On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (3)
-
.*.« vr« i uwwj w w — —¦ — j —— — — - j ...
-
-. ., -
-
¦ , • ¦ ?— ... Rovai. Itamax Opera.—On S...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Purification 01? The Thames. Purificatio...
tial for the perfect purification of the Thames as ifc is for the economical utilisation of the sewage . Each of these things spoils the other—sewage rainfall by pollution , rainfall sewage by dilution . The mixed mass is too vast and variable for economical distribution over fields , too foul and fetid for advantageous delivery down streams . Ihe sevage proper should be carefully diverted from the Thames ; and just so , on the other hand , should the rainfall be carefully directed to the Thames , to aid its scour , which suffers from every drop withdrawn . The author says , therefore , " that the battle of interception is to be fought , not on the banks of
the river , bat in the basements of the houses ; not with monstrous tunnels , but with modest tubes ; not by the diversion of variable rain brooks , alternately dry and torrential , but by the diversion of uniform cistern supplies , always moderate and manageable . " Mr . P . 0 . "Ward has already much , contributed to the public information upon drainage matters , and nearly as a matter of course lias somehow or other been jostled out of all thanks or profit ; , if lie ever sought them . Although we may not adopt his crotchet , and the Metropolis Board very probably ¦ will not , he yet deserves some thanks for his strenuous labours in a disagreeable field , and is welcome to the share due from such the very
trifling fraction of the public we as individuals represent . That he will Lave the chauce of another healing before the great public is by no means out of the question ; for in our opinion , as in his , these monster . tunnels and this Metropolitan Boa , rd of Works even . yet may chance to be put down as blunders by indignant ratepayers . It must , after all , be a ratepayers' question , aud if the eyes of the small householders rated at from 20 / . to 35 / . be but once opened to the peculiar urifitness of their representatives aud the very severe taxation in store for them , they would probably , in the panic which would seize upon them , tear to pieces all the plans of their representatives and engineers , and commit the whole subject to more proper Lands .
.*.« Vr« I Uwwj W W — —¦ — J —— — — - J ...
. * . « vr « i uwwj w w — —¦ — j —— — — - j — —— — —— - ** r - ~— - * - » f ^ j *« 7
-. ., -
¦ ¦ € JttSlrte .
¦ , • ¦ ?— ... Rovai. Itamax Opera.—On S...
¦ , ¦ ?— ... Rovai . Itamax Opera . —On Saturday evening was again presented the opera of ITorma , -with Madame Grisi as the heroine , Signor Tamberlik as Pollione , and Tagliafico as Oroveso . The impersonation of the Druidesa by the still unapproached queen of lyric song was , we can only say , magnificent . The intensity of passion and utter self-oblivion with which she withers that unpopular hero Pollione , and devotea the Roman legions to destruction from her country's altar , car , if equalled , surely never be surpassed . Madlle . Warai , the Adalgisa , was in exceeding good voice
, and zealously seconded the prinia donna ' s exertions : and the long and grand finale to the opera was admirably given by the whole company . A new ballet divertissement of the flimsiest construction , entitled I ? Amour d ' une Hose , was produced after the opera for the first time . But the new dancer , Mdllc . Zina Richard , an acquisition from Italy , bids fair , we have little hesitation in reporting , to take a high place in her profession . Her style is firm and agile , and was perfectly free on Saturday from the ungraceful and meretricious embellishments which have , to our thinking , often vulgarised the ballet since tho reimportation of that Spanish school of
dancing , which , popular as it may have been of late , was a dead failure , as some of our readers may reimember , when first attempted some years ago . The incident in IS Amour d ' une Jiose represented , ns far ns "we could make it out , the extempore provision by an enamoured landscape-gardener of a floral fete for tlio gratification of a rather blasee damsel in search of a new Etensation . The ample stage was almost niagically encumbered at a given signal with garlands , wreaths , nay more , entire bedB of flowers . ¦ Parterre behind parterre , with box-edgings and all 5 PPi ? rteinfinceB » rose bristling on tlie boards , and BLdlle . Zina as the delighted maiden , at whose wish they -were forthcoming , bounded with graceful
ecstasy amidst them -with her bevy of attendants , and executed several pleasing figures and intricate cancea ivith M . Desplaccs . The charming music , •"' PreMly composed for the divertissement by Mr . Alfred Mellon , was , of course , faultlessly performed » y the admirable band under hia direction , and the disappearance of the ningic garden by tlie aame apney which had evoked it quite realised at tlie <* ose tho idea of " fairy gifts fuding away . " Some years ago there was an opera buffh produced here entitled L * i Tre Nozu , tho music composed by Signor Alary , which has now taken ,-we understand , n permanent position upon the shelf . Tho talented composer «»• been selected by the management of the lloyal
Opera to hack , gash , cut , carve , and otherwise arrange and alter the Don Giovanni of Mozart , so as to admit , among- other changes in the cast , of the substitution of a tenor for a baT > -tone voice in the part of the Don . That he has effected the requisite adaptation with marvellous success , considering the violent unorthodoxy , or as it must be termed by many fanatici , the heresy of tlie task , cannot be denied . Had he had any other than first-class voices and orchestra to deal with he would have fallen like Lucifer ; but all but the most bigoted may ¦ well understand that with Mario as the Don , Ronconi as Leporello , Tagliafico as the Commendatore , Grisi as Donna Anna , Marai as Elvira , Bosio as Zerlina , Tamberlik as Ottavio t Polonini as Masetto , & fiasco was out of the question . Among the new excisions of old favourite airs may foe mentioned the " Ho eapito" and " Fuggi il traditor . " But so much was left that was beautiful , and the artists whose special qualifications for their various parts are sufficiently familiar to the world , so admirably illustrated the composer ' s flood of beautiful ideas , that we passed a mental vote of confidence on Signor Alary ' s heretical version , in spite of some very critical old opera-goers of our acquaintance who venerate even the faults and failings of antiquity , more than the excellencies of the moderns . "We are more disposed than otherwise to thank the management foraffording the public the opportunity of trying their old favourite , Mario , in what is a new part to him , at all events in London . We are well content to acquiesce in the substitutions and elisions in consideration of being permitted to hear , in even a castrated form , the chef-cTceuvre of Wolfgang Amadeus . We cannot serve our readers by announcing the bill of fare of a week that is passed , but when we mention that . to-niglit promises a repetition of Don Giovanni , and next week the same work , with Herold ' s Zavipa , on a day not yet fixed , we may , perhaps , be of some slight service . At Her Majesty ' s Theatre , reduced prices and final performances still prevail , and are announced for all next week . Last evening , II Barbiere was performed for the last time , with Alboni as liosina , Bellet ti as Figaro , and Signor Belart as Cohte Almaviva . This evening , II Don Giovanni is announced for the last time , when we shall be enabled to institute comparisons between Mozart " as imported" and Mozart " Alarified . " On Monday we are to have the Lu . crexia , on Tuesday , // Trovatore , on Wednesday , Don Pasquale , and on Thursday , Balf &' s La Zingara { Bohemian Girl ) .. Mademoiselle Titiens will leave London for Vienna on Wednesday next , Tuesday being her last appearance . The theatre finally closes on Saturday , the 7 th instant , with La Traviata , ; Mademoiselle Piccolomini and Signor Giuglini leaving London on the Monday following for Dublin , where they have been announced to appear in a series of representations . Lyceum Theatre . —It has been made the subject of judicious animadversion by one of the most enlightened of modern theatrical critics , whose excellent language we are on this occasion well pleased to adopt , that the originally mistaken policy should yet prevail among those concerned in catering for public amusement , of making- Mr . Ira Aldridge ' s complexion the qualification and chief attraction of his performance . " For , " our contemporary observes , " that it at nil added to the merit of the actor , in certain characters , that he -was really black instead of painted , is a vulgar piece of showmanship , worthy of a Bnnium or a Gingell , but certainly not at all compatible witli the consideration of stage acting as an art . The only parallel to the absurdity was the parading Stephen Kemble as a great Falstaff , because he had individually the fat person in which it lias pleased the dramatist to encaso that witty , shrewd , and humorous chnrncter . " We had little anticipated the enjoyment which was in store for us . The name of the Black lioscius has been , it is true , for a . few years familiar—not to playgoers who habitually patronise the same class of theatres as ourselves — but to such as read , as they may run , the placards and shop-window announcements of the minor and suburban houses . But no real notion of the title of the actor to a reputation which in course of time will perhaps bo far more widely spread , had reached us before witnessing Mr . Aldrldge ' a performance of Othello on Saturday last at the Lyceum Theatre . Mr . Aldridge , versatile as the great Kean , has tnkvn the Germans by storm ns Othello , Macbeth , and a nigger melodist ; and in the former of these characters we are prepared in the strongest terms to endorse the verdict of the Berlin and Coburg critics , among whom he numbers no less distinguished personages than the King of Prussia , nnd his Serene Highness the Duke of Suxe-Coburg Gotha , He is as successful in the more delicate- touches of the character as in its deep and passionate shades . His loving tenderness to Detdemona is ns successful as is his terrible declamation of tho third act . In his dissembling examination of Detdemona in the second scene of the fourth act , he was tho true Othello of the dramatist —a lover softened by tho beauty of that most unhnppy lady , but , the current of his life being poisoned
beyond all help , at the same time a ferocious maniac . Miss Annie Ness , seemingly artless and unpractised as the pure Desdemona , was happily very successful in her representation of the character . In the present comparative dearth of really effective tragedians , in the broad sense of the term , a visit to the Lyceum may not but recal agreeable associations to such as can appreciatively remember the tragedy of the elder Kean ; and -we can only regret that the peculiarity of the artist ' s complexion precludes the probability of our witnessing his performance in such an extensive range of character as we could wish . St . Martin ' s Ham ,. — -On Tuesday evening it was our fortune or our fate to assist at a mnemonic seance at St . Martin ' s Hall upon the invitation of Mr . Abel Matthews . The " entertainment" was courteously supposed to consist of the recital by heart , by this gentleman , of ten thousand five hundred lines from Milton ' s Paradise Lost , and it must be confessed that we are more inclined to ridicule the want of thought that had drawn us into so false a position than complain of our entertainer , when , after listening for a reasonable period to his very unimpassioned and apparently correct delivery , it occurred to us that the performance , if ever brought to a conclusion , might possibly detain us where we were until noon on Wednesday . " Ten thousand lines in about ten hours at that pace , " we said to ourselves ; •« allow two hours for rest , under proper inspection , for no ' cribs' could be allowed , and we shall get well into to-morrow . " Then it flashed upon us that the invocation which had called sixty fools into a circle was possibly the result of a wager . We were quite prepared for the announcement ( so familiar to the ear of-those who have watched the sale of golden sovereigns at one halfpenny each ) that "it is to decide a wager of one thousand guineas made between two well-known sporting noblemen , " & c , but not even that ray of comicality came in to pierce the solid duiness of the soiree . Mr . Matthews , an extremely gentlemanlike man , with a not unpleasing voice , commenced the Paradise Lost without a -word of preface , and proceeded calmly and deliberately through the eight hundred lines of the first book . He unrolled them before an audience of about sixty souls , men , women , and children , as deliberately as a ^ novice at the counter would so many yards of ribbon . The company were spell-bound , partly from a courteous desire not to vex the mnemonic enthusiast , partly from a very proper consciousness that we were the authors of our own misery . After a few minutes' rest , for we remained although fourand-twenty of tlie society tbok that opportunity of effecting their escape , the reciter started into Book II ., which is somewhat longer than the first . The next half hour was a trying one . One or two elders went to sleep . Men of business who had strayed into the place fixed their eyes upon the roof aud let their souls wander into the City . The children were a little restless , but considering all things , very good . Ourselves , ditto , ditto . The remembrancer held up bravely , though he seemed entirely without ; backers . He was courageous , for there he stood alone , before only five-and-twenty people , in the . ample hnll which his wondrous memory must have told him lia ^ een often crammed to suffocation by nnd for the benefit of other artists . Nothing did he falter , and as his silvery tones went roofward in unbroken thread we could not miss to think of that Horatian rill that Labetur et lnbetur in omne volubilia oovutn . There were some determined-looking seniors who came there to see the business out , and perhaps ¦ write to the Times in case of a failure . One had ¦ with hirn the works of John Milton in small octavo , and worked zealously as public checker . He wna prepared to call a halt , we felt sure , on the very first break-down . He looked like a man with a mission ; so , as he opened not his mouth , we have great pleasure in announcing that during the period of our stsiy the reciter ' s feat was eminently successful . We left Mr . Matthews far less exhausted than ourselves before the end of the second book , and for all wo personally know he may by this time have gone through Paradise Regained and be well into Samson Agonistea . We have heard , however , that the evening ' s amusement , on which the reader has before him our matutinal reflections , came to an abrupt end , without the slightest break down , at the termination of the second book nnd the 1863 rd line . Tlie " entertainer" then closed the performance somewhat abruptly by politely thanking tho limited number of his guests for their countenance , and threw tho curtain over the most impenetrable piece of public amusement it has ever been our fate to record . That Mr . Abel Mattliows , supposing him capable , which we take it is not yet proven , of reciting ten thousand five hundred lines by heart , may find some more profitable use for his memory than the unaccented , unemphasised , undrnmatic , and in overy " way unattractivo delivery of an epic , we sincerely hope for his own sake . What his evening's practice inflicted , upon us we are content , now that we have unbosomed ourselves , heartily to forgivo and to forget .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), July 31, 1858, page 749, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_31071858/page/21/
-