PUBLISHED BY OLIVER DITSON AND COMPANY, 277 WASHINGTON STREET.

1862.

WHOLE NO. 470.

BOSTON, SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1861.

The night wind, like some pious Sabbath tune,
The passionate heart to peace attempereth,
Then in my quiet room I sit, and sing
Such songs as solitude and I love best;
Then evil's self seems a harmonious thing,
And life's sad cares resolve in tranquil rest.
Then do I feel that all are sanctified

To noble ends, and purely should aspire;
All, who in song's novitiate here are tried,
Ere they may join the immortal starry choir.
Then thrills of rapture through my being start,
As though the hand of God had touched my heart.
FANNY MALONE RAYMOND.

Translated for Dwight's Journal of Music.

Sketches of French Musical History.
XI.
OPERA.

1830-1860.

The Revolution of July (1830) may be said to have taken place to the music of the duet in Masaniello, “Amour sacré de le patrie," and to

the

song la Parisienne, which Nourrit sang with such wonderful expression. After being closed fifteen days the theatre was opened again, Aug. 4, with Auber's la Muette, (Masaniello), a work fitted as if written for the occasion.

The following 13th of October, they gave Le Dieu et la Bayadere, another charming work of Auber, in which Marie Taglioni and Perrot, a pupil of Vestris, executed prodigies of grace and elegance.

other in the praises of pleasure and love, are of
an infinite grace and freshness; the Fêtes of the
tournament are of magic splendor; the scene of
the nuns has a terrible and sombre effect; finally
the closing trio in which the angel overthrows the
demon and heavenly voices mingle with sad cries
from the realm of darkness is sublime.

And then such execution! Nourrit, Levasseur,
Madames Damoreau and Dorus! and Cornelie
Falcon, who, after making the part of Alice her
own, became the admirable personification of La
Juive! Person, voice, action, dramatic enthu-
siasm, that great tragedienne united all the quali-
tics so rare, which go to form the consummate
lyric artist. What can we say of the orchestra
tion of Meyerbeer? What vigor, sonority, pic-
turesque coloring, exactness in the smallest de-
tails! On the other hand, what luxury in the
decorations, the costume, the stage appointments! |
During the rehearsals of this splendid work,
public opinion was utterly unfavorable to it; even
the actors far from expecting success foresaw but
its fall. Robert le Diable, that sublime manifest-
ation of genius, was regarded as a labored and
fantastic conception, with no melodic value, an
opinion which very soon would be justified by the
public.

After Rossini and Weber we have had Meyerbeer; after Meyerbeer and Auber we come to Halévy. This master, so profound in his science, so elevated in his inspirations, has continued the romantic movement of which we have been speaking, and which corresponds to that transformation in literature at the head of which Victor Hugo has been proclaimed chief actor. In the works of Halévy, to a great richness of orchesMarch 1, 1831, Veron succeeded Lubbert in tration are added a great knowledge of the voice the direction of the opera, with a brilliant and and a perfect appreciation of prosody and draprofitable success. He gave successively Le Phil-matic truth. We know not what to praise most tre, a new masterpiece of Auber, in a lighter style; Robert le Diable (Nov. 21), which produced a real revolution in the grand dramatic style; Le Serment and Gustave, by Scribe and Auber; Al Baba, the last production of the now old Cherubini; and then La Juive, the masterpiece of his pupil, Halévy, who may be well called the French Meyerbeer.

Robert the Devil really is the standard-bearer of the new romantic school. This immense work, to which all schools, melted together in the crucible of a patient, learned and eclectic genius, have contributed, will ever remain an imperishable monument of the second transformation of the art in the 19th century. The first was the work of Rossini.

The middle ages and chivalry, happily substituted for the thoroughly used up old clothes of the Greeks and Romans, the eternal contest of Right and Wrong, so admirably personified in the parts of Alice and Bertram, give to this marvellous poem all the attractions of a legend based upon the principle of Christianity. The fugued introduction which precedes the rising of the curtain is at once learned and melodious; the choruses of the Norman nobles, who emulate each

highly in La Juive, the pomp of the introduction,
the solemn Te Deum, the magnificence of the
processions, the energy of the choruses, or the
beauty of single pieces. Can there be anything
more pathetic than the sublime second act, in
which the Jewish type is so finely sculptured!
What touching simplicity in the scene of the
Passover. What emotion in the romance "Il va
cedir;" what passion in the final duet and trio!
And then how grandly is the character of the
Cardinal painted in the majestic air of the first
act, the awful anathema of the third, and the
dramatic duet of the fourth! What can be said
of the air of Eleazar, "Rachel, quand du Seign-
eur," the text of which is by Nourrit, and in
which palpitate all the sentiments of tenderness,
love and religion which a paternal heart can con-
tain. Is there not something in that funeral
march of the penitents in the fifth act, which
causes one to shiver with a sort of alarm and
terror? That supplication of the young and
beautiful Rachel, the sad decorations, the short
notes of the executioner to the "Il est temps !'
all combine to make this work one of the most
touching exhibitions which can be offered to the
sensibilities of an audience.

VOL. XIX. No. 1.

Veron alternated his operas with the most seductive ballets, as La Sylphide, par Mlle. Taglioni; La Tempête, L'Ile des Pirates and Le Diable Boiteux by Mlles. Therese and Fanny Ellsler.

Add to all this, reproductions of the Armida, La Vestale and Don Juan, and a troop perfectly balanced, and the prodigious success of the opera at that time is no longer astonishing.

Director Veron was succeeded by Duponchel, under whom we had Meyerbeer's second great work, Les Huguenots, Feb. 29, 1836.

Nothing new can be said upon the bacchic spirit of the chorus of the orgies, upon the grace of that of the bathers, upon the magnificent septette of the duel scene, upon the celebrated fourth act, in which the sombre conjuration precedes the sublime duet, which will never be surpassed upon the stage. What was there wanting to inspire such artists as Nourrit and Mlle. Fal

con.

The fifth act finely closes these scenes of war and love. The ball at which Raoul presents himself dripping with blood; the scene in the convent in which the voices of the Huguenots die away by degrees; and the final tableau in which Marcel unites the two lovers and the choral of Luther, vigorously sung by the three martyrs, appals the ferocious assassins; then the marvellous stage scene in which the quays of Paris, strewn with the slain, appear in shadow, while the massive towers of Notre Dame are relieved in all their jagged outlines against the azure sky all sparkling with stars; nothing could so picturesquely close so bloody and terrible a drama. Reports of firearms mingle with the groans of the victims; the savage cries of the murderers resound from all sides; the curtain falls upon this scene of horror at the moment when Queen Marguerite reënters her palace, escorted by her pages and brilliantly lighted by the torches, which flame about her splendid litter.

The production of La Esmeralda, by Mlle. Bertini, and Stradella, by Niedermeyer and the retirement of Adolphe Nourrit from the stage before the debut of Gilbert Duprez were contem

poraneous.

Duprez had an immense success as Arnold in William Tell, in Masaniello, Les Huguenots and La Juive. His large and noble style of recitative, the great strength of lung with which he gave the high C with the chest voice, filling the theatre with the tone, his neat and sonorous declamation, and his true and expressive method very soon gained him the suffrages of all. Unluckily, imitators, who had neither his genius or his physical powers, in their endeavors to copy him, very soon gave us cries in the place of singing and loudness instead of expression. This tendency to a false taste ruled alike in the provinces and in Paris, and the true vocal art would soon have disappeared among us but for the combined efforts of Bordogni, Banderali, Ponchard and Garcia.

After the appearance of Madame Stolz in