sition displaying each new and fertile resource of the school of Rossini. But Robert le Diable was long preceded by the masterpiece of Von Weber. True, but Der Freyschütz was executed at the Opera Comique, the productions of which theatre may be said to form a transition between the vaudeville, or lighter comedy, and the grand opera, in which, as in all the pieces exhibited on the stage of the Rue le Pelletier, the dialogue is recitative. It is written over the door of the Theatre du Vaudeville-"Le Français né malin, inventa le Vaudeville." This, mutatis mutandis, would also be an appropriate inscription for the portico of the Opèra Comique. Robert le Diable is then the first five-act opera in which, on the French stage, the elaboration of a thought was carried out with the most exquisite finish of execution and unity of design. It exhibits the conflicts of a good with an evil principle, and the partition shadows forth each phase of emotion. The perpetual warfare between monos and daimonos-between things heavenly and things infernal-on the one side, early education, maternal love, and the noble materials of virtue--opposed to them, the subtle voice of the serpent, the fiend who avows himself a father, the father who would win his son to perdition; all these colourings of passion, thrown into the most vivid contrast, are wrought into a succession of powerfully dramatic scenes--each new one augmenting the interest felt in its predecessor. The legend is, as the minstrel hath it, * * * "L'histoire epouvantable De ce Robert le Diable * Ce mauvais garnement "De Normandie" would not have impaired the beauty of M. Scribe's last couplet, inasmuch as our hero's was a Norman dukedom. Robert is an amateur of wine, of dice, and of beauty, who maintains his reputation with the pit by his display of reckless daring and generosity, and who deserves no mention by the side of our old and philosophical friend, Faust. The true hero of the drama is (as is usual in such matters since Milton) the Devil--his friend and unknown sire. Sweet woman most appropriately administers the chalice of holy hope to this all but lost sinner--we mean Robert, not his sire-and in the hour of trial, when he consents to sign the black and bloody bond, an organ, pealing to her assistance, recalls to his mind the chants of his infancy. At the same moment, Alice unfolds the dying letter of his mother. "O mon fils ma tendresse assidue Veille sur toi du haut des cieux Fuis les conseils audacieux Du séducteur qui m'a perdu." C'en est fait-the hour has come; and Bertram, in despair, strives to drag Robert with him through the flames amid which he disappears. The scene is strikingly dramatic, and the horror displayed in Nourrit's convulsed features, as he starts back from the spot at which his sire vanished, is a magnificent piece of acting. All this occurs in the antechamber of a chapel-a curtain rises, and a splendid assemblage of priests, of enfans de chœur with censers, of lords and ladies in wedding bravery, at the head of whom the princess Isabel kneels before the altar-await to celebrate the nuptials of the repentant duke with his ladye-love. The opera Robert was followed by Gustave ou le bal Masqué, a production of Auber's, far inferior to the Muette, and founded upon the assassination of Gustavus of Sweden, by Ankastrom. History is of course altered to suit the genius of the piece. In truth, Clio, in dramatic mythology, too often becomes the goddess of fiction. The main success of Gustave is to be attributed to the brilliant masquerade in the fifth act. We remember having been present at its first representation, and the bravos which welcomed this gay scene were in due accordance with the Gaul's love of splendour, and admiration of tinsel. Besides the usual gas lights of the stage, eighteen hundred bougies in rich candelabras illumined the ball room "as the sun at noon." This scene is now often played without the preceding four acts the opera is therefore, comparatively, a failure. Cherubini-the Beethoven of the present day-next produced an opera. The forte of this grand composer lies less in musicodramatic, than in profound harmonic conceptions. Alibabaso his last work is entitled-is founded upon the well known Arabian tale, and was first exhibited in 1834. Although its early representations were crowded to excess, it was little appreciated by the parterre, for which dignified areopagus its splendid harmonies and masterly cadences were too scientific. Yet it seems to us that even Milton's Comus would weary an English pit, and the undying parterre of the French theatres holds, in its palms, the destinies of every dramatic production it is called upon to praise or to condemn. In vain are bands of claqueurs, hired to applaud, even as professional mourners are retained at a funeral. Enthusiasm paid at the rate of thirty sous a night is not easily communicated. We were enchanted with Alibaba, the dilettanti pronounced it a chef d'œuvre, but its majesty, the pit of the grand opera, thought otherwise. It accordingly fell through. Previous to the appearance of Alibaba, the Don Juan of Mozart had been brought out at great expense, and the rich materiel of this magnificent opera extended by the Parisian musicasters into five acts. Even the parterre was ashamed not to admire the master-piece of Mozart-especially when presented in a very pretty libretto, and notwithstanding that the baritone part of its hero had been transposed an octave in alt, so as to meet the compass of Nourrit's voice. Still, though its merits were acknowledged by all, Don Juan met only with enthusiasm from the privileged few. The hiatus intervening between Cherubini's splendid failure, and La Juive, was filled up by Robert le Diable, (now near its two hundredth representation,) and by one or two new ballets, and the thirst of the Parisians after novelty was quenched for a time by the graceful flights of Mademoiselle Taglioni, and by the voluptuous pas de deux of the two Ellslers. Fanny-the younger of these sisters-is surprisingly beautiful as a woman, and beautifully surprising as a danseuse. Her pirouettes and feats of muscular strength and agility are, however, the very opposite of the suave and chaste sylphisms of Taglioni. At last the Juive was exhibited to the public, who had long awaited her coming. Never did Jewess or opera so surpass all expectations. Mademoiselle Falcon looked and sang the Rebecca of Ivanhoe; the scenery and decorations were brilliant above all traditions of dramatic splendour, and the music has entitled its composer, M. Halevy, to a seat in the French institute. This opera was produced in the spring of 1835, and many a gay Parisian left the masquerades of the Carnival for this splendid spectacle. One hundred and eighty thousand francs were expended in "getting it up," and in one scene a gorgeous procession of one hundred and fifty knights on horseback, in full panoply, pass over the stage. In the last act a large public square is admirably depicted, and the sad illusion of an auto-da-fé is rendered perfect by the procession of penitents, by their appropriate dirge, and by the dead stillness of the multitude assembled to witness the execution. We hasten from the Juive to the Huguenots, the last work of M. Meyer-Beer, and, as we think, the most extraordinary musical production of the present day. We have seen, in his preceding opera, with what success this gifted composer has exhibited a perpetual struggle between the principles of good and of evil. Still, the legend of Robert possesses intrinsic elements of interest, and its musical translation was listened to, its dramatic positions observed and admired by the audience, with the same attentive curiosity and with the same breathless anxiety that any intelligent auditory would bestow on the recital of a highly wrought fiction, or with which any crowd of spectators would await the issue of an eventful combat. Rarely has the supernatural been turned to such advantage, and there are many passages in the music of Robert which rank with the renowned supper scene of Don Giovanni. But when Meyer-Beer proclaimed to all Europe that he had produced another chef d'œuvre, and that the massacre of St. Bartholemew had furnished the materials of this new and ambitious fabric, the musical world knew hardly whether most to admire the audacity of the maestro, or tremblingly and sorrowfully to anticipate a failure. Yet the universal interest in the fate of this new drama was, for a season, doomed to disappointment. The Huguenots had been promised for rehearsal in the fall of 1834, and a compact to this effect signed by M. Meyer-Beer on the one hand, and by M. Vèron,' the then director of the opera, on the other. The autumn came, but with it no opera. The composer entreated for a few months' respite-urging illness as a plea for his remissness. Vain prayers! vain excuses! M. Véron insisted upon a fulfilment of the contract, or the penalty of forfeiture, thirty thousand francs. The opulent composer paid the money, left Paris, and, deeply incensed at this treatment, swore that his new opera should make the fortune of some more deserving theatre. Fortunately for us, and for the world, the recording angel dropped a tear on this, as on the oath of my Uncle Toby. Eighteen months flew by, and M. Vèron learned that MeyerBeer was in treaty with the directors of Feydeau, the Opera Comique he and his treasurer now repented deeply their unhandsome conduct towards the composer. We were soon informed by the Parisian journals that Vèron had gone to Baden to become, in his turn, a suppliant. His interview with Meyer-Beer was solemn--a treaty was nevertheless soon concluded-its first stipulation being, that the 10,000 francs he had been forced to pay M. Scribe for the libretto should be refunded, together with the 20,000 francs of dommages interets which the director had also claimed and received. This clause once adjusted, matters went on smoothly, and Véron returned to Paris with maestro and massacre in his The rapid fortune of M. Vèron is a singular combination of good luck, and of clever manoeuvring. In his younger days, and while an apothecary's boy, he invented the celebrated Paté Régnaud. This discovery furnished him an income of 10,000 francs: he then became physician to, and, finally, director of, the opera. The first piece brought out by the new director secured him an ample fortune. This piece was Robert le Diable, and, strange to say! he himself had no confidence in its success. At the end of five years he retired upon 800,000 francs! chaise de poste. The coulisses and boards of the grand opera were set in immediate gestation, and in due time produced "a mountain." The Huguenots made their debut in the month of March last, and the echoes of the lyres which first vibrated with these seraphic strains, have not yet ceased. A chain of harmonic sympathies unites countries hitherto inimical. France and Russia, Paris and St. Petersburg, with all the intermediate cities, join in hailing this first successful endeavour to drown in music the discords of war, of politics, and of diplomacy. Even Spain, poor, persecuted Spain, might repose from her troubles and dissensions, could this opera be brought out at Madrid. If Orpheus drew after him trees and stones, Meyer-Beer might surely entice from their mountain fastnesses, the guerillas of Don Carlos. But to our purpose-the Huguenots, and the immense difficulties which must have encompassed the composer. We have already remarked that Robert was a facile theme when compared with its younger and more sober brother. A consideration of the education and habits of the Gallic nation-of their irreligion, and of the gaiety which, with them, converts every frown into its corresponding smile, Each tear of sadness to its mate of joy, will show that great and splendid talent was requisite to convulse with interest, in a religious opera, the same audience beneath the warmth of whose enthusiasm La Muette de Portici and Robert had budded and bloomed into existence. Next to liberty, glory, love—and mayhap before the latter— the dramatist may draw his readiest and most felicitous inspirations from the mysterious, the wonderful, the supernatural-from those fancies which seize on the imagination, which nourish it with the vague surmises of superstition, with the soul's curiosity to know more of itself, and with its longings to encroach on the forbidden realms of the invisible. From such sources have the Germans derived most of their original poetry, romance, and music. In proof of this, we need only cite Faust and Der Freyschütz. It had ever been deemed improper to exhibit religion on the stage, and the enthusiasm of piety had found most seeming vent in oratorios. The great masters in this high department of musical art-Handel, Sebastian Bach, Martini, Haydn, Glück, Mozart, Beethoven-had, morover, little confidence in the effects of sacred music upon a theatrical audience. Of late years this has changed. The Muette has its beautiful prayer at the chapel door, and in the market-place. The church was here in limine of the French stage-Robert |