It is now between three and four years since the town was startled by intelligence that the Opera House was divided against itself, and that melody and grace were about to take flight from the bottom of the Hay-market to the top of the Garden. In our quality of determined foes to unnecessary changes and theoretical reforms, we received the intelligence regretfully, and so, we have reason to believe, did that very considerable section of the London and provincial public into whose annual calculations of refined enjoyments the Italian Opera largely enters. Without going into the merits of the dispute, which up to this hour we have never heard clearly elucidated, we plainly discerned one thing—namely, that there was discord in the operatic camp; that harmony had abandoned its favourite abode; that managers, musicians, singers, and dancers, were drawing different ways: in short, that the Opera, taking the lead in a fashion that soon afterwards became disagreeably prevalent throughout Europe, was in a state of revolution. With whom the fault lay we knew not, and little cared: all that concerned us was the unpleasant fact that the pleasures of the music-loving multitude, quorum pars sumus, were seriously endangered. It is pretty notorious that, with very rare exceptions, professional votaries of the Muses are capricious, and difficult to deal with. Painters are accused of unpunctuality and improvidence; composers are often idle dogs, fretting impresarios into fevers, as Rossini did Barbaja, and fulfilling their engagements only at the last minute of the eleventh hour, with the polenta smoking on the table;[6] even authors we have heard declared, upon no mean authority, to be queer cattle to guide; but, of all classes whose occupation derives from art and poetry, none, assuredly, are harder to manage and to please than actors and musicians. From those early days of Opera, when a Lully shivered Cremonas upon the heads of a refractory orchestra, to the recent ones when a Lumley in vain essayed to appease the petulance of a prima donna, and calm the choler of a conductor, the tribulations of managers have been countless as the pebbles on the shore. To judge, indeed, from their own account, few of the penalties so picturesquely set forth in Fox's martyr-book, but would be preferable to ten years' management of a large lyric theatre. Consult the comedians, and we are presented with the reverse of the medal. A manager, we shall be told, is a covetous and Heliogabalian tyrant, fattening upon the toil and talents of the artist; a sort of vampire in a black coat, sucking the blood of genius, faring sumptuously on the proceeds of a tenor, squeezing the cost of his stud out of a soprano, and making large annual investments on the strength of an underpaid barytone. These things may be true, but we shall more readily credit them when we less frequently see managers in the Gazette, and when we hear of singers putting down their carriages, retrenching their suburban villas, and contenting themselves with salaries less enormous than those they now unblushingly exact. Upon such matters, however, it is not our purpose to expatiate. Theatrical quarrels rarely excite much general interest in this country, except inasmuch as they may exercise an unfavourable influence on the pleasures of the public—which has not been the case, we are happy to say, in the most recent and important instance of disagreement between the lessee of the first London theatre and certain members of his company.

At no period, probably, since London has possessed an Italian Opera, was there more room and a better chance of success for two establishments of that description than just now. Indeed, even if the particular circumstances that have caused a second establishment to be formed had not occurred, it might not improbably have arisen out of the want of remunerative patronage for high musical talent upon the Continent, entailed by the revolutionary convulsions of the last two years. Another circumstance favourable to the Italians is to be found in the depressed state of the native stage—a depression which we maintain is to be attributed to bad management and bad acting, more than to any decline in the public taste for the drama. Second-rate talent, such as now occupies the high places on our principal theatres, will no more permanently attract full houses, than will the burlesque and tinsel that has monopolised the minor stage. It is our conviction that high tragedy and good comedy will still draw together discriminating and desirable audiences; but they must be well acted. Could you bring back Kemble and Siddons, Kean and Young, rely upon it that the taste for the theatre would revive, and Drury Lane might be opened with better than a bare chance of success. And although those masters of their art have disappeared from the scene, there still are actors who, if they would condescend to pull together, might do much to prop the declining national drama. In the provincial towns the Charles Keans, Miss Faucit, or Macready, always draw full houses; and it is our belief they would do so the year through at Drury Lane, if they all belonged to its company, under a judicious management. It is idle to say that the public has lost its taste for theatres, because it will not encourage mediocrity and bad taste; and the best proof of the contrary is, that anything really good in theatricals, no matter in what style, at once draws. We need not go far for examples. About three years ago, the little French theatre in St James's had a good working company, besides a constant flow of still better actors, succeeding each other by twos and threes from Paris. The consequence was, that the house was nightly crowded; not only, be it observed, in its more fashionable divisions, but in those cheaper regions of gallery, pit, and boxes, more accessible to moderate purses and to the general public. In short, the theatre was popular, because the performances were good; although it is, assuredly, but a very limited portion of the English middle classes that can fully enter into and enjoy the spirit of French plays. When the management injudiciously changed the system, which, one would think, must surely have answered its purpose as well as that of the public, and gave indifferently sung comic operas instead of well-acted vaudevilles, dramas, and petites comÉdies, popularity and audience dwindled. It was no longer good of its kind. People will not be persuaded, for any length of time, that a star and a bundle of sticks compose a theatrical company worth listening to. We may take another instance, still nearer home. Under the management of Vestris and Mathews, and in spite of a deplorable absence of ventilation, the Lyceum Theatre has for many months past been nightly full to the roof, whilst nearly every other London manager has been wofully grumbling at the state of his benches and treasury. It is not that the performances at the Lyceum have been of a very high class; but of their kind they have been good, the company pulls well together, and there is a certain spirit and originality in the conduct of the theatre. And here, whilst avoiding comparisons with any particular theatre to which they might be unfavourable, we are yet led to remark, that an utter want of originality is one of the chief and most lamentable present characteristics of the London stage. Such a monotonous set of imitators was surely never beheld. They all follow each other in a string, like the boors after Dummling's precious goose. Unfortunately the golden feathers become dross in their grasp. If one makes a hit, forthwith the others copy; without pausing to reflect whether the novelty was not the principal charm, which will evaporate on repetition. Thus, last Christmas, at the theatre already referred to, a fairy spectacle of extraordinary beauty was brought out, and "ran," as the phrase is, an unusual number of nights, long outliving most of the very middling pantomimes and holiday entertainments elsewhere produced. Easter came, and behold! half-a-dozen other theatres, taking their cue from the lucky Lyceum, came out in the same line. Ambitious scenery, gorgeous decoration, wholesale glitter, and many-coloured fires, dazzled the eye in all directions. "If your voice were as fine as your feathers," said the crafty fox to the cheese-bearing crow, "what a bird you would be!" Were your taste equal to your tinsel, managers of the London theatres, what an improvement there would be in your receipts! Your dress-boxes and your cash-boxes would alike be replenished; and you would no longer have a pretext to indulge in undignified wailings about want of encouragement to native talent, preference given to foreigners, and the other querulous commonplaces with which the public is periodically bored.

To return, however, to the Opera. As we have already observed, about four years ago its prospects were bad. Discord, the forerunner of dissolution, had squatted itself in the Green-room. With one or two exceptions, the artists who for some years had been the chief pillars of that stage abandoned it for a rival establishment. With the few hands who stuck by the old ship, it seemed scarcely possible to make a fight. But at the most gloomy moment, when all seemed desperate, a good genius came to the rescue. One Swede proved more than an equivalent for half-a-dozen Italians, and impending ruin was replaced by triumphant success. London presented the singular spectacle—unprecedented, we believe, in any capital—of two enormous theatres simultaneously open for the representation of Italian operas. How it fares with the more modern establishment, we have no positive knowledge. Not too well, we fear, judging from the balance-sheet of a recent lessee. Should the experiment succeed, the public will doubtless be the gainers. We shall be glad to learn that all thrive and flourish; but meanwhile we are particularly pleased to find that the more ancient temple of music and dance, endeared to us by long habit, old associations, and much enjoyment, has risen, at the very moment when ill-omened prophets predicted its fall, to as high a pitch of excellence as, within our recollection, it ever attained; and has escaped conversion to an equestrian circus, a shilling concert room, a Radical debating hall, or any other of the profane and degrading purposes to which of late years it has been too much the fashion to apply the large London theatres. When the enthusiasm excited by Jenny Lind, which at one time approached infatuation, began to subside, and that amiable and charitable, but—if rumour lie not—somewhat capricious lady, fluctuating between matrimony and fame, at last took a middle course, and decided to cross the Atlantic, Her Majesty's Theatre had another stroke of good fortune. The Swede disappeared, but Germany came to the rescue. A singer whose name recalls the most glorious days of the Opera, and who, for nearly twenty years, had exchanged the artist's laurel wreath for the coronet of a countess—the plaudits of Europe for the ease and elegance of a court—was induced to return to the profession of which, during the short time she in her youth had exercised it, she had been one of the brightest ornaments.

The double interest excited by her brilliant talent as a vocalist, and by the peculiar circumstances under which she has again sought the scene of her former triumphs, has been so strong, that by this time few can be unacquainted with the leading incidents of the Countess Rossi's career. A humble origin, the precocious development of an exquisite voice and of extraordinary aptitude for music, the conquest with almost unexampled rapidity of a place beside the first singers of the day, a few short years of theatrical triumphs, an advantageous marriage, loss of fortune, return to the stage—and the tale is told. Even in this meagre outline there is no slight savour of the romantic. "The Countess Rossi," it has been truly observed by a French writer, "has scarcely performed in any lyrical drama fuller of incident and romance than her own life. For her the line of flame which in theatres separates the real from the ideal world, has not existed."[7] Doubtless the details of this accomplished lady's life would be otherwise interesting than the bare outline of its leading events with which the world is fain to content itself. Twenty-five years, divided between the aristocracy of musical talent, and the aristocracy of diplomacy and high birth, must afford rich materials for autobiography. Nor would the period of her childhood be without its strong attraction, were she able to remember, and pleased to tell, of those days of infantine renown, when Coblenz and the banks of Rhine rang with praises of the seven-year-old songstress, whose parents, although they had the good sense to refuse the solicitations of managers, anxious to produce the prodigy, would yet at times place her on their table, and bid her sing for the gratification of admiring friends. Her first appearance in public was at the age of eleven, on the Darmstadt theatre; and perhaps even now that dullest of German capitals remains in her memory as a place of brightness and beauty, associated as it is with her early and complete success. But little Henrietta was not yet to continue the career she had so auspiciously begun. Hot theatres and unlimited praise composed a dangerous atmosphere for one so young, and her next step was to the Conservatory or great musical school at Prague, to the head of which she speedily made her way. At the age of fourteen or fifteen her proficiency in the various branches of her art was so great, that her cautious parents had scarcely a pretext for withholding her longer from the stage, which she manifestly was destined to adorn. Still they hesitated, when accident cast the die. The prima donna of the Prague opera was taken ill: not of one of those fleeting maladies to which singers and dancers are proverbially liable—and which appear an hour or two after noon, to disappear in time for a late breakfast next morning—but seriously, and without hope of speedy recovery. The despairing manager appealed to the pity of the Sontags. His only hope was in Henrietta, and Henrietta was allowed to appear upon the boards of the Imperial Opera of Prague—a theatre to which immortality is secured by the first performance of the Nozze di Figaro and the Clemenza di Tito having taken place within its walls. From a recently published and authentic sketch of Madame Sontag's professional life,[8] we extract an account of her entrance.

"If nothing was wanting in courage, natural gifts of voice, and intellectual power, on the part of the child, as regards the height of her person there was a mancamento of several inches. But the stage-manager was not oblivious of the means by which the Greeks gave altitude to their scenic heroes and heroines; and the little prima donna, to whom was assigned for her dÉbut the principal female part in a translation of the favourite French opera Jean de Paris, was supplied with enormous cork heels. There was a time, at the court of Louis XV., when an inch and a half of red heel was the distinctive characteristic of a marquis, or of a lady of sufficient quality to be allowed to sit in the presence of royalty. On the occasion of the dÉbut of Henriette Sontag, four inches of vermillion-coloured cork foreshadowed the rank of the little lady, destined to become one of the most absolute mimic queens of the lyrical world, and afterwards a real and much respected countess. When the singer who enacted the pompous seneschal in the opera of Jean de Paris came forward, and said, 'It is no less a personage than the Princess of Navarre whose arrival I announce!' the applause and laughter was universal. When the little prodigy appeared on her cork pedestal, the house re-echoed with acclamations. As the business of the stage proceeded, the auditors found there was no longer any indulgence necessary on the score of age, but that there were claims on their admiration for a voice which, for purity, peculiar flute-like tone, and agility, has never been surpassed. The celebrated tenor, Gerstener, that night surpassed himself, finding he had to cope with the attraction of a new musical power. Many nights successively did she thus sing the Princess of Navarre, with increasing success, to crowded houses. Her next part was one far more difficult—that of the heroine in Paer's fine opera, Sargin. But the capital of Bohemia was not long to retain her. The Imperial court heard of her extraordinary success, and Henriette Sontag was summoned to Vienna, where she appeared, the very next season, at the German Opera."

Fraulein Sontag had not been long in the Austrian capital when the eccentric Domenico Barbaja, then lessee of La Scala, the San Carlo, and of the Italian Opera at Vienna, arrived there, incredulous of the merits of the new prima donna. His incredulity must not be ascribed to mere prejudice, for at that time Italy was generally believed to have the monopoly of melodious throats; and even now the exceptions are only just enough to prove the rule, at least as regards female singers. Of these, Germany and Scandinavia have produced but three who have acquired European reputation. The capricious but wonderfully talented Gertrude Schmeling (La Mara,) who at nine years of age drew large audiences at Vienna by her performance on the violin, who afterwards achieved first-rate excellence on the piano, and then, for nearly forty years, held undisputed sway, as unapproachable prima donna, over the entire musical world—and whose name is almost as celebrated by reason of the strange adventures and vicissitudes of her life as on account of her astonishing voice and genius—is the most ancient of these, and Madame Sontag and Jenny Lind complete the trio. When at length prevailed upon to visit the German Opera, Barbaja was astonished, and he immediately offered the young singer an engagement for the San Carlo. This was declined, her parents having a wholesome, perhaps an exaggerated, dread of the temptations and perils that would await their daughter in the luxurious land of Naples. Nay, so deeply rooted was the aversion of the honest Germans for things Italian, that it was with the greatest difficulty Barbaja could obtain their permission for Henrietta to appear at the Italian Opera at Vienna. There she had colleagues worthy of herself—Rubini, the prince of tenors, and the evergreen Lablache, with whom, after an interval of five-and-twenty years, she is now again singing. There also she heard Madame Mainvielle Fodor, by the study of whose admirable style she greatly improved herself. Leipzig and Berlin next witnessed her triumphs, and there she excited great enthusiasm by her singing in Weber's operas of Der FreischÜtz and Euryanthe.

"The admirers of the genius of that great composer," says M. P. Scudo, in a lively, but not strictly correct sketch of Madame Sontag's career, inserted in the Revue des Deux Mondes, "consisted of the youth of the universities, and of all the ardent and generous spirits who desired to emancipate Germany intellectually as well as politically from foreign domination.... They were grateful to Mademoiselle Sontag for consecrating a magnificent voice, and a method rarely found beyond the Rhine, to the energetic and profound music of Weber, Beethoven, Spohr, and the new race of German composers, who had broken all compact with foreign impiety, and given an impulse to the national genius. Receiving universal homage, celebrated by wits, serenaded by students, and escorted by the huzzas of the German press, Mademoiselle Sontag was called to Berlin, where she made her appearance with immense success at the Koenigstadt Theatre. It was at Berlin, as is well known, that the FreischÜtz was for the first time performed, in 1821. It was at Berlin, the Protestant and rationalist city, the centre of an intellectual and political movement which sought to absorb the activity of Germany at the expense of Vienna—that catholic capital, where the spirit of tradition, sensuality, the soft breezes and melodies of Italy reigned—it was at Berlin that the new school of dramatic music founded by Weber had taken the firmest hold. With enthusiasm, as the inspired interpreter of the national music, Mademoiselle Sontag was there welcomed. The disciples of Hegel took her for the text of their learned commentaries, and hailed, in her limpid and sonorous voice, the subjective confounded with the objective in an absolute unity! The old King of Prussia received her at his court with paternal goodness. There it was that diplomacy had the opportunity to approach Mademoiselle Sontag, and to make an impression on the heart of the muse."

With all deference to M. Scudo, who is rather smart than accurate, we will remark that the applause of the Berliners was elicited less by the nationality of the music than by the excellence of the singing; and that they were perfectly satisfied to listen to translations of Rossini, and to the music then in vogue in the other chief opera houses of Europe. Doubtless they were proud of their countrywoman; and their jealousy and indignation were highly excited when, after a visit to Paris, she came back to Berlin with the avowed intention of returning to the French capital. This raised a storm, and on her first appearance at the Koenigstadt, she was received, probably for the first and last time in her life, with a storm of groans and hisses. So violent was the tumult that the other actors left the stage in alarm; but the Sontag remained, strong in her right and regardless of the unmerited hurricane of censure, and of the almost menacing adjurations addressed to her by the audience to break off with the French, and remain in her own country. At last, hopeless of making an impression on the resolute young lady, the incensed Prussians calmed themselves, and from that night to the day of her departure she was as popular as ever.

At Paris was fully confirmed the favourable judgment passed upon Mademoiselle Sontag at Prague, Vienna, and Berlin. And, in one respect, her triumph there was more important and complete than any she had previously enjoyed—more important, not so much on account of the superior critical acumen and taste of her hearers, as by reason of the formidable rivals with whom she had to compete. We are far from belonging to that class of persons—a class confined, as we believe, almost exclusively to France—which holds the favourable verdict of the Parisian musical world the most difficult to obtain, and the most flattering to the artist, of any in Europe. This notion has been diligently set abroad by the Parisians themselves, who, with characteristic self-complacency, look upon their tribunal as the court of last appeal in matters of art and music. The only solid ground upon which such a presumption can plausibly be sustained, is the fact that Paris (by its gaiety and central position the European metropolis of pleasure) annually assembles,—or did assemble, before recent disastrous follies closed its saloons and deterred foreign visitors—a very large portion of the intellectual and art-loving of all countries. Upon this basis rests the sole claim of Paris to fastidiousness and infallibility of judgment. This only can give superior value to the laurel wreaths bestowed in the Salle Ventadour, or the Rue Lepelletier, over those that may be acquired in half-a-dozen other European opera houses. As regards the worth of the verdict of an exclusively French audience, we confess that, when we see the crowds that are attracted, and the enthusiasm that is excited, by the usually flimsy and second-rate music given at the Opera Comique, (for many years past unquestionably the most uniformly prosperous and popular of the Paris musical theatres,) we incline to answer in the affirmative the question put by one of the shrewdest and wittiest of Frenchmen, whether the French nation be not rather song-loving than musical?[9] But if Mademoiselle Sontag, after conquering the unbounded applause of Vienna and Berlin audiences, and the suffrage of so keen a connoisseur as Barbaja, had no need to dread the ordeal of Parisian criticism, on the other hand she well might feel trepidation at thoughts of the competitors she was about to encounter, foremost amongst whom were the great names of Pasta, Pisaroni, and Malibran. In presence of such a trio, any but a first-rate talent must have succumbed and fallen back into the rear rank. Not so did the Sontag, but at once took and kept her place on a level with those great singers. It was with Malibran, the ardent, warm-hearted, passionate Spaniard, that she was brought into most frequent comparison. But although many tales have been told of the bitterness of their rivalry, these have been suggested by probability or malice, not by fact; for, from a very early period of their acquaintance, a sincere friendship existed between them. The Countess de Merlin, in her memoir of Malibran, gives the following account of its origin:—

"The presence of Mademoiselle Sontag at the Italian Theatre was fresh stimulus for Maria's talent, and contributed to its perfection. Each time that the former obtained a brilliant triumph, Maria wept and exclaimed, 'Mon Dieu! why does she sing so well?' Then from those tears sprang a beauty and sublimity of harmony, of which the public had the benefit. It was the ardent desire of amateurs to hear these two charming artists sing together in the same opera; but they mutually feared each other, and for some time the much-coveted gratification was deferred. One night they met at a concert at my house; a sort of plot had been laid, and towards the middle of the concert they were asked to sing the duet in Tancredi. For a few moments they showed fear, hesitation; but at last they yielded, and approached the piano, amidst the acclamations of all present. They both seemed agitated and disturbed, and observant of each other; but presently the conclusion of the symphony fixed their attention, and the duet begun. The enthusiasm their singing excited was so vivid and so equally divided, that at the end of the duet, and in the midst of the applause, they gazed at each other, bewildered, delighted, astonished; and by a spontaneous movement, an involuntary attraction, their hands and lips met, and a kiss of peace was given and received with all the vivacity and sincerity of youth. The scene was charming, and has assuredly not been forgotten by those who witnessed it."[10]

The good understanding thus brought about was permanent, and many proofs of it are on record. From that time forward Sontag and Malibran frequently sang together, both in Paris and London, and displayed an amiability very rare amongst operatic celebrities, in respect to distribution of parts, and to other points which often prove a prolific source of strife behind the scenes. In the little English memoir already referred to, we find some anecdotes illustrative of the kindly feeling between the blue-eyed soprano and the dark-browed contralto. Towards the close of the London opera season of 1829, Malibran one day met Donzelli, the celebrated tenor, with discontent stamped upon his features. She asked the cause of his vexation. The time was at hand for his benefit, he said, and he had been unable to fix on an attractive opera.

"'Have you thought of nothing?' inquired Malibran.

"'Yes; I had thought of the Matrimonio Segreto; but Pisaroni says she is quite ugly enough without playing Fidalma: and then you would not be included in the cast; and I don't know what opera to choose in which you would not have the second part to Mademoiselle Sontag's first—that would not please you, and I am in despair.'

"'Well,' said Malibran, 'to please you, and to show you I would play any part with Sontag, I will play Fidalma.'

"'What, old Fidalma? You are joking!'

"'To prove that I am in earnest, announce it this very day.'"

The opera was announced; Malibran was as good as her word, and played the old aunt admirably: not as Fidalma has since been sometimes misrepresented by singers who sacrificed scenic truth to their own coquetry, but with the due allowance of wrinkles and the antiquated costume appropriate to the part.

Some time previously to the date of this last-recorded incident, Mademoiselle Sontag had twice changed her name. The old King of Prussia, informed of her projected marriage with a Sardinian nobleman and diplomatist, to whose sovereign it was possible that her humble birth might be objectionable, ennobled her under the name and title of Mademoiselle de Launstein, which she soon afterwards abandoned for that of Countess de Rossi. Her first visit to England was subsequent to her marriage, then kept private, although pretty generally known. She first sang in this country at a concert at Devonshire House, her passage to which was through a throng of gazers, drawn together by her reputation for grace, beauty, and musical genius. A few days afterwards, on Tuesday the 15th April 1828, occurred her appearance at the London Opera, in the character of Rosina, in the Barbiere di Seviglia. For two seasons she sang in London; then in Berlin and St Petersburg; and then, the King of Sardinia having authorised her husband to declare his marriage, she left the stage—for ever, as she doubtless thought. But in days when kings are discarded, constitutions annulled, and empires turned upside down at a few hours' notice, who shall presume to foretell his fate? For eighteen years Madame de Rossi adorned the various courts to which her husband was successively accredited as ambassador. The Hague, Frankfort, St Petersburg, Berlin, each in turn welcomed and cherished her. Then came the storm: her fortune was swallowed up; her husband's diplomatic prospects were injured; she thought of her children, and sacrificed herself—if sacrifice it is to be called, by which, whilst fulfilling what she feels to be her duty to her family, she may reckon on speedily retrieving the pecuniary losses consequent on German and Sardinian revolutions.

"The position of an actress," says a clever French theatrical critic, in a pamphlet already quoted, "is a very singular one, even in these days, when prejudice is supposed to have disappeared. She is a mark for applause and adulation, for gold and flowers; she is intoxicated with incense and persecuted by lovers; the gravest personages enact follies for her sake; men unharness her horses, and carry her in triumph; the crowns refused to great poets are thrown to her in profusion; the homage that would be servile, done to a queen, seems quite natural when offered to a prima donna. Only, she must not cross the row of lamps which flame at her feet like a magic circle. From the ivory or golden throne of her lyric empire she may demand what she pleases; but let her attempt to overstep the limit, to take her place in the drawing-room by the side of one of those ladies who applaud her to the bursting of their white gloves, and who pluck the bouquets from their bosoms to throw to her, and what a change is there! How haughty now the mien of those who so lately admired! What chilling reserve; what insulting politeness; what a deep and sudden line of demarcation! A polar breeze has succeeded to the warm breath of enthusiasm; frost has replaced flowers; the idol is no longer even a woman, but a creature.

"Some of those singers who are adored amongst the most celebrated and beautiful, imagine that they go into society, because, on certain nights, when camelias deck the staircases and lustres sparkle to the wax-lights, when a crowd throngs the saloons and obstructs the entrance, they are allowed to present themselves, between eleven and twelve o'clock, at everybody's hour, at the hour of uncared-for acquaintances and friends one does not know. But, on their appearance, how quickly is the music-book opened, how speedily are they manoeuvred towards the piano or singing desk, how pitilessly is every possible note extracted from these fine singers! If by chance, instead of roulades, they venture upon conversation, and aspire to enjoy the pleasures of elegant and polite society, how quickly comes the cloud on the brow of the fair hostess! How evident is it that, in admitting the singer, she excludes the woman! Let the best received presume to have a cold, and she will soon see!

"A prima donna may obtain everything in the world except one thing. For a smile, for a glance, for a single pearl from her string of notes, for a single rose-leaf from her bouquet, she shall have guineas, rubles, bundles of bank-notes, marble palaces, equipages that kings might envy; the heirs of ancient houses shall give her the castles of their ancestors, and efface their fathers' scutcheon to substitute her cipher. But what she shall not have, and what she never will have is a quarter of an hour's conversation at the chimney corner, in a tone neither too polite nor too familiar, on a footing of equality with a great lady and an honest woman.

"The Countess de Rossi has attained this marvellous result; and certainly, to those who know the invincible obstacles she had to overcome, her talent as a singer will appear but a secondary quality. None can tell all the judgment, tact, reserve, sagacity, delicacy, intuition, the various qualities, in short, that have been required to accomplish this most difficult metamorphosis of the actress into the woman of good society.... To behold the prima donna an ambassadress is strange and striking; but still more so is it to see the ambassadress, after twenty years passed in the highest spheres of life, on an equality with all that is most brilliant and illustrious in nobility and diplomacy, again become a prima donna, taking up her success where she had left it, continuing in womanhood what she had begun in early youth, resuming her part in that duet where Malibran, alas! is now missing, and reconquering applause greater perhaps than that of former days. Time has flown for all of us, except for her. Europe has been revolutionised, a throne has crumbled, a republic has replaced the monarchy; but that one thing, so frail, so fleeting, so aËrial, that a nothing can annihilate it—that crystal bell which the slightest shock may crack or shiver, the voice of a songstress—has preserved itself unimpaired; in that pure organ still vibrate the silver notes of youth."

M. Gautier is well known to be a man of wit and talent; in the passages from his pen, whose spirit and letter we have here done our best to render, he gives proof of keen observation and good feeling. But whilst implying his sympathy with the musical artist, who, like Tantalus, beholds but may not partake, and whose admittance to the saloons of good society is as a show, not as a guest, he forgets even to glance at the causes of such exclusion, necessary as a rule, but doubtless admitting of exceptions. He omits reference to the laxity of usages and morals which, although perhaps less so than formerly, is still the frequent characteristic of theatrical and musical professors, and which causes them to be, as he shows, kept at arm's length in good French society. In this country—in such matters the least facile and tolerant of any—there is still greater scruple of admitting singers and actresses, however eminent their talent, to the intercourse even of those classes into which, but for their profession, they would have a right to admission. Exceptions have occasionally, and with much propriety, been made, and royalty itself has been known to set the example. But only under the peculiar circumstances of Madame de Rossi's eventful career—only in presence of a reputation which the breath of scandal has never dared assail, and of social qualities and graces which render her an acquisition to any circle—can it occur to a singer to pass from the boards of the Opera to the most exclusive of London's saloons, to be welcomed as an equal by those who, a few minutes previously, applauded her as an actress.

With respect to Madame Sontag's voice and talent, it is unnecessary to be diffuse. Few comprehend, and still fewer care for, the jargon of contrapuntal criticism, whether applied to a singer or an opera; and for those few, abundant food is continually supplied by dilettanti more profound and scientific than ourselves. Purity, sweetness, flexibility, are the most prominent characteristics of Madame Sontag's voice; her execution is extraordinarily brilliant, correct and elegant, and supremely easy. No appearance of effort ever distresses her audience; the most difficult passages are achieved without the swelling of a vein, the strain of a muscle, or the slightest contortion of her agreeable countenance. Although excelling in those tours-de-force which captivate the multitude, and skilled to decorate the composer's theme with an embroidery of sweet sounds as intricate as graceful, she also well knows how to captivate the true connoisseur by her exquisite taste and sobriety in rendering simple melodies, and such music as would be the worse for adornment. We commenced this paper with a determination to avoid comparisons, and we shall therefore make none: but assuredly Madame Sontag need fear none. In her own style she is quite unrivalled. That style we consider to be more particularly the genteel comedy of opera—a combination of sentiment with gaiety and grace. In her younger days she was considered less successful in more impassioned parts, but this is no longer the case. None who have witnessed her admirable personation of Amina, Linda, and Elvira, will tax her with want of soul and of dramatic energy; and we scarcely know whether to prefer her in those parts, or in the gayer ones of Rosina, Susanna, and Norina—which last character, peculiarly adapted to her arch and ladylike style of acting, she has made her own as completely as Lablache has identified himself with that of her elderly and disappointed wooer. To say the truth, when we first heard of Madame Sontag's expected return to the stage, it was with no pleasurable feeling. The reappearance of a singer after twenty years' absence can in few instances be other than a melancholy sight. It is mournful to listen to the efforts of a deteriorated voice that one has known in its melodious freshness. But an agreeable disappointment awaited all who ventured such unpleasant anticipations with respect to Madame Sontag. Her early campaign had been so short that she was yet in her vigorous prime when she returned, a veteran in fame but not in age or voice. Amidst various statements of her age, the most favourable give her forty-one years, whilst the least so add but two or three to that number. The subject is a delicate one, and we are too happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, which she is the more entitled to that neither on nor off the stage does she look even the least of the ages assigned to her. This would make her but three years older than Madame Grisi, who first saw the light, if theatrical records tell truth, in 1812, and in whose voice none, that we are aware of, have as yet pretended to discover a falling off. Whether twenty years of almost constant exercise, or the same period of comparative repose, be most favourable to the preservation of the singing faculties, we shall not decide. Madame Sontag, however, has never risked by disuse the rusting of her fine organ. At the different courts at which she resided, she invariably showed the utmost complaisance, and willingly contributed, for the pleasure of her friends—and, on occasion, for the purposes of charity—those treasures of song for which managers, before and since, have been glad to pay a prince's ransom. This season her voice is even fresher and more flexible than in 1849; and there can be no reason why the opera-loving public should not, for many years to come, applaud her as their chief favourite—unless, indeed, the very high rate of remuneration her talent commands should, by speedily realising her object in returning to the stage, induce her soon to quit it. We believe it is no secret that her present engagement secures her about fourteen thousand pounds for twelve months' performances—about thrice the salary of a secretary of state. The sum is a very satisfactory one; and, whatever the fortune Madame Sontag has lost, she has evidently at her disposal the means of rapidly amassing another of no mean amount. Who will give the odds that we do not again see her an ambassadress?

A host in herself, Madame Sontag is powerfully seconded. The management of the Opera House, aware of the danger of trusting for success to any one singer, however eminent, to the neglect of that general excellence essential to an effective operatic company, has shown great activity, and has been exceedingly fortunate, in filling those vacancies left by the defections already alluded to. Of first appearances, the most remarkable this season has been that of a young tenor, who has at once taken a very high place amongst that rare class of singers. Since Mario made his debut, a dozen years ago, on the boards of the AcadÉmie Royale, Beaucarde is the only pure tenor who has come forward that can fairly be considered a first-rate. Mario, although his debut was decidedly successful, was little appreciated for some time after his first appearance, and, when desirous to transfer himself to the Italian stage, the manager of the French Opera readily cancelled his engagement on a nominal forfeit. The world knows the excellence, both as actor and singer, to which he has since attained. Beaucarde has come before the London public with more experience of the stage than Mario possessed when he first presented himself to the Parisians, and he has become immediately highly and most deservedly popular. Could any doubt of his excellence have existed in the minds of those who had heard him in other parts, his singing and acting of Arturo in the Puritani must at once have dissipated them. Tenderness and elegance marked his delivery of the whole of that graceful music, which displayed his beautiful quality of voice to the utmost advantage. Beaucarde is a very young man, and a very young singer. His father, a French engineer officer, who had settled at Florence after Napoleon's fall, intended him for a painter; but his own bias was for music, the study of which he secretly and enthusiastically pursued. It is not yet two years since his father's death left him at liberty to follow his own inclinations. With great difficulty he obtained an engagement at a second-rate theatre in his native city. There he was so little appreciated that, after being several months before the public, he was refused the very humble salary of two hundred pounds a-year. He was not discouraged. Perhaps he thought of Rubini—how that tenor of tenors, in his early days, could obtain no better place wherein to warble than a squalid booth at a country festival. Many who knew him in his after period of unrivalled prosperity and renown, will remember, in that room full of trophies, amidst plate and jewels bestowed upon him by kings and emperors, where the eye was dazzled with the glitter of gold and diamonds, a certain picture frame which he was wont to turn round and exhibit to his admiring visitors, who beheld with astonishment on its reverse the announcement of his performance at a fair, admission a single soldo—in English currency, a halfpenny. With such an instance before his eyes, Beaucarde might well persevere. At Florence, Romani, the celebrated musical professor, heard him sing, and insisted upon giving him lessons—by which, however, he did not long profit, having accepted an engagement at a Neapolitan minor opera. At Naples he speedily ascended in the scale, and finally made his debut with complete success at the San Carlo. Mercadante, struck by the beauty of his voice, immediately offered his services as his instructor; but, like Romani, he did not long retain his pupil. Perhaps it was as well he did not; for, whatever Beaucarde might have gained in modish art under his tuition, would have been at the expense of that chaste simplicity which now characterises his style, constituting, in our opinion, one of its greatest merits. How far the taste of his present public will suffer that extreme refinement of style to be compatible with his permanent and complete popularity, may be matter of doubt. The London opera is indebted for his acquisition to the veteran Lablache, who, whilst indulging in a vacation ramble through his old haunts, heard him at the San Carlo, and brought news of his excellence from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Thames.

Calzolari, a remarkably sweet singer and graceful actor, and Sims Reeves, complete such a trio of tenors as has not often been united at one opera house. Mr Reeves' reception on the stage of the Italian theatre has certainly not been the less favourable on account of his being of home growth; and the same remark applies to Miss Catherine Hayes, a delightful singer, who will do well to pay attention to her acting. We make this remark in no unfriendly spirit: we are amongst the warm admirers of Miss Hayes' voice and talent, but we have seen her in parts whose dramatic requirements she seemed somewhat to overlook. It may express our meaning to say that she at times reminds us of the concert room. Upon the stage this should never be. We may instance her performance of Cherubino. Her singing in that charming part was excellent; her delivery of the thrilling and impassioned air, Voi che sapete, left nothing to wish for, and elicited as fervent an encore from a very crowded house as the most ambitious could desire. But as to illusion, we are bound to confess there was little enough—what with the ladylike calmness of her acting, and the epicene costume in which she thought proper to appear. We beheld before us a graceful young woman and an excellent singer—but of the wilful and enamoured page we had but glimpses. A little more spirit, and a little less satin, would have been a decided improvement. Of course we are all cognisant of the "wild sweet-briery fence" which, Mr Moore asserts, environs the beauties of Erin. But is it quite necessary that Miss Hayes should interpret the metaphor into feminine attire when she plays a male part?

We are unable, nor is it necessary, individually to criticise all the members of the Italian company now performing at her Majesty's Theatre, and which, in all respects, is excellent and most effective. There is one other singer, however, who must have a word of mention, were it only that he was the indirect means of making the English public acquainted with Jenny Lind. Belletti was formerly engaged at the opera at Stockholm, and was a great favourite with the late king, Bernadotte. Jenny Lind heard him, and his admirable method and acting at once revealed to her the treasures of the Italian school. She saw that she had much to acquire, and departed for Paris to study. But Belletti has a claim to other than second-hand gratitude. His singing and acting are alike first-rate. Nothing can be better than his Figaro; in less important characters he is equally careful and efficient. His forte is in buffo parts, where his rich mellow voice and contagious merriment are greatly relished. He will probably become—we will not say popular, for that he already is in the highest degree, but an indispensable member of the London company. We regret to learn that he is shortly to accompany Miss Lind to America, and trust his absence will not be of long duration.

Can we close this enumeration without a word of our old acquaintance, Luigi Lablache? Surely a small corner may be found for the great man, who flourishes in unabated vigour, in spite of accumulating years and, as we fancy, annually increasing bulk. There is a geniality and a joviality about this long-standing pillar of the opera, which never fails of its effect upon his public. Probably no foreign actor ever enlisted so uniformly and heartily the goodwill of an English audience; and his popularity, although of course augmented by his vocal merits, is by no means dependent on them. We lately somewhere encountered a hypercritical comment upon his acting, in which he was accused of condescending to buffoonery. Never was charge more unfounded and absurd. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Lablache is the extreme skill with which he draws the line between humour and vulgarity; the perfect good taste distinguishing his drolleries and occasional deviations from the letter of his part. The practice of now and then introducing a French or English word or sentence in an Italian opera, for the purpose of producing a comic effect, is one that certainly should only be indulged with great discretion; but in this, and in all other respects, we may be sure that any dereliction from correct taste would promptly be detected and reproved by so sensitive an audience as that of her Majesty's Theatre. But from his first appearance in London, in 1829, to the present day, an instance, we believe, was never known of a sally of Lablache not obtaining at least a smile—far oftener a hearty laugh. In him the rich Italian humour of the buffo Napolitano, the droll of the San Carlino, still exists, happily tempered and modified by the gentlemanly tact of the experienced comedian. Long may the colossus of bassos preserve his voice and his good humour! His loss would be sorely felt, and his place be hard to fill. Who, after him, shall dare undertake Dulcamara and Pasquale? One thing certain is, that, whenever fulness of years or pocket may detach him from the stage he has so long adorned, to bask away his old age, with dignity and ease, in some sunny Italian town, the public of London and Paris, accustomed to his annual presence amongst them, will regret, in Lablache, not less the accomplished actor than the amiable and kind-hearted man.

We have not room for any particular review of the operas that have been this year performed; and, for the same reason, we can give but a few words to the chief novelty announced. We refer to the forthcoming opera of the Tempest, whose composition devolved, after the death of Mendelssohn, upon HalÉvy, the youngest, and one of the most distinguished, of living French composers. Scribe has supplied the poem. Upon his merits as a librettist it were superfluous to expatiate; it were perhaps more necessary, did it come within the scope of this paper, to correct the popular error that, compared with the music, the libretto of an opera is of little or no consequence. That kind of poetry has certainly been much degraded by the incapacity of many who have presumptuously undertaken it. Good writers of librettos are even more rare than good composers. Since Metastasio's day, those who alone can fairly claim a place in the first rank are Romani, Da Ponte, (the librettist of Don Giovanni,) and Scribe, that able and indefatigable purveyor of the stage, to whom English managers and playwrights owe so heavy a debt of gratitude—a debt which they are not always very prompt to acknowledge. Mendelssohn, when he agreed to compose an opera on the Tempest, stipulated that the libretto should be confided to Scribe, who willingly undertook it, and afterwards declared that he knew few subjects so well adapted for music. This opinion, proceeding from a man who, amongst the various classes of theatrical composition in which he has succeeded, is considered to have been especially successful in that of libretti—so much so, indeed, that it has been asserted he owed more than one vote, at his election as member of the French Academy, to their excellence alone—is of no slight weight. Nor were it reasonable to doubt that the composer of the Juive and of Guido et Ginevra, who seems to have caught, especially in the last-named opera, no feeble spark of the inspiration of his brother Israelite, the great Meyerbeer, will have succeeded in clothing the verse of Scribe in music correspondingly worthy.

We must conclude without even touching upon the ballet. It needs no praise from us: the names alone of Carlotta Grisi, Marie Taglioni, and Amalia Ferraris, are sufficient guarantee of its excellence. Perhaps upon some future day we may be able to discuss its merits.