THEATRES AND MUSIC.
Le Prophite, which has raised so much expectation in our musical circles, has at length been produced at Covent Garden. Judging from the great crowd attracted to witness its first performance on Tuesday, and the fer- vour of its reception, and adding to this its previous long run in Paris, we might conclude that its success is equal to that of Robert is Diable or
the Hguenos. But this conclusion would be premature. A first per- formance before an audience influenced by strong prepossession goes for little. and even in Paris much of the success hitherto experienced by the Proplcins must be ascribed to the prestige of novelty. It remains to be seen whether the success will be permanent a question not unattended with doubt. The subject has a resemblance to that of the Huguenots; both being
founded on the convulsions and horrors produced by the madness of reli- gious fanaticism. In the Prophite, the fanaticism is that of the Westpha- lian Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; a sect who, besides holding cer- tain theological heresies, embraced the wildest antisocial doctrines, particu- larly equality of condition and community of property,—doctrines which the grinding tyranny of the feudal aristocracy of that day rendered attrac- tive to the peasantry, and which were consequently used by ambitious demagogues as the means of exciting the multitude to dreadful excesses. Scribe has chosen for the hero of his drama John of Leyden, historically known as the principal leader of these fanatics; who, after waging a deso- lating war against the possessors of rank and property—being crowned as sovereign of Germany by his followers, who held him in veneration as an inspired personage—and bolding the city of Munster for a long time against the Imperial forces—was at length overpowered and made to pay the just penalty of his crimes. Not a promising hero, certainly, for a dramatic work; and Scribe, though he has softened the most revolting features of his charactel, has failed to make him an object of interest. " Jean " is represented as being a young innkeeper of Leyden, about to be married to a peasant-girl of the neighbourhood, but deprived of his bride by the licentious tyranny of a feudal lord, who has seized her and conveyed her to his castle. Jean, his mind thus inflamed by injury and predisposed to fanaticism, readily gives ear to the Anabaptist missionaries who seek in him at once a tool and a leader, and precipitately departs with them; leaving his mother, Fides, in ignorance of his fate. By force of character he becomes the chief of the insurgents; heading their enterprises till they wade through blood to the possession of the Westphalian capital. Here he is crowned Emperor, in the cathedral, with pompous ceremonial. His mother' reduced to beggary, and induced to believe that he had been slain by the all-dreaded "Prophet," has mingled with the crowd in the cathe- dral, and recognizes in the Prophet himself her lost son. Her wild cry pro- duces general confusion; the mother and son are both in danger from the awakened suspicions of the fanatics; and Jean, working on his mother's fears for his life, compels her to retract what she had uttered and declare that she never had a son. The people ascribe this sudden change to the supernatural power of the Prophet, and shout "a miracle," while the in- truder is carried to prison. Her son visits her privately; her prayers and remonstrances fill his mind with remorse; and the unexpected appearance of his betrothed Bertha concurs in awakening all his better feelings: but Bertha, who has learned to regard the Prophet with horror, and now finds that her lover and the Prophet are one, in the agony of blighted love stabs herself. Jean, phrensied by despair, and conscious that his principal fol- lowers have conspired to deliver him up to the Emperor, resolves on a deed of sweeping vengeance: he invites them all to a banquet, and secretly sets fire to the building; and every one within its walls—his mother, who has rushed in to share his fate among the number—perishes in the flames! Such is the broad outline of the story. Though complicated in its de- tails, it has only one interesting feature—the character of Fides, and the self-devotion of her maternal love. Jean is a personage who creates no sympathy; a mere embodiment of fanaticism, a mixture of hypocrisy and madness, with no principle, and no abiding passion but a wild ambition which urges him to the greatest crimes. His character even derogates from the beauty of hi mother's love; for a feeling, to produce its effect, must meet the sympathetic feeling of the audience, which here cannot exist. These is nothing in the Proph:ete like the great scene between the lovers in the Huguenots, which wrings the heart of every spectator with compassion for the hapless pair. Bertha is a character merely episodical, and very slightly drawn; and all the rest of the dramatis persoute are remplissage. We therefore place the Prophets, as a drama, far below the Huguenots; and this is a good ground for being doubtful of its comparative success. It is, moreover, clumsily constructed: a great portion of it moves very heavily, and irould be intolerably tedious were the dulness of the action not relieved by striking musical effects. A much larger proportion than in the Hugue- nots is occupied in barren spectacle—processions, pageants, and dances. The second act is mostly made up of a divertissement, (the famous "skating scene,") which stops the action, besides being out of keeping with the sub- ject. The grand serious opera is degraded by being thus made a vehicle for melodramatic spectacle.
Of the music we must speak with reserve, though our impressions de- rived from a single hearing have been somewhat assisted by a rapid perusal of the score. Elaborate and complicated music requires great precision on the part of the performers, and some familiarity with it on the part of the listener, before its effects can be either completely produced or fully felt. The dilliculty in this case is increased by Meyerbeer's studied efforts at novelty, by his evident anxiety to avoid all beaten tracks and all esta- blished models. Ills melodies, even in the simplest of the airs, are, in their very subjects, of strange and unaccustomed rhythms, which the ear cannot readily seize, and wander in their progress into remote and unex- pected keys, whose relation with the general tonic cannot easily be per- ceived. Such melodies, though not immediately pleasing even to a prac- tised ear, often acquire a charm which more familiar strains do not produce —a charm quite understood by those who remember the impressions they have gradually received from the music of Beethoven Weber, Spohr, and Mendelssohn. In his combinations Meyerbeer is a still greater innovator. The whole progress of harmony has been a constant relaxation of contra- puntal restrictions; and discords which would have set Corelli's teeth on edge, and which Haydn and Mozart rarely hazarded, are found in every page of a modern composition. In the present opera, Meyerbeer has car- ried this boldness to an extent unprecedented even in his own works. He has accumulated simultaneous sounds in a way which seems at once grat- ing to the ear and irreconcileable to the laws of harmony. But use may reconcile them to the ear, and then the laws must be opened to receive them. We find, however, things which, to our thinking, savour of mere pedantry. Among these are endless enharmonic changes, and the frequent use of extreme keys without any imaginable benefit in the way of effect. For instance, there is a whole movement in the key of A flat minor—seven flats; a key of which, except in some few notes of transient modulation, we have never suet a single instance in any author. Had the same movement been in the simple key of A minor, (easily reached by a somewhat altered course of modulation in the previous passages,) would there have been the slightest difference of effect? Of this superfluous learning the score pm. Bents a multitude of examples. We must add to what, in the present state of our impressions, we regard as the faults of this music—its ex sive and overpowering loudness, caused by the inordinate use of the most bruyant instruments. The drums, trombones, ophicleides, and cornets-a_ piston, stun the ear, drown the voices, and render the occurrence of a quiet passage as welcome as a green and shady spot in the burning desert. But these faults, if faults they are, are more than overbalanced by no. questionable beauties. Meyerbeer is the most dramatic of composers, if perhaps we except Gluck. Certainly no musician has ever represented with so much truth and power the passions and movements of great as- semblages of people. In this respect the Huguenots transcends every opera in existence, and the Prophite does not greatly fall short of it. The cho- ruses which express the fury of the excited peasantry, in the first act—the martial shouts of the Anabaptist army about to assault the city, in the second--and in the third, the ecclesiastical solemnities of the coronation thrown into a scene of confusion—are specimens of his power in wielding mighty masses of harmony. The chorus which begins the opera, on the other hand, is a charming picture of rustic tranquillity. All the airs have more or less of the peculiar feature already noticed, novelty of rhythm. but some of them flow so beautifully that they at once charm the hearer, and all of them have a strong dramatic expression. Among the most taking of these melodies, we may mention the little duet in the first act, "Della Moss. nil di," sung by Fides and Bertha, and Jean's bacchanalian song in the last scene; both of which must become immediately popular.
In the performance of this opera, as in that of the Huguenots, a profusion of means have been employed to render the ensemble grand and imposing; beautiful scenery, splendid decorations, and multitudes picturesquely grouped and thrown into animated action on the stage. The choral effects were produced by multitudinous voices, and the orchestra displayed its usual power; though power was not, either in the chorus or the orchestra, tempered by sufficient smoothness. Imperfect execution, besides being wanting in clearness, is always indiscriminately loud; for it is only when the performers are quite at home in their parts that they can subdue their tones according to the gradations demanded by expression and effect. Considering the short time said to have been spent in preparation, (not a tenth part of what was bestowed in Paris,) it is wonderful that the first performance should have been so good; but several other performances must yet have the effect of additional rehearsals in producing the requisite precision and smoothness.
The dramatic interest of the opera rests entirely on the character of Fides, and, we may add, upon Madame Viardot's performance of it; for we verily believe that she is the only actress now on the stage capable of re- presenting its features with adequate truth and force. Her genius is es- sentially tragic; her powers are brought out in grappling with the greatest difficulties of the art. For what is merely light and pretty she is disquali- fied by physical defects, if not also by the turn of her mind; and even in the " comedie larmoyante " (as in the Sonnambula) her expression is ex- aggerated and artificial. But such a character as that of the mother of the Prophet is congenial to her spirit and stimulates her highest energies. She views such a character with an artist's eye, forms a clear conception of a living, individual creation, and throws her whole soul into it with an ear- nestness which seems to transform her into the being she represents. From the first moment, we see the very woman we could have expected,— the respectable village matron of middle age, with plain but speaking fea- tures, a simple rustic grace, and an air of tranquil happiness in the antici- pated happiness of her son. We see the same woman unchanged in na- ture in all the vicissitudes of her fate—bereaved, abandoned, desolate— discovering in her son the object of all her fear and horror, and compelled to disown him by his own stern command. This last incident was a tri- umph of tragic art. The stupified amazement with which she gazed on her son whom she saw in the terrible Prophet, the manner in which she gradually sank on her knees as if crushed to the earth by an invisible power, and the convulsions which shook her frame while, after many ef- forts, she uttered the denial demanded of her, struck to the hearts of an audience whose deep silence told the impression made upon them. It has happened before, that in thinking of Madame Viardot's great performances, we have almost forgot her singing; and perhaps there cannot be a greater proof of its excellence than its entire subserviency to dramatic expression. We hardly ever think of Viardot as executing an air or a duet; but we think of her fine delivery of a soliloquy, or of her passionate earnestness in carrying on a dialogue. In one respect this may arise from her voice having less sensuous beauty than some of her fel- low vocalists; but it arises also from that thorough mastery of her ark which enables her so effectually to conceal it. Of the other performers there is little to be said. Mario sustained the part of Jean, the Prophet, with power and effect. In the scene of the Co- -ronation his port was dignified and regal. His voice had its usual strength and beauty; but the music of his part has left but faint impressions on our memory. The little part of Bertha was sustained by Miss Hayes with much grace and sweetness. Meyerbeer has evidently intended a great effect by the introduction of three Anabaptist leaders, who sing together in the style of ancient ecclesiastical chants; but the intention was marred by the untuneable voices of the performers.
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