At the Italian Operahouse, ROSSINI'S light-hearted Barbiere di Seviglia—tbe triumph
of animal spirits—served on Thursday to exhi- bit FORNASARI in a `part totally different from those in-which he had hitherto yet appeared before an English audience—Figaro; and the representative of the majestic and tragic Belisario astonished by his frolicksome vivacity as the "factotum della citta" of ceaseless tongue and movement. In other respects the cast was strong. GRISI filled her old part of Rosina—the naive girl whose youthful imagination gets the start of the Barber's mundane experience—witness the letter which he counsels her to write, and which she has written : GRISIS execu- tion of the ward's exuberant playfulness is well known. Mauro was a fitting Almaviva. Basilic) has had more competent representatives than FREDERICK LABLACHE: but LABLACHE the father was there too ; he carried out the good new fashion, which MACREADY so well prac- tised in the English play on Monday, and filled the subordinate part of Bartolo—subordinate, as it is usually considered ; but LABLACHE showed what might be done for the humour with which the part teems. There is more in this plan of giving inferior parts to the best per- formers than the mere satisfaction of seeing what can be made of them: the success works two good effects—it proves that the rank of a part is a very trifling matter, when the conception of the author is fine and the actor competent to fetch it out ; and therefore it tends to throw actors less upon quarrelling for a factitious precedency than upon emulating each other in making the most of all things ; and the treatment of a subordinate part by a fine artist is the best of all lessons to those whom the allotments of the green-room usually intrust with such parts. The whole tendency is to elevate the art, without disparagement to the artist in any sense. Some " subordinate " parts, indeed—that is short parts—absolutely demand fine performers. The most notable instance, perhaps, is that of the Commendatory in Don Giovanni. FORNASASI will probably play the illustrious libertine : will LARLACHE consent to show this generation how exquisite is the music of the dying man— how awful the denunciations of the ghostly statue?
Still matchless is the ballet. HUMILATRE, who first dawned upon the realms of dancing as Aurora, is now translated to the Maho- medan paradise, and takes the shape of a Howl; in which cha- racter she receives to her embraces the new dancer ST. LEON; a Mussulman who rebukes a wine-drinker, and is martyred with a dagger for his pains. The celestial pas de deux between the- happy pair has no leaven of earth in it but their own aplomb : only the point of a needle even, embodied spirits must have something solid to descend upon, if only for the rebound ; and such is the velocity and duration of ST. LEON'S pirouettes, that one might suppose him transfixed, like a cockchafer on a pin : he out Perrots PERROT. DITMILATRE, and her train of attendant Houris, in panoply of white muslin and pink gauze of gossamer texture, flit round the new-made immortal like ethereal beings. FANNY ELSLER has been displaying the variety of her resources and her surpassing powers of execution in La Gipsy. Her mute eloquence of look and gesture in the scene where sbe is accused of a robbery is pathetic in the extreme. She introduces a variety of character dances; at one time it is the Cra- covienne, at another the Cachuca—distinguished by the sprightly vivacity of her air and the precision and point of her steps : if we missed the voluptuous langonr and superb sway of DIIVERNAY'S move- ments, the different character gave the piquancy of a fiery, agile Spanish girl, after one of graver temperament and more stately bearing. The famous pas d'entrainement, in which FANNY ELLSLER leads a troop of Gipsy girls, is the most original and beautiful of her achievements : she comes tripping in with a fleetness and lightness of foot more like treading on air than touching the earth ; her hands flickering about with excessive mobility, and her face radiant with delight : it is an indescribable feat, of irresistible fascination.
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