The Royal Italian Opera has put forth the usual general
prospectus, heralding the commencement of the season next week. It announces a strong company, though there are one or two omissions of favourite names which we regret to see. At the head of the company, we gladly welcome once more the name of Grisi, the queen of Italian Bong; and we rejoice the more became we thought, when lest season ended, that we had taken leave of her for ever. Let us make much of her this time, for it is now officially announced that it is positively her last season. Next to Grisi stands Sophie Cruvelli ; whose reputation, rapidly rising when she left England, has risen much higher since : at Paris she now holds with unbounded éclat the place of prima donna, not at the Italian, but at the French house, the Academia Imperial°. Next comes Viardot Garcia -always welcome ; and then Angelina Bosio, a charming singer and a pretty actress. Four finer soprani than these, certainly, could not be expected ; but still the absence of Castellan, so long and so deservedly favourite, will make a blank. There is only the French contralto of last season, Mademoiselle Didiee ; by far too weak for so important
a position. For tenors, there are Mario Tamberlik, Stigelli, adLucchesi ; for baritones, Ronconi and Forirai, the last a stranger, for basses, Lablache, Tagliafieo, Polomm, Zelger, and Swint.
Lablache'n name in-connexion with the Royal Italian Opera sounds like the knell of the old house. He stood by it faithfully to the last ; and his passing over to what has so long been "the enemy's camp," seems to say that the power which had his fealty exists no more. He will be warmly welcomed, and not the less for his fidelity to his old standard. Formes is another absence which will be felt : there are several parts which he had made his own. The announcement of pieces—new to the theatre, that is, for there are no pieces positively new, to announce—is very meagre. Two only are worthy of notice,—Spontini's Yestale, and Weber's Oberon. The Vestige has not been performed in England for at least a quarter of a century, and Oberon never on the Italian stage at all. The others are, A:uber's Domino Noir, so thoroughly French as to be of very doubtful success on an Italian stage ; the familiar Don Pasquale; and Matilda di Shabran, an inferior and forgotten opera of Rossini. Only three of these are positively promised this season ; and it would not be difficult to guess which three it will be—at all events it is pretty certain that Oberon will not be one, an opera which has been promised again and again.
Costa continues director of the music. What could they do vrithont him ? He is the life and soul of the theatre. There is to be a ballet, and the names of dancers are announced. But people seem to ears little about ballet now-a-days : it has declined along with Her Majesty's Theatre, and appears verging towards dissolution.
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