OpÉra Comique.—"Cheval de Bronze."—"La Marquise."—Impossibility of playing Tragedy.—Mrs. Siddons's Readings.—Mademoiselle Mars has equal power.—Laisser aller of the Female Performers.—Decline of Theatrical Taste among the Fashionable.

The "Cheval de Bronze" being the spectacle par excellence at the OpÉra Comique this season, we have considered it a matter of sight-seeing necessity to pay it a visit; and we have all agreed that it is as perfectly beautiful in its scenery and decorations as the size of the theatre would permit. We gazed upon it, indeed, with a perfection of contentment, which, in secret committee afterwards, we confessed did not say much in favour of our intellectual faculties.

I really know not how it is that one can sit, not only without murmuring, but with positive satisfaction, for three hours together, with no other occupation than looking at a collection of gewgaw objects, with a most unmeaning crowd, made for the most part by Nature's journeymen, incessantly undulating among them. Yet so it is, that a skilful arrangement of blue and white gauze, aided by the magic of many-coloured lights, decidedly the prettiest of all modern toys, made us exclaim at every fresh manoeuvre of the carpenter, "Beautiful! beautiful!" with as much delight as ever a child of five years old displayed at a first-rate exhibition of Punch.

M. Auber's music has some pretty things in it; but he has done much better in days of yore; and the wretched taste exhibited by all the principal singers made me heartily wish that the well-appointed orchestra had kept the whole performance to themselves.

Madame Casimir has had, and indeed still has, a rich and powerful voice: but the meanest peasant-girl in Germany, who trims her vines to the sound of her native airs, might give her a lesson on taste more valuable than all that science has ever taught her.

I should like, could I do so with a conscience that should not reproach me with exaggeration, to name Miss Stephens and Madame Casimir as fair national specimens of English and French singing. And in fact they are so; though I confess that the over-dressing of Madame Casimir's airs is almost as much out of the common way here, as the chaste simplicity of our native syren's strains is with us: yet the one is essentially English, and the other French.

We were told that the manager of our London theatres had been in Paris for the purpose of seeing and taking a cast from this fine Chinese butterfly. If this be so, Mr. Bunn will find great advantage from the extent of his theatre: that of the OpÉra Comique is scarcely of sufficient magnitude to exhibit its gaudy but graceful tableaux to advantage. But, on the other hand, I doubt if he will find any actress quite so piquante as the pretty Madame ——, in the last act, when she relates to the enchanted princess, her mistress, the failure she had made in attempting by her agaceries to retain the young female who had ventured into the magic region: and if he did, I doubt still more if her performance would be received with equal applause.

A petite comÉdie called "La Marquise" preceded this brilliant trifle. The fable must, I think, be taken, though greatly changed, from a story of George Sand. It has perhaps little in it worth talking about; but it is a fair specimen of one of that most agreeable of French nationalities, a natural, easy, playful little piece, at which you may sit and laugh in sympathy with the performers as much as with the characters, till you forget that there are such things as sorrow and sadness in the world.

The acting in this style is so very good, that the author's task really seems to be the least important part of the business. It is not at one theatre, but at all, that we have witnessed this extraordinary excellence in the performance of this species of drama; but I doubt if the chasm which seems to surround the tragic muse, keeping her apart on a pedestal sacred to recollections, be at all wider or more profound in England than in France. In truth, it is less impassible with us than it is here; for though I will allow that our tragic actresses may be no better than those of France, seeing that a woman's will in the one case, and the Atlantic Ocean in the other, have robbed us of Mrs. Bartley and the Fanny—who between them might bring our stage back to all its former glory,—still they have neither Charles Kemble nor Macready to stand in the place that Talma has left vacant.

I have indeed no doubt whatever that Mademoiselle Mars could read Corneille and Racine as effectively as Mrs. Siddons read Shakspeare in the days of Argyle-street luxury, and, like our great maga, give to every part a power that it never had before. I well remember coming home from one of Mrs. Siddons's readings with a passionate desire to see her act the part of Hamlet; and from another, quite persuaded that by some means the witch-scene in Macbeth should be so arranged that she should speak every word of it.

In like manner, were I to hear Mars read Corneille, I should insist upon it that she ought to play the Cid; and if Racine, Oreste would probably be the first part I should choose for her. But as even she, with all her Garrick-like versatility, would not be able to perform every part of every play, tragedy must be permitted to repose for the present in France as well as in England.

During this interregnum, it is well for them, considering how dearly they love to amuse themselves, that they have a stock of comedians, old, young, and middle-aged, that they need not fear should fail; for the whole French nation seem gifted with a talent that might enable them to supply, at an hour's warning, any deficiencies in the company.

I seldom return from an exhibition of this sort without endeavouring in some degree to analyse the charm that has enchanted me: but in most cases this is too light, too subtile, to permit itself to be caught by so matter-of-fact a process. I protest to you, that I am often half ashamed of the pleasure I receive from ... I know not what. A playful smile, a speaking glance, a comic tone, a pretty gesture, give effect to words that have often nothing in them more witty or more wise than may often be met with (especially here) in ordinary conversation. But the whole thing is so thoroughly understood, from the "pÈre noble" to the scene-shifter—so perfect in its getting-up—the piece so admirably suited to the players, and the players to the piece,—that whatever there is to admire and enjoy, comes to you with no drawbacks from blunders or awkwardness of any kind.

That the composition of these happy trifles cannot be a work of any great labour or difficulty, may be reasonably inferred from the ceaseless succession of novelties which every theatre and every season produces. The process, for this lively and ready-witted people, must be pleasant enough—they must catch from what passes before them; no difficult task, perhaps—some piquante situation or ludicrous bÉvue: the slightest thread is strong enough to hold together the light materials of the plot; and then must follow the christening of a needful proportion of male and female, old and young, enchanting and ridiculous personages. The list of these once set down, and the order of scenes which are to bring forth the plot arranged, I can fancy the author perfectly enjoying himself as he puts into the mouth of each character all the saucy impertinences upon every subject that his imagination, skilful enough in such matters, can suggest. When to this is added an occasional touch of natural feeling, and a little popular high-mindedness in any line, the petite comÉdie is ready for the stage.

It is certainly a very light manufacture, and depends perhaps more upon the fearless laisser aller of both author and actor than upon the brilliancy of wit which it displays. That old-fashioned blushing grace too, so much in favour with King Solomon, and called in scripture phrase shamefacedness, is sacrificed rather too unmercifully by the female part of the performers, in the fear, as it should seem, of impairing the spirit and vivacity of the scene by any scruple of any kind. But I suspect these ladies miscalculate the respective value of opposing graces; Mademoiselle Mars may show them that delicacy and vivacity are not inseparable; and though I confess that it would be a little unreasonable to expect all the female vaudevillists of Paris to be like Mars, I cannot but think that, in a city where her mode of playing comedy has for so many years been declared perfect, it must be unnecessary to seek the power of attraction from what is so utterly at variance with it.

The performance of comedy is often assisted here by a freedom among the actors which I have sometimes, but not often, seen permitted in London. It requires for its success, and indeed for its endurance, that the audience should be perfectly in good-humour, and sympathise very cordially with the business of the scene. I allude to the part which the performers sometimes take not only in the acting, but in the enjoyment of it. I never in my life saw people more heartily amused, or disposed more unceremoniously to show it, than the actors in the "PrÉcieuses Ridicules," which I saw played a few nights ago at the FranÇais. On this occasion I think the spirit of the performance was certainly heightened by this license, and for this reason—the scene represents a group in which one party must of necessity be exceedingly amused by the success of the mystification which they are practising on the other. But I own that I have sometimes felt a little English stiffness at perceiving an air of frolic and fun upon the stage, which seemed fully as much got up for the performers as for the audience. But though the instance I have named of this occurred at the ThÉÂtre FranÇais, it is not there that it is likely to be carried to any offensive extent. The lesser theatres would in many instances do well to copy closely the etiquette and decorum of all kinds which the great national theatre exhibits: but perhaps it is hardly fair to expect this; and besides, we might be told, justly enough, to look at home.

The theatres, particularly the minor ones, appear to be still very well attended: but I constantly hear the same observations made in Paris as in London upon the decline of theatrical taste among the higher orders; and it arises, I think, from the same cause in both countries,—namely, the late dinner-hour, which renders the going to a play a matter of general family arrangement, and often of general family difficulty. The opera, which is later, is always full; and were it not that I have lived too long in the world to be surprised at anything that the power of fashion could effect, I should certainly be astonished that so lively a people as the French should throng night after night as they do to witness the exceeding dulness of this heavy spectacle.

The only people I have yet seen enjoying their theatres rationally, without abstaining from what they liked because it was unfashionable, or enduring what they did not, because it was the mode, are the Germans. Their genuine and universal love of music makes their delicious opera almost a necessary of life to them; and they must, I think, absolutely change their nature before they will suffer the silly conventional elegance supposed by some to attach to the act of eating their dinner late, to interfere with their enjoyment of it.

I used to think the theatre as dear to the French as music to the Germans. But what is a taste in France is, from the firmer fibre of the national character, a passion in Germany;—and it is easier to abandon a taste than to control a passion.

Perhaps, however, in England and France too, if some new-born theatrical talent of the first class were to "flame in the forehead of the morning sky," both Paris and London would submit to the degradation of dining at five o'clock in order to enjoy it: but late hours and indifferent performances, together, have gone far towards placing the stage among the popular rather than the fashionable amusements of either.