscribed by the world of fashion.
Dragonetti, the great double-bass player, died on Thursday afternoon, at his house in Leicester Square; his friends, Mr. Vincent Novelle, Count Pepoli, Piggott, and Mr. To% ique, being around his bed. The Morning Chronicle gives such hasty biographical sketch as time will allow; whence we borrow some of ear dates and facts. biographical as he was familiarly called, was born at Venice, in 1762 or '4. His father was a player on the double-bass, and the boy Domenico was early set to work in the study of music: at nine he played on the guitar; next he studied theviolin; at twelve he played the dyable bass; and at thirteen he was nominated " primo basso" in the orchestra at the Opera Buffo! His skill as a performer on his own instrument has never been equalled. He possessed the most delicate musical susceptibility, combined with f he strength of a Titan: no other hand could so grasp the finger-board and hawser-strings of the big fiddle; and his perfect mastery was shown not only in the power of tone but far mom in the rich sweetness that he wrung from the huge instrument. We have heard that he sometimes exhibited his physical strength in a piece of horse-play not unsuited to the eccentricity. of his character: he would enter a public-house, order a pot of porter, drink it off, squeeze the pewter into a crumpled lump like paper, anti lay it upon the counter. Ile retained his wonderful skill and power to the hat and his place in the orchestra of Her Majesty's Theatre down to the beginniag the present season. In personal character Dragonetti was as upright and amiable as he was simple and eccentric. He possessed an Amati double-bass, which he has bequeathed to the Chapel of San Marco at Venice.
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