. THE OPERA.
THE public is -receiving the performances of Mr. MASON'S Poly- glot Theatre with a very nice discrimination of their merits. The inimitable Fidel° has drawn increasing crowds, and been nel- corned with increasing enthusiasm, every succeeding evening ; Rabert le Diable • has drawn good audiences, by its showy and clever music, excellent performance, and splendid spectacle ; while the poor Italians, once the sole lords of the domain, are all but expeled from it. 'No wonder, when we are compelled to yawn for a long evening at pieces whose dramatic frivolity is admirably ,mttcheeby their musical in ripidity. Sueli a piece is the Straniera; an-I yet its author, Basernr, is boasted of by the Italians, as their dramatic lian of the day. The truth is, Music has taken her leave of Italy...Since. CistAROSA:S death, thirty years ago, Rossini has been her only great musician ; and since his time (for he has fallen into :the pas i: tense), there is not one left ; for of such wretched tailors as the PACINIS, BELLINIS, Do- NIZETT1S, and VAecAts,--7s1Ich things of :shreds and *patches, not nine, nor ninety-n ne, would make one musician among them. Adieu, then, to the Italian Opera t Its glory is departed. • The only good modern music is ROSSINI's, and it has too long been toujoiirs7perdrix.. We cannot go back to the music of the old school, °fent:moss and PAesinsi.o, because it is utterly forgotten by the Italians, and none_of their singers know any thing about it, and because, with all its beauty, it is too quiet and thin for mo- dern ears..' A tingle.scena would delight Us, but a whole evening would (with ti very fe.w.exc.eptions) set us to *sleep. As to the noisy and garish 'music of the French -school, even when such men as -MENSRBEER descend to imitate it, it will not do here. There remains, then, the German Opera, which seems likely to ob- tain an undivided sway in the'King's Theatre; and, so long as our principal theatre is foreign, we .should be very, glad that this were the case. But we hope the time is coming when our Own Na- - tional Opera shall support our greatest- musical theatre; -and, in the 'mean time, 'we are convinced that the cultivation of a style 'of music so Congenial to our taste, and to the aptitudes of our lan- gtieges as the German, will greatly help. to further that object. Ita.s lilly to rail at the pretended preference of the English for foreign music simply because 'it is foreign. The full share of ad.- saltation bestowed for so many years on the music of BISHOP, and lite:pride with which his name is -mentioned, :confute that idle potion. We prefer foreign Music, at present, because it is better thettour own.- The Germans beat us 'just now; but, like Pyrrhus, we trust they will teach us to beat them in our turn.
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