This is a drama of Action and of Spectacle, however, to which the Music is subordinate. Such a medley of drinking and praying, dancing and devotion, idol-worship and Delilah-craft, I had not before encountered. At least three hundred performers were at once on the stage. The dancing-girls engaged were not less than one hundred in number, apparently all between fourteen and eighteen years of age, generally good-looking, and with that aspect of innocence and freshness to which the Stage is so fatal. The most agile and eminent among them was a Miss Plunkett, said to be an American, with a face of considerable beauty and a winning, joyous manner. I should say that half the action of the piece, nearly half the time, and more than half the attention of the audience, were engrossed by these dancing demoiselles.
France is the cradle and home of the Ballet. In other lands it is an exotic, here a natural outgrowth and expression of the National mind. Of the spirit which conceived it, here is the abode and the Opera Français the temple; and here it has exerted its natural and unobstructed influence on the manners and morals of a People. If you would comprehend the Englishman, follow him to his fireside; if a Frenchman, join him at the Opera and contemplate him during the performance of the Ballet.
I am, though no practitioner, a lover of the Dance. Restricted to proper hours and fit associates, I wish it were far more general than it is. Health, grace, muscular energy, even beauty, might be promoted by it. Why the dancing of the Theater should be rendered disgusting, I can not yet comprehend. The "poetry of motion," of harmonious evolutions and the graceful movement of "twinkling feet," I think I appreciate. All these are natural expressions of innocent gaiety and youthful elasticity of spirits, whereof this world sees far too little. I wish there were more of them.
But what grace, what sense, what witchery, there can be, for instance, in a young girl's standing on one great toe and raising the other foot to the altitude of her head, I cannot imagine. As an exhibition of muscular power, it is disagreeable to me, because I know that the capacity for it was acquired by severe and protracted efforts and at the cost of much suffering. Why is it kept on the stage? Admit that it is not lascivious; who will pretend that it is essentially graceful? I was glad to see that the more extravagant distortions were not specially popular with the audience—that nearly all the applause bestowed on those ballet-feats which seem devised only to favor a liberal display of the person came from the little knot of hired "claqueurs" in the center of the pit. If there were many who loved to witness, there were few so shameless as to applaud.
If the Opera is ever to become an element of Social life and enjoyment in New-York, I do trust that it may be such a one as thoughtful men may take their daughters to witness without apprehension or remorse. I do not know whether the Opera we now have is or is not such a one; I know this is not. Its entire, palpable, urgent tendency, is "earthly, sensual, devilish." In none was the instinct of Purity ever strengthened by beholding it; in many, it must, in the nature of things, be weakened with each repetition of the spectacle. It is no marvel that the French are reputed exceedingly reckless of the sanctions and obligations of Marriage, if this is a part of their State-supported education.
I came away at the close of the third act, leaving two more to be performed. The play is transcendent in spectacle, and has had a very great success here.