NAPLES.
Madame Malibran’s performance in this city has been one continued and splendid triumph: at first, the cognoscenti of Naples were inclined to question the justice of the unbounded praises that have been lavished on this astonishing songstress, and to receive her with sang froid, and weigh her pretensions with all the coolness of determined critics; but she had no sooner opened her mouth than all this was instantly converted into an enthusiasm of applause and admiration, to which the oldest frequenters of the Opera remember no parallel. For seventeen nights the theatre was crowded at double prices, notwithstanding the subscribers’ privileges were on most of these occasions suspended, and although Otello, La Cenerentola, La Gazza Ladra, and pieces of that description, were the only ones offered to a public, long since tired even of the beauties of Rossini, and proverbial for its love of novelty. But her grand triumph of all, was on the night when she took her leave of the Neapolitan audience in the character of Ninetta: nothing can be imagined superior to the spectacle afforded by the immense theatre of St. Carlo, crowded to the very ceiling, and ringing with acclamations and applause. Six times, after the fall of the curtain, Madame Malibran was called forward to receive the reiterated applauses and adieux of an audience, which seemed unable to bear the idea of a final separation from its new idol, who had only strength and spirits left to kiss her hand to the assembled multitude, and indicate, by graceful and expressive gestures, the degree to which she was overpowered by fatigue and emotion. The scene did not even end within the walls of the theatre; a crowd of the most enthusiastic rushed from all parts of the house to the stage-door, and as soon as Madame Malibran’s sedan came out, escorted it with loud acclamations to the Palazzo Barbaja, and renewed their salutations as the charming songstress ascended the steps. Nothing can prove more decidedly how strong an impression Malibran made upon the Neapolitans, than the fact, that the next opera which was performed was received with the most mortifying coolness, though the opera itself, Donizetti’s Esule di Roma, is a standard favourite in Naples, and its various revivals, for ten years past, have been till now successful, although Lablache made his first appearance in it on his return to his native city, and Ronzi de Begnis, whose voice, action, and style, have all improved considerably during her long retreat from the stage, performed the principal female character.