THE THEATRES.
The production upon the modern stage of an ancient Greek tragedy, per- formed in the ancient manner, in so far as it can be known or conjectured what that manner was, is an attempt which seems never to have been re- garded as practicable till our own day; the classical tragedies of Corneille and Racine having hitherto been the nearest approaches to the ancient drama that have been represented in a modern theatre. The experiment of an
actual revival of a tragedy of Sophocles occurred, not to a tragic poet or dra- matist, but to a musician. Mendelssohn's idea of the dramatic effect which might be given to the musical performance of the Greek choruses, and by the musical accompaniment of certain portions of the declamation, led to the translation by Tieck, of the Antigone of Sophocles, to the composition of his own original and striking music for the play, and to its performance with this music at Berlin. The sensation it created in Germany led to attempts at repetition in this country. It has been performed, in an excel- lent English version by Mendelssohn's accomplished friend and literary co- adjutor Mr. Bartholomew, at different times, both at Covent Garden and the Haymarket. It has also been produced, in a French dress, at the Odeon in Paris; and in this shape it was performed on Wednesday, by the
French company at the St. James's Theatre. , Of what effects it is capable when represented so as to realize the ceuceptkass tif the German poet and musician we cannot pretend to say; the attempta made in London having thus far been too imperfect to afford room for judgment. But we are inclined to think that an ancient Greek tragedy, both in itself
and in its mode of representation, is incapable of being effectively revived on the modern stage. Founded on mythic legends, those tragedies are in- volved in a mist of idealism, which, however poetically beautiful it may be, has not the dramatic reality that appeals to the sympathies of a modern audience. Everything about the ancient theatres seems to have been grand and vast. There was nothing of life or nature as witnessed in actual existence. The stage was immense; the actors, far removed from the spectators, were made to seem of gigantic height, and spoke through masks, which at once exaggerated their features and their voices, so that they might be seen and heard at a distance. All the delicacy, expres- sion, and force of modern acting, must have been unknown, and their want supplied by poetical and musical declamation. Such is the vague and shadowy notion that can be formed of Greek dramatic representation from existing records; and all that we know of it leads to the conclusion that it is quite impossible now-a-days to produce anything a whit more like it than the "feast after the manner of the ancients," with which the pedant in Peregrine Pickle turned the stomachs of his guests, was to a genuine banquet of Apicius or Lucullus. A play acted "after the manner of the ancients," with the stage arranged after some obscure description in an an- cient author—the actors standing, two by two, upon a sort of platform or hustings, and expressing their inmost thoughts and feelings before a popular crowd who constantly interfere by their remarks and reflections—is, as we have seen it, something that requires a strong faith in its antique classi- cality; for without such faith, it would appear absurd, unnatural, and mean. It is true that the beauties of Sophocles are not wholly lost in the modern versions, and that powerful effects, in occasional passages, may be produced by the modern actors; but they cannot make up for the preposterous style of the performance as a whole. Without music, and such music as Men- delssohn's, it could not be tolerated for an instant.
In the composition of this music, Mendelssohn could not imitate the
music of the ancients ; for, notwithstanding the heaps of learned nonsense written on the subject, we are profoundly ignorant of its nature and cha- racter. All that the composer could do, was to adapt Tieck's lyrical ver- sions of the choruses to music cf a plain and simple but strongly-marked kind, consisting chiefly of melodies chanted in unison, though occasionally in parts, but always admitting of a clear and distinct articulation of the words, supposing the original words to be used, and the singers thoroughly trained. Those choruses are very unlike the choruses of an Italian opera —in them, sound will not supply the place of sense. They form the most poetical portions of the drama; and if the poetry is lost, the music goes for nothing. We can imagine their effect at Berlin to have been most im- pressive as well as beautiful ; but no such effect has ever been produced in London. At the St. James's Theatre, the choruses were sung in French by some thirty or forty people, of whom probably not half a-dozen under- stood or could utter a word of the language. There was, indeed, a strong and excellent orchestra, under M. Benedict; and it was a pleasure to hear them play the rich and harmonious accompaniments; but the singing was coarse, and perfectly unmeaning.
The principal character is not so well acted at the St. James's as it was
either at Covent Garden or the Haymarket. Miss Helen Faucit gave a strong ideality to the part by the adoption of marked statuesque attitudes, and thus endowed the creation of Sophocles with a characteristic distin- guishing her from the ordinary breed of tragic damsels. Madame Rebut- Fec.hter (the Mademoiselle Rebut of last year) plays Antigone just 88 she would play some secondary tragic part in a work of Racine's. The Crean of M. Bocage looked somewhat grotesque on his first appearance; but the scene of despair was very finely acted. The expression by the fixed eye of an utterly desolate state was unique, and distinguished by that ideality which should have been more generaL This was indeed the only portion of the piece that was really effective; and the general effect was aided not a little by the very lifeless manner with which M. Fechter repre- sented the corpse of Eernon.
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