23 JUNE 1855, Page 14

PARISIAN THEATRICALS.

Verdi's new opera, Lea Vipres Siciiiennes, flourishes in great glory at thq Academie, where itwas recently ushered into public existence in the• presence of their Imperial Majesties. hi. Scribe, who has furnished the: words, shows himself a good patriot. 'It is not easy to enlist the sympa- thies of the audience on the French side in the tale of the Sicilian Ves-, pas, where Charles of Anjou so manifestly appears as the oppressor; yet M. Scribe contrives to make the tyrant so very magnanimous• and for- giving, and the conspirators for liberty so utterly regardless of the claims. - of gratitude, that when the curtain fails, we are impressed with a convic- tion that old. John of Procida was a most disagreeable personage; and that. the Sicilians were most unreasonable hr fretting under the French do- minion! Iron virtue may be made so exceedingly metallic as to lift the. virtuous personage out of the sphere of humanity altogether ; and it is with a knowledge of this principle that M. Scribe has sung of the mas- sacre so often sung before.

An Anglomania and a Gmeamania . are at present raging at Paris. The Salle Ventadour is occupied by Mr. and Mrs. W. Wallack, late of -the Merylebone; who, with an Bleglish company, are astounding the French with Macbeth. At the Odeon, a new version of the Medea of Eu- ripides rises up, with geographical Correctness, in the-neighbourhood of the- Quartier Latin: