KING’s THEATRE.

ON Tuesday, the 26th of February, Madame SCHIASETTI was introduced to the public for the first time in this country, as Malcolm, in ROSSINI’s Donna del Lago. This lady is an old stager. Many years ago she sang in Paris, and there again very recently, but with doubtful success. In the interim she appeared at Dresden, but how she was received there we cannot tell. Her voice is a mezzo-soprano, which she wishes to force down to the contralto compass, but betrays her natural scale in spite of all her efforts. Her high notes are hard and unmusical, and she is not always pure in intonation. In form, Mad. SCHIASETTI rather inclines to the masculine, and shows more muscular than vocal strength. The opera was got up in a manner that almost defies description; parts left out, others put in, transpositions, interpolations, and, in short, nearly every thing that able management would have forbidden was witnessed; except the character of Roderick Dhu, which DONZELLI performed À merveille.

Mad. BOCCABADATI has appeared in Matilde di Shabran, one of ROSSINI’s least interesting operas; and the papers, most of them, have been as lavish in their praise of her as if her powers were of the most unrivalled kind. She undoubtedly improved after her debut, which was a very unfavourable one, and exhibited talents superior to those which were displayed on her first appearance. But she can only rank as a prima donna in second-rate theatres. As a seconda, or as an occasional substitute for the first, Mad. B. may be rendered exceedingly useful and agreeable.

On the 23d, MOZART’s Nozze di Figaro made some change in the performances, which till then had been all ROSSINI, and not the best of ROSSINI. The part of the Countess was given to Mad. BOCCABADATI, and Mad. SCHIASETTI took that of Susanna! Mdlle. NINA SONTAG personating Cherubino. To the first of these the music was perfectly strange, but, like a stranger, she did not give it welcome: however, she got through it better than we expected. Poor Susanna has seldom had so inadequate a representative; and Mdlle. NINA made a page that ought not to have excited any doubts in the mind of Almaviva. This part, by-the-by, was transposed for DONZELLI, as was much for Mad. SCHIASETTI; and, altogether, our history of this attempt at reviving a work of MOZART cannot be rendered favourable.

We now quit the Italian stage, and cast our view to the

GERMAN OPERA.

which commenced at this house on Thursday, March 14th, with Der FreischÜtz, thus cast:—

No one of these must be ranked as a first-rate singer, but all are tolerably respectable. Mad. PIRCHER seems to find it necessary to strain her voice, which is not strong, which sometimes renders her intonation rather faulty. She, however, sings with feeling, and appears to understand what she is about. Madlle. NINA SONTAG is just what she was,—inanimate, both in singing and acting, and inoffensive, unless great frigidity and slowness can offend.

M. BINDER is the best of the party; he wants little of being a very good tenor. He was suffered to introduce a song, not one by Weber, for which the management is more censurable than the singer. We believe that it was one by that prince of modern composers, Pacini! M. BLUME, with a good base voice, is a respectable actor.

M. HUMMEL is the conductor of this corps; but, seated at the piano-forte, he appears to greater advantage than when flourishing the baton. His times of the FreischÜtz were all quicker than those of the composer, as he gave them at Covent Garden. Which of the two is most likely to be right, we leave our readers to determine. The choruses went off extremely well; but in other respects the German Opera this season is much inferior to that of last; nevertheless, M. LAPORTE’s terms of admission are increased. He has, however, already found out that one hundred at seven shillings are not quite so profitable as five hundred at a crown; yet the prices are not reduced. Up to the present moment the speculation has proved a very losing one, and we do not hear of any new opera being in readiness.

DRURY LANE THEATRE.

A new ballet-opera, a term quite new to our stage, was brought out at this house on the 16th ult., entitled The Maid of Cashmere, made up from La BayadÈre Amoureuse, SCRIBE’s very popular piece; the music by AUBER.

The principal characters are—

The story may be told in the following words:—Brama assumes mortality, and is under the necessity of enduring all the evils incident to the change, until he can find a young female who perfectly and purely loves him. Having been present at the preparations for executing an innocent man, he sets the intended victim free, therefore is proscribed by the authorities, and takes refuge in the city of Cashmere. He wanders about as The Unknown, while a price is set on his head by the Grand Vizier. He conceals himself near the palace of Olifour, and there remains while some dancing peasants, called BayadÈres, exhibit before the grand judge, who falls desperately in love with Zelica, the Maid of Cashmere; but she rejects him, and shows a decided preference for The Unknown, who imprudently comes forward. Soon afterwards he is discovered, and is about to be seized, when Zelica purchases his liberty by consenting to give her hand to the old judge. Presents she rejects, but consents to ride in a palanquin sent for her conveyance; and naturally enough, for The Unknown had slipped into it, and, lying at the bottom, is effectually hidden. We next find the pair in the hut of the BayadÈre, where she makes her love for Brama pretty obvious. To try the strength and truth of her attachment, he makes Zelica jealous, by paying undue attention first to a singing BayadÈre, Leila, and subsequently to another dancing BayadÈre, Fatima. She is of course very uneasy, and before long her truth is put to the test, for the judge and his troops enter in search of The Unknown, who escapes through a trap-door into a cellar,—a very undignified exit for a god, by the way. As The Unknown is not to be found, the guards seize Zelica, and, raising a pile in her own cottage, proceed to perform the inconvenient ceremony of burning her. She patiently awaits her doom,—the flames are fast approaching her—when Brama is seen rising behind her, restored to his divine state. He exalts the BayadÈre into the clouds, and the scene suddenly changes to the celestial abode of the God. Thus ends the Opera-ballet, or Ballet-opera.

The strength of this is all in the ballet; the music is light and frothy, with the exception of a pretty good trio near the end of the first act. Indeed, as dancing would clearly be the attractive part of this piece, M. AUBER was fully justified in not wasting much force on it, and acted prudently in writing nothing of a solid kind, and in trusting wholly to a pleasing gaiety of style.

Don Juan continues to fill the house in every part: nay it draws persons into the public boxes, who, on any other occasion, would have been shocked at a proposal to visit the theatre without the consolation of a more private and exclusive retreat.

COVENT GARDEN THEATRE.

THE dramatic oratorio, contrary to expectation, has been eminently successful. After the first night it improved very much in representation, and still more so in the audiences. It has drawn crowds ever since.

On the 23rd of last month, an opera, altered from the French, under the name of The Coiners, or the Soldier’s Oath, the music by AUBER, was produced here; but we were at Drury Lane on that evening, and have not since had an opportunity of seeing this new production; on which we shall report next month, should the piece survive, which, according to what we hear, is somewhat doubtful.