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Thirty years ago, and a little earlier, " Di tanti palpiti" was sung by Pasta on the stage, was heard at every concert, warbled by vocal young ladies in every drawingroom, and strummed on the pianoforte, disfigured with variations and flourishes, by school-girls all over the kingdom. These, and other pleasant reminiscences of old days, were recalled by the revival of Tancredi on Tuesday at Her Majesty's Theatre, for the sake of Johanna Wagner's appearance as the hero of the piece. But, those associations apart, we could not but feel, along with the audience in general, that this famous opera has not now the effect which it produced in the time of its early and unbounded popularity. The music was then as fresh as it was charming ; but many things, once new and original, have been repeated by Rossini himself and his fol- lowers till they have lost their zest and piquancy, and have actually be- come threadbare and worn. We felt this with sadness, for it was like looking on the face of an old love when it has gathered wrinkles : but all things must obey the law of change, and nothing more than music, es- pecially the music of the theatre. People have become more fastidious, too, as to the dramatic merits of operas, than they were in those years of old. The younger composers have generally been furnished with sub- jects of strong interest—subjects, indeed, with which they have seldom had power to grapple ; and how often have people exclaimed, after a weak opera of Donizetti or Verdi, " What would such a story have been in the hands of Mozart !" An " opera seria " of the old school is a jumble of conventionalities—heroes and heroines like nothing that ever lived in the world, who "strut and fret their hour upon the stage " im- mersed in fantastic woes—who " come like shadows, so depart," without raising a spark of sympathy. Even when this opera was young, nobody cared about the sorrows of Tancredi and Amenaide. Pasta and Rubini sang Rossini's fresh and lovely music ; and that was enough. The music is still lovely, but no longer fresh; while the doughty champion, who puts to death every enemy who stands in his way, is liker the Duke of Buckingham's Drawcansir than anybody else ; the ridicule being in- creased by Drawcansir appearing in the form of a handsome young woman, clad in the epicene costume of the opera stage. In this opera, therefore, Mademoiselle Wagner had only her singing to depend upon. She acted the part perhaps as well as any of her prede- cessors, and probably looked it better. If her head is not as noble as Pasta's, her figure is more commanding, and all her movements were free, striking, and graceful. She still laboured under the disadvantage of singing music foreign to her school; but she got over this disadvantage better than in her former essays. She did not sing like an Italian ; but her singing, in her own German fashion, was on the whole ex- cellent. She cannot execute Rossini's florid triplets and divisions with the lightness, the smoothness, the pearly roundness of a finished Italian singer; but she did execute them ; and she threw into the music gene- rally a breadth of phrase and a marked intensity of expression which may be called German characteristics. If she could not give its full measure of sweetness to the famous " Di tanti palpiti," she made up for the defi- ciency by her powerful delivery of the great duet, " Lasciami non ascolto !" and by her grand bunt of martial ardour in the " ice° k trombe I " Mademoiselle Jenny Baur lacked strength for the part of Amenaide, which demands a singer of great vocal power. She has a sweet voice, but she is compelled to overstrain it, and then it gets not only harsh but out of tune. Reichardt acquitted himself ably and successfully as Argi- rio,—who, in the libretto as now used, is the heroine's brother, not her father. Dramatically speaking it matters little what he is, and it is better that a tenor part should be a young than an old man. The little part of Orbazzano was passably sustained by Bouehe. By the way, Tancredi, as thus represented, is an Italian opera without an Italian singer—" lucus a non lucendo "—the performers being three Germans and a Frenchman.
The Opera season at both houses has begun to count out its " last nights." At Her Majesty's, Wagner makes her last appearance on Mon- day, repeating the part of Tancredi ; and returns immediately to Berlin, her head-quarters. The unflagging sprite Piecolomini—pet of the sea- son !—appears tonight in a new part, Norina in Don .Pasquale. Next week, she plays all her three parts ; and repeats them during the follow- ing week, three "farewell performances" being added to the regular season, which terminates on the 2d of August. After that, the girlish prima donna visits the principal towns of the kingdom under the same direction, before going to Paris, where she is engaged at the Italian Opera. The Lyceum, according to the announcements, will close its doors in the week after next, unless there be additional perforthances ; which may probably be the case, though nothing is yet said about them. Signor Neri-Beraldi, a new tenor, has this week appeared with success in the part of Nemorino in the Elicit- d'dmore. He is an agreeable actor and a very elegant singer.
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