A PROJECT often talked of, but never before listened to by the Lord Chamberlain, was, on the 15th of last month, the first Friday in Lent, carried into execution by M. LAPORTE, namely, the performance of something like an oratorio in action, on the stage, with scenery, dresses, &c. For this experiment Rossini’s sacred opera, Mosè in Egitto, was chosen, which, with a chorus and a few scraps from Handel, was announced as The Israelites in Egypt, or the Passage of the Red Sea, the music ‘selected from the works of HANDEL and ROSSINI,’ a most extraordinary union, it must be confessed, had the mixture been equal; but, luckily, the ‘Hailstone chorus’ was the only entire piece of the former composer introduced, the rest having been neither more nor less than the Italian opera with English words. The Jewish lawgiver was represented by Mr. H. PHILLIPS, who had just stepped out of the character of pimp to the Spanish grandee: and Mr. SEGUIN, who, the night before and the night after, was the Masetto, or bumpkin, in Don Giovanni, personated the obstinate autocrat of Egypt. Mr. WILSON represented the brother of Moses, the chief priest named by divine authority; and the character of the first of the ‘first-born of Egypt,’ Pharaoh’s son, sustained by Mr. WOOD. Mrs. WOOD, Miss H. CAWSE, and Miss SHERRIFF, were the ladies on the occasion; the first, a Hebrew captive, the two last the wife of Egypt’s king, and the sister of Aaron.
All, or nearly all, the music in Mosè is preserved, the name of Handel being a palpable deception. The grand chorus of ‘The Horse and his Rider’ is cut down to a few bars, though ‘Sing ye to the Lord’ is retained in compliment, doubtless, to Mrs. Wood. The ‘Hailstone’ chorus is, we have before stated, performed entire. Some of the pieces of the opera—for opera it is, however disguised the name—were well executed; others as badly. Mrs. WOOD and PHILLIPS of course bore the chief weight. The band, led by MORI, was reinforced by some of the best performers from the King’s Theatre, and this department was extremely well filled. Mr. ROPHINO LACY, who has the merit of having contrived this strange mixture, gives Moses a snow-white beard, while he bestows on the elder brother of the lawgiver a remarkably black bushy one. There were a few other absurdities committed, but none worth notice. The house was very thinly attended, and we doubt whether the speculation will answer. Though we are persuaded that something of the kind, well considered and managed, would succeed.
THE MUSIC OF THE PRESENT NUMBER.
BEFORE Haydn composed his twelve grand symphonies for Salomon, he had produced a vast number of others, of which but few are now in use, or even known, for many are in fact trifling, and were not written with any view to fame. But of those which are occasionally performed, some possess every merit that this very superior kind of composition can boast, and among them is his symphony in C, for a full orchestra, beginning
of which we have given the finale, the movement that has taken the title of La Danse des Ours, the subject having, it is said, been suggested to the composer by the bag-pipe music of a bear-leader in the streets of Vienna. The hilarity, the beauty, and the ingenuity of this, have induced us to print Stegmann’s arrangement of it; more especially as it is not published in a separate form in England or, we believe, anywhere else.
The aria of Zelter is from a MS. scena in our possession, beginning ‘Oh Dio! se in questo istante,’ and entirely unknown in this country. We may venture to any that there is no second copy of it in London. The air now given is but a small portion of the whole, which would have been too long for insertion; and indeed, without orchestral accompaniments, much of its effect is lost. Concerning the author, we refer to the memoir in the present number.