DON GIOVANNI AND KEAN’S EUSTACE DE ST. PIERRE
| The Examiner.] | [May 18, 1817. |
The last time we saw the Opera of Don Giovanni was from a distant part of the house: we saw it the other evening near; and as the impression was somewhat different, we wish to correct one or two things in our former statement. Madame Fodor sings and acts the part of Zerlina as charmingly as ever, but she does not look it so well near as at a greater distance. She has too much em bon point, is too broad-set for the idea of a young and beautiful country girl: her mouth is laughing and good-natured, but does not answer to Spenser’s description of Belphebe,—and it cannot be concealed that Zerlina, the delightful Zerlina, has a cast in her eyes. Her singing, however, made us forget all these defects, and after the second line of La ci darem, we had quite recovered from our disappointment. On the whole, we at present prefer the air of Vedrai Carino, which she sings to Masetto to comfort him, even to the duet with Don Giovanni. There was some uncertainty about encoring her in this song,—not, we apprehend, because the audience were afraid of tiring the actress, but because they were tired themselves. Madame Fodor was encored in all her songs throughout the piece.—This might be thought hard upon her; we dare say she would have thought it harder if she had not. Signor Ambrogetti’s acting as Don Giovanni improves upon a nearer acquaintance. There is a softness approaching to effeminacy in the expression of his face, which accords well with the character, and an insinuating archness in his eye, which takes off from the violent effect of his action. The serenade of Don Giovanni was omitted. As to Naldi, he is in too confirmed possession of the stage to be corrigible to advice. He is one of those old birds that are not to be caught with chaff. The sly rogue, Leporello, seems to have grown grey in the service of iniquity, and hangs his nose over the stage with a formidable bravura aspect, as if he could suspend the orchestra from it. Angrisani is an admirable, and we might say, first-rate comic actor. He has fine features; a manly, rustic voice; and we never saw disdain, impatience, the resentment and relenting of the jealous lover, better expressed than in the scene between him and Madame Fodor, where she makes that affecting appeal to his forgiveness in the song of Batte, Batte, Masetto. It was inimitably acted on both sides.
Drury-Lane.
Mr. Kean has appeared in Eustace de St. Pierre in the Surrender of Calais. He has little to do in it; and he might as well not have appeared in the character, for he does not look well in it. He was badly dressed in a doublet of green baize, and in villainous yellow hose. It was like the player’s description of Hecuba—
‘A clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood: and for a robe
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up.’
But we shall not, ‘though we have seen this, with tongue in venom steep’d, pronounce treason against fortune’s state,’ or against the Managers of Drury-lane. Mr. Kean shewed his usual talents in this part; but it afforded less scope and fewer opportunities for them than any part in which we have ever seen him. We are not sorry, however, that he has got into the part, as a kind of truce with tragedy. Why should he not, like other actors, sometimes have a part to walk through? Must we for ever be expecting from him, as if he were a little Jupiter tonans, ‘thunder, nothing but thunder?’ It is too much for any mortal to play Othello and Sir Giles in the same week—we mean, as Mr. Kean plays them. He is, we understand, to appear in a new character, and sing a new song, for his benefit to-morrow week.