It will be my glory to send thither my thought, full of admiration for that great country, for its choice public, for its theaters in which my works have been given. You honor my artists and myself so much by speaking of Roma, and I am the prouder of your words because they will present that tragic opera with your talent's high authority.
MASSENET.
I cannot speak of the superb first performance of Roma without a certain natural embarrassment. I leave that task to others, but I permit myself to reproduce what anyone could read in the next day's papers.
The interpretation—one of the most beautiful that it has been our lot to applaud—was in every way worthy of this new masterpiece of Massenet's.
A remarkable thing which must be noted in the first place is that all the parts are what are termed in theatrical parlance "good rôles." Every one of them gives its interpreter chances for effects in singing and acting which are calculated to win the admiration and applause of the audience.
Having said this much in praise of the work, let us congratulate the marvellous interpreters in their order on the program.
Mlle. Kousnezoff with her youth, fresh beauty and superb dramatic soprano voice was a feast to the eyes and the ears and she will continue to be for a long time the prettiest and most seductive Fausta that one might wish for.
The particularly dramatic part of the blind Posthumia was the occasion of a creation which will rank among the most extraordinary in the brilliant career of that great operatic tragedienne Lucy Arbell. Costumed with perfect esthetic appreciation in a beautiful dark robe of iron gray silk, with her face artificially aged but beautiful along classic lines, Lucy Arbell moved and stirred the audience profoundly, as much by her impressive acting as by the deep velvety notes of her contralto voice.
Mme. Guiraudon in her scene in the second act achieved a great personal success, and never so much as yesterday did the Paris critic regret that this young, exquisite artist had abandoned prematurely her career as an artist and consents to appear hereafter but rarely and ... at Monte Carlo.
Mme. Eliane Peltier (the High Priestess) and Mlle. Doussot (Galla) completed excellently a female cast of the first order.