de Guglielmo dans Così fan tutte, pourvu qu'il ne joue pas celui qu'il a joué dans Semiramide. M. Garcia ne prendra pas nullement celui de Guglielmo que quand il aura par écrit l'ordre de ne pas jouer celui dans Semiramide. Si M. Garcia a joué le rôle de Don Giovanni, malgré qu'il est écrit pour une bassetaille, c'est pour un acte de complaisance pour faire du bien a l'enterprise ; puisque lui étant engagé pour chanter le premier tenor il n'est pas obligé de chanter les basse-tailles.

Londres, ce 7 Avril, 1825. A 5 heures du soir.

To the above the subjoined reply was sent.

M. EBERS a reçu le Billet très impoli de Signor Garcia. La seule remarque qu'il ait à faire est, que M. Ayrton, quoique bien disposé à dispenser Signor Garcia de son rôle dans Semiramide, ne sauroit, en s'acquittant de son devoir, se lier par aucune promesse positif à ce sujet, attendu que par là le début de Madame Pasta auroit pu éprouver un retard après son arrivée à Londres. Signor Garcia a déjà, en chantant imprudemment dans un concert particulier, privé le Théâtre de ses talents trois soirées sur les huit qui ont été données, et il a en outre intentionellement négligé son devoir: il auroit donc dû être une des dernières personnes à entraver la Direction.

Signor Garcia ayant accepté conditionellement le rôle de Guglielmo, il est évident maintenant qu'il peut le chanter, mais qu'il ne veut pas y consentir sans exiger une condition qui pourrait nuire au théâtre si on la lui accordait. Mais M. Ebers mettra les Abonnés et le Public immédiatement en état de juger de la conduite de Signor Garcia.

Old Bond-street, ce Vendredi, 8 Avril, 1825.

This narrative however stops far short of the impediments thrown in the way of the performances. Mr. Ebers, in his last note, alludes to a private concert, by singing at which Signor Garcia deprived the theatre of his assistance. It was in contemplation to give a series of operas at the houses of certain persons of fashion on Sunday nights. The scheme commenced, and more than one had been given, when they were checked by the following circumstance. The Duke of York was invited to one of them, and the performance waited some time for his Royal Highness, who did not make his appearance. At length a note arrived, couched in polite terms, but of such a tenor as to show that Sunday operas would not receive the countenance of the Court.

Concerning the impropriety of such exhibitions on such an evening, we shall say not a syllable. It needs no comment. But it was becoming quite evident, that could these parties have been brought into fashion, they would have gone near to have wrought the total ruin of the Italian Theatre. The same fashion that would have exalted the private would have destroyed the public performances. Their effect was quite visible enough amongst the singers, who actually, as we are assured, left the VOL. VII. NO. xxvi.—June, 1825.

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rehearsals unfinished at the King's Theatre to attend the arrangements for these representations in private houses. Indeed the whole state of the opera indicates that a total change is absolutely necessary. The engagements with the theatre are much too loose, and permit by far too much allowance to private engagements. The best singers are found nightly at one, two, and even more public and private concerts, and the consequence is, that the opera is paralysed by the indisposition of these very singers. The English Theatres experience much less of this evil, and for the simplest of all reasons-every failure subjects the defaulter to heavy forfeitures. And why should not foreigners, upon whom so much less labour is imposed, be submitted to similar conditions, the necessity of which is so apparent ?

When we look over the list of performers engaged, there could really be no fair ground for complaint did all do their duty. Ronzi De Begnis, Caradori, and Vestris, if they do not afford the best possible corps vocale, (which by the bye the expenditure upon the theatre ought always to assure to the subscribers and the public)—if these singers we say do not make the strongest possible combination, yet perhaps no opera in Europe can now exhibit a better-while Garcia, Curioni, and Begrez, as tenors— De Begnis, Remorini, and Porto, as bases, are probably above those that any single theatre can produce. But the fact is, that during the season the demand is beyond the supply, and competition alone can bring the singers to a proper sense of the relation they stand in with the public. It is not at all surprising that the court and attention they meet with, together with the subserviency of people of the highest condition to their caprices, should raise their pride to presumption. But so long as persons of quality are the slaves of fashion, and move only by its arbitrary laws, and so long as fashion dictates the necessity of having this or that particular singer at their parties-so long must they be subservient, and often meanly subservient to those whose talents they ought to treat with respect, but whose talents are nevertheless theirs by purchase.

There is but too much reason to apprehend from the delays, law suits, and engagements, that have concurred to shake the direction and augment the expences of the season, which light with such weight on the lessee, that the termination of this year

must exhibit another very heavy loss. The death of Mr. Taylor, the state of the opera property, and the falling in of the boxes, all afford opportunity, at the same time that these things ought to persuade all the parties interested to enter into arrangements upon an entirely new basis, and we venture to predict, that if the value of the theatre be reduced to a stated and ascertained. amount-if all grounds for suits at law and in equity be removedand if the concern falls into the hands of competent managers-it may not only be made cheaper to the public, but superior as an opera to any theatre in Europe, at the same time that it may be brought to yield a noble compensation for the use of capital and the exertion of energy and talent. But to all these desirable purposes, the sine quâ non is a clear or at least an undisputed title to the house and properties.

On the tenth of May, after a correspondence concerning her engagement with the French authorities, which almost amounted to a ministerial negotiation, Madame Pasta appeared in the character of Desdemona. Her time was limited to the 8th of June, on which day she was bound under heavy penalties to be again in Paris. She has performed ten nights and four characters.During this short period she actually sung at twenty-four or twentyfive concerts, for which she received twenty-five guineas each. Her opera engagement is stated to have been twelve hundred pounds, and she sold her benefit to Mr. Ebers for eight hundred. Thus in the brief space of four weeks she earned no less a sum than TWENTY-FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS! It seems to have been the universal opinion that her singing is improved, and our own coincides with this the general conviction. Still however we must think Madame Pasta is greatly over-rated, both as an actress and as a singer. Her execution (by this term we mean her entire power of delivery) is unquestionably of the highest order, but we differ toto cælo from those who consider the application of it to display a conception equal to her technical excellence. On the contrary, whether upon the stage or in the orchestra, we think her expression often totally wrong and seldom quite right. Her entrata in Tancredi affords one strong instance. The recitative Oh Patria she certainly gives well, but not supremely well; the air is sacrificed to an endeavour at novelty of effect. Her Nina appears to us the most perfect of her performances, though not of

her singing. She sung Il sacrifizio d'Abraam, at the Antient Concert, in such a manner as by no means to satisfy the judgment; she did not enter felicitously into one single trait of that impassionate composition. Nay, we even dissent from her version of Che faro senz' Euridice, which is to our apprehension coarse as a whole, and seldom true to nature and feeling in its parts. This we know to be neither more nor less than heresy, but we shall be content to die in our opinions. Pasta is, by comparison, a great artist, but she has not that delicate apprehension of the nicer shades of the working of the passions that enables her to pourtray them justly and strikingly. We do not mean to say that her singing is without the expression of passion-by no means-nor that she is not gifted with feeling and delicacy-but she seems to us strangely to misapply her powers. Her delightful facility will often enrapture, but a little attention will prove that it is the instrumentation which delights-it is even passion, but not the passion-just as she transmutes one species of expression for another in Di tanti palpiti. Every real judge of the art forms to himself a beau ideal, drawn from his own imagination, and compounded with the possible execution, the knowledge of which he draws from experience, from having heard the various powers of various singers. Thus he not only determines the quantum meruit of any particular artist, but he has a standard by which he can estimate very nearly what is actually practicable. Measured by such a standard, we venture to say Madame Pasta is found to be short, and indeed to fail in comparison with many of her predecessors and some of her cotemporaries. Yet perhaps it is hardly possible to carry the technical polish of her voice and the finish of her tone much further. But nevertheless the directing faculty, the philosophical power which best adapts a means to its end, is often wanting

When we regard the delays and difficulties Mr. Ayrton has had to contend against (many apparent and more occult) we are rather surprized at the variety produced. The following operas have been given :

L'Italiana in Algieri (compressed into one act)
Il Don Giovanni

Pietro L'Eremita

Otello

Semiramide

Tancredi (first act)

Romeo and Giulietta.

At this moment, Il Crociato in Egitto is preparing to introduce Signor Velluti. Here then is a more than ordinary quantity of variety, if not of absolute novelty-and if there has been any failure, it has rested upon the performers, not upon the director.

The oratorios were this season under the conduct of Mr. Bishop at Drury-lane, and of Mr. Hawes at Covent Garden. But before we can enter upon the consideration of these performances, we must apparently digress a little, in order to account rationally for their novel structure. Our narrative will also shew how the taste of the metropolis may be led.

Der Freyschutz had been celebrated for some time throughout Germany, when the overture was first heard in* the concerts of London. It would have been a disgrace to the taste of the country had not this bold, original, highly picturesque composition attracted its just share of popularity and praise. But we shall not treat the composer unfairly if we venture to assert that the the overture conveys by far too favourable an estimate of his talents, as applied to the music of the entire opera. With this, however, we have not at present much concern. We are now merely about to shew the rise and progress of the excessive attraction which has distinguished Weber's great work in England. The success of the opera amongst the romantic natives of Germany was unbounded. One theatre alone is said to have received thirty thousand florins, on the nights of its representation, in a single season, and new reports of its transmission through the Conti

* The praise of the first introduction of Der Freyschutz belongs to Messrs. Boosey and Co. of Holles-street, the spirited importers of foreign music. They had it on sale for twelve months before it appeared at the English Opera, and indeed procured the score, with which the managers of that theatre were supplied by Mr. Hawes. This score, we have understood, Messrs. Boosey obtained for the use of Mr. Bochsa, who had been engaged nearly two years before to arrange it in several ways for the harp and piano forte. They also applied to Mr. Campbell to write words for two of the songs, which they printed in June, 1823. The claim of these publishers to the honour of introducing the great work of M. Von Weber seems thus to be established, and it was they also who first gave the public a portrait of the composer, which is said to be very like him.