[Mrs. M.G., before she takes her leave, contrives to inform Mr. TABLETT, with her prettiest penitence, that she has only just recollected that her luncheon party is put off, and that her Tuesdays are over for the Season. Directly she returns to Town, she promises to let him hear from her; in the meantime, he is not to think of troubling himself to call. So there is no harm done, after all.
THE OPERA-GOER'S DIARY.
(Last Week of Opera.)
Monday.—Hamlet. Music by AMBROISE THOMAS, and libretto by Messieurs CARRÉ and BARBIER, who seem to have read Hamlet once through, after which they wrote down as a libretto what they remembered, of the story. It would be difficult to mention any Opera less dramatic than this. The question arises at once, adapting the immortal phrase of JAMES LE SIFFLEUR, "Why lug in Hamlet?" Why not have called it Ophelia? Whatever interest there may be in the Opera—and there is very little—is centred entirely in Ophelia. The Ghost is utterly purposeless, but of distinguished appearance as a robust spectre, marching in at one gate, and out at another, or hiding behind a sofa, and popping up suddenly, in order to frighten an equally purposeless Hamlet. Like father, like son. M. LASSALLE is a fine, substantial, baritonial Hamlet, who is always posturing, weeping, calling out ma mère, and blubbering on the ample matronly bosom of his mother, Madame RICHARD ("O RICHARD! O ma Reine!") like a big, blubbering, overgrown schoolboy. Were I inclined to disquisitionise, I should say that Messieurs CARRÉ and BARBIER have actually realised SHAKSPEARE's own description of his jelly-fleshed hero, whose mind is as shaky as his well-covered body. Hamlet was—as SHAKSPEARE took care to emphasise—"fat, and scant of breath"—which was the physical description of the actor who first impersonated the leading rôle of this play; and the French author's idea of Hamlet was, accordingly, a fat youth, very much out of condition, home from Wittenberg College, in consequence of his father's recent decease.
Some of the lighter musical portions of the Opera are charming, and the Chorus at the end of Act I, might have been written by OFFENBACH. But what is there of the story? Nothing. The King is not killed: the Queen isn't poisoned: Polonius is not stabbed behind the arras, having been, perhaps, killed before the Opera commenced, since his name appears in the book but not in the programme, and the only person on the stage that I could possibly associate with that dear old Lord Chamberlain was M. MIRANDA, who had donned a white beard and a different robe from what he had been previously wearing as Horatio in the First and Second Acts, in order to enter and lead the King away, in an interpolated and ineffective scene which was not in the book. A very hard-working Opera for the principals, and a thankless task. Hamlet's drinking song fine, and finely sung. But the whole point of the Opera is in the last Act, where there is a ballet that has nothing to do with the piece, but pretty to see little PALLADINO in short white skirts, dancing merrily in a forest glade, among the happy peasantry, to whom comes Ophelia, mad as several hatters, and after a lunatic scene, charming, both musically and dramatically, throws herself into the water, and dies singing.
Here is a suggestion for the effective compression and reduction of the Opera, and if my plan be accepted, DRURIOLANUS will earn the eternal gratitude of those who would like to hear all that is good in it, and to skip, as PALLADINO does, the rest. Thus:—
ACT I.—Enter HAMLET. Solo. Exit. Enter OPHELIA. Solo. Re-enter HAMLET. OPHELIA and HAMLET love-duet. Exit OPHELIA. HAMLET'S Friends come in, and he sings them a Drinking Song with Chorus. All join in Chorus and Dance. Curtain.