A vestal virgin with a husband and two children, a Roman Lothario, with an
Irish friend, a Druidical temple, a gong, and an _auto-da-fé_, mix up
charmingly with Bellini's quadrille-like music to form a pathetic opera;
and sympathetic _dilettanti_ weep over the woes of "Norma," because they
are so exquisitely portrayed by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and
the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this lady's genius--which is shed
like a halo over the whole opera--that nobody laughs at the broad Irish in
which _Flavius_ delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly
affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of
_Pollio_:--than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph
of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to
Covent-Garden to grin, return delighted.
But Apollo himself could not charm away the rich fun that pervades the
English adaptation; nor the modest humour of its preface. It has been,
hitherto, one characteristic of the lyric drama to consist of verse; rhyme
has been thought not wholly dispensable. Those, however, who are "familiar
with the writings of Ossian," (and the works of the Covent-Garden adapter),
will, according to the preface, at once see the fallacy of this. Rhyme is
mere "jingle,"--rhythm, rhodomontade,--metre, monstrous,--versification,
villanous,--in short, Ossian did not write poetry, neither does this
learned prefacier--so it's all nonsense!
To burlesque such a work as "Norma," then, is to paint the lily, to gild
refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH.
Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint
having been dropped in one of our "Pencillings," an Adelphi scribe has
acted upon it. An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had
at half-price. A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a
bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out "her
wood-notes" (being a Druidess she worships the _oak_) "wild," with a
volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide
sound asthmatic. In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford. The
children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. _Pollio_ is made
a most killing Roman _roué_ by Mrs. Grattan; but _Norma's_ attendant does
not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent-Garden _Flavius_.
But, above all, commend we Mr. Wright's _Adelgeisa_. It is a masterpiece;
all the airs and graces of the _prima donna_ he imitates with a true
spirit of burlesque. As to his singing, it astonished everybody, and so
did the introduction of "All round my Hat,"--a most unnecessary
interpolation, for the original music is quite as droll.
* * * * *