Mr. SEGUIN.
Leila
Miss BETTS.
Zelica
Mdlle. DUVERNAY.
Fatima
Mdlle. AUGUSTA.
The story may be told in the following words:—Brama assumes mortality, and is under the necessity of enduring all the evils incident to the change, until he can find a young female who perfectly and purely loves him. Having been present at the preparations for executing an innocent man, he sets the intended victim free, therefore is proscribed by the authorities, and takes refuge in the city of Cashmere. He wanders about as The Unknown, while a price is set on his head by the Grand Vizier. He conceals himself near the palace of Olifour, and there remains while some dancing peasants, called Bayadères, exhibit before the grand judge, who falls desperately in love with Zelica, the Maid of Cashmere; but she rejects him, and shows a decided preference for The Unknown, who imprudently comes forward. Soon afterwards he is discovered, and is about to be seized, when Zelica purchases his liberty by consenting to give her hand to the old judge. Presents she rejects, but consents to ride in a palanquin sent for her conveyance; and naturally enough, for The Unknown had slipped into it, and, lying at the bottom, is effectually hidden. We next find the pair in the hut of the Bayadère, where she makes her love for Brama pretty obvious. To try the strength and truth of her attachment, he makes Zelica jealous, by paying undue attention first to a singing Bayadère, Leila, and subsequently to another dancing Bayadère, Fatima. She is of course very uneasy, and before long her truth is put to the test, for the judge and his troops enter in search of The Unknown, who escapes through a trap-door into a cellar,—a very undignified exit for a god, by the way. As The Unknown is not to be found, the guards seize Zelica, and, raising a pile in her own cottage, proceed to perform the inconvenient ceremony of burning her. She patiently awaits her doom,—the flames are fast approaching her—when Brama is seen rising behind her, restored to his divine state. He exalts the Bayadère into the clouds, and the scene suddenly changes to the celestial abode of the God. Thus ends the Opera-ballet, or Ballet-opera.
The strength of this is all in the ballet; the music is light and frothy, with the exception of a pretty good trio near the end of the first act. Indeed, as dancing would clearly be the attractive part of this piece, M. AUBER was fully justified in not wasting much force on it, and acted prudently in writing nothing of a solid kind, and in trusting wholly to a pleasing gaiety of style.
Don Juan continues to fill the house in every part: nay it draws persons into the public boxes, who, on any other occasion, would have been shocked at a proposal to visit the theatre without the consolation of a more private and exclusive retreat.