THE DRAMA.
KING’s THEATRE.
ON Tuesday, the 26th of February, Madame SCHIASETTI was introduced to the public for the first time in this country, as Malcolm, in ROSSINI’s Donna del Lago. This lady is an old stager. Many years ago she sang in Paris, and there again very recently, but with doubtful success. In the interim she appeared at Dresden, but how she was received there we cannot tell. Her voice is a mezzo-soprano, which she wishes to force down to the contralto compass, but betrays her natural scale in spite of all her efforts. Her high notes are hard and unmusical, and she is not always pure in intonation. In form, Mad. SCHIASETTI rather inclines to the masculine, and shows more muscular than vocal strength. The opera was got up in a manner that almost defies description; parts left out, others put in, transpositions, interpolations, and, in short, nearly every thing that able management would have forbidden was witnessed; except the character of Roderick Dhu, which DONZELLI performed à merveille.
Mad. BOCCABADATI has appeared in Matilde di Shabran, one of ROSSINI’s least interesting operas; and the papers, most of them, have been as lavish in their praise of her as if her powers were of the most unrivalled kind. She undoubtedly improved after her debut, which was a very unfavourable one, and exhibited talents superior to those which were displayed on her first appearance. But she can only rank as a prima donna in second-rate theatres. As a seconda, or as an occasional substitute for the first, Mad. B. may be rendered exceedingly useful and agreeable.
On the 23d, MOZART’s Nozze di Figaro made some change in the performances, which till then had been all ROSSINI, and not the best of ROSSINI. The part of the Countess was given to Mad. BOCCABADATI, and Mad. SCHIASETTI took that of Susanna! Mdlle. NINA SONTAG personating Cherubino. To the first of these the music was perfectly strange, but, like a stranger, she did not give it welcome: however, she got through it better than we expected. Poor Susanna has seldom had so inadequate a representative; and Mdlle. NINA made a page that ought not to have excited any doubts in the mind of Almaviva. This part, by-the-by, was transposed for DONZELLI, as was much for Mad. SCHIASETTI; and, altogether, our history of this attempt at reviving a work of MOZART cannot be rendered favourable.
We now quit the Italian stage, and cast our view to the
GERMAN OPERA.
which commenced at this house on Thursday, March 14th, with Der Freischütz, thus cast:—
Max