Opéra Comique.--"Cheval de Bronze."--"La
Marquise."--Impossibility of playing Tragedy.--Mrs. Siddons's
Readings.--Mademoiselle Mars has equal power.--_Laisser
aller_ of the Female Performers.--Decline of Theatrical Taste
among the Fashionable.
The "Cheval de Bronze" being the _spectacle par excellence_ at the
Opéra Comique this season, we have considered it a matter of
sight-seeing necessity to pay it a visit; and we have all agreed that
it is as perfectly beautiful in its scenery and decorations as the
size of the theatre would permit. We gazed upon it, indeed, with a
perfection of contentment, which, in secret committee afterwards, we
confessed did not say much in favour of our intellectual faculties.
I really know not how it is that one can sit, not only without
murmuring, but with positive satisfaction, for three hours together,
with no other occupation than looking at a collection of gewgaw
objects, with a most unmeaning crowd, made for the most part by
Nature's journeymen, incessantly undulating among them. Yet so it is,
that a skilful arrangement of blue and white gauze, aided by the magic
of many-coloured lights, decidedly the prettiest of all modern toys,
made us exclaim at every fresh manoeuvre of the carpenter,
"Beautiful! beautiful!" with as much delight as ever a child of five
years old displayed at a first-rate exhibition of Punch.
M. Auber's music has some pretty things in it; but he has done much
better in days of yore; and the wretched taste exhibited by all the
principal singers made me heartily wish that the well-appointed
orchestra had kept the whole performance to themselves.
Madame Casimir has had, and indeed still has, a rich and powerful
voice: but the meanest peasant-girl in Germany, who trims her vines to
the sound of her native airs, might give her a lesson on taste more
valuable than all that science has ever taught her.
I should like, could I do so with a conscience that should not
reproach me with exaggeration, to name Miss Stephens and Madame
Casimir as fair national specimens of English and French singing. And
in fact they are so; though I confess that the over-dressing of Madame
Casimir's airs is almost as much out of the common way here, as the
chaste simplicity of our native syren's strains is with us: yet the
one is essentially English, and the other French.
We were told that the manager of our London theatres had been in Paris
for the purpose of seeing and taking a cast from this fine Chinese
butterfly. If this be so, Mr. Bunn will find great advantage from the
extent of his theatre: that of the Opéra Comique is scarcely of
sufficient magnitude to exhibit its gaudy but graceful _tableaux_ to
advantage. But, on the other hand, I doubt if he will find any actress
quite so _piquante_ as the pretty Madame ----, in the last act, when
she relates to the enchanted princess, her mistress, the failure she
had made in attempting by her _agaceries_ to retain the young female
who had ventured into the magic region: and if he did, I doubt still
more if her performance would be received with equal applause.
A _petite comédie_ called "La Marquise" preceded this brilliant
trifle. The fable must, I think, be taken, though greatly changed,
from a story of George Sand. It has perhaps little in it worth talking
about; but it is a fair specimen of one of that most agreeable of
French nationalities, a natural, easy, playful little piece, at which
you may sit and laugh in sympathy with the performers as much as with
the characters, till you forget that there are such things as sorrow
and sadness in the world.
The acting in this style is so very good, that the author's task
really seems to be the least important part of the business. It is
not at one theatre, but at all, that we have witnessed this
extraordinary excellence in the performance of this species of drama;
but I doubt if the chasm which seems to surround the tragic muse,
keeping her apart on a pedestal sacred to recollections, be at all
wider or more profound in England than in France. In truth, it is less
impassible with us than it is here; for though I will allow that our
tragic actresses may be no better than those of France, seeing that a
woman's will in the one case, and the Atlantic Ocean in the other,
have robbed us of Mrs. Bartley and the Fanny--who between them might
bring our stage back to all its former glory,--still they have neither
Charles Kemble nor Macready to stand in the place that Talma has left
vacant.
I have indeed no doubt whatever that Mademoiselle Mars could read
Corneille and Racine as effectively as Mrs. Siddons read Shakspeare in
the days of Argyle-street luxury, and, like our great maga, give to
every part a power that it never had before. I well remember coming
home from one of Mrs. Siddons's readings with a passionate desire to
see her act the part of Hamlet; and from another, quite persuaded that
by some means the witch-scene in Macbeth should be so arranged that
she should speak every word of it.
In like manner, were I to hear Mars read Corneille, I should insist
upon it that she ought to play the Cid; and if Racine, Oreste would
probably be the first part I should choose for her. But as even she,
with all her Garrick-like versatility, would not be able to perform
every part of every play, tragedy must be permitted to repose for the
present in France as well as in England.
During this interregnum, it is well for them, considering how dearly
they love to amuse themselves, that they have a stock of comedians,
old, young, and middle-aged, that they need not fear should fail; for
the whole French nation seem gifted with a talent that might enable
them to supply, at an hour's warning, any deficiencies in the company.
I seldom return from an exhibition of this sort without endeavouring
in some degree to analyse the charm that has enchanted me: but in most
cases this is too light, too subtile, to permit itself to be caught by
so matter-of-fact a process. I protest to you, that I am often half
ashamed of the pleasure I receive from ... I know not what. A playful
smile, a speaking glance, a comic tone, a pretty gesture, give effect
to words that have often nothing in them more witty or more wise than
may often be met with (especially here) in ordinary conversation. But
the whole thing is so thoroughly understood, from the "_père noble_"
to the scene-shifter--so perfect in its getting-up--the piece so
admirably suited to the players, and the players to the piece,--that
whatever there is to admire and enjoy, comes to you with no drawbacks
from blunders or awkwardness of any kind.
That the composition of these happy trifles cannot be a work of any
great labour or difficulty, may be reasonably inferred from the
ceaseless succession of novelties which every theatre and every season
produces. The process, for this lively and ready-witted people, must
be pleasant enough--they must catch from what passes before them; no
difficult task, perhaps--some _piquante_ situation or ludicrous
_bévue_: the slightest thread is strong enough to hold together the
light materials of the plot; and then must follow the christening of a
needful proportion of male and female, old and young, enchanting and
ridiculous personages. The list of these once set down, and the order
of scenes which are to bring forth the plot arranged, I can fancy the
author perfectly enjoying himself as he puts into the mouth of each
character all the saucy impertinences upon every subject that his
imagination, skilful enough in such matters, can suggest. When to this
is added an occasional touch of natural feeling, and a little popular
high-mindedness in any line, the _petite comédie_ is ready for the
stage.
It is certainly a very light manufacture, and depends perhaps more
upon the fearless _laisser aller_ of both author and actor than upon
the brilliancy of wit which it displays. That old-fashioned blushing
grace too, so much in favour with King Solomon, and called in
scripture phrase shamefacedness, is sacrificed rather too unmercifully
by the female part of the performers, in the fear, as it should seem,
of impairing the spirit and vivacity of the scene by any scruple of
any kind. But I suspect these ladies miscalculate the respective value
of opposing graces; Mademoiselle Mars may show them that delicacy and
vivacity are not inseparable; and though I confess that it would be a
little unreasonable to expect all the female vaudevillists of Paris to
be like Mars, I cannot but think that, in a city where her mode of
playing comedy has for so many years been declared perfect, it must be
unnecessary to seek the power of attraction from what is so utterly at
variance with it.
The performance of comedy is often assisted here by a freedom among
the actors which I have sometimes, but not often, seen permitted in
London. It requires for its success, and indeed for its endurance,
that the audience should be perfectly in good-humour, and sympathise
very cordially with the business of the scene. I allude to the part
which the performers sometimes take not only in the acting, but in
the enjoyment of it. I never in my life saw people more heartily
amused, or disposed more unceremoniously to show it, than the actors
in the "Précieuses Ridicules," which I saw played a few nights ago at
the Français. On this occasion I think the spirit of the performance
was certainly heightened by this license, and for this reason--the
scene represents a group in which one party must of necessity be
exceedingly amused by the success of the mystification which they are
practising on the other. But I own that I have sometimes felt a little
_English stiffness_ at perceiving an air of frolic and fun upon the
stage, which seemed fully as much got up for the performers as for the
audience. But though the instance I have named of this occurred at the
Théâtre Français, it is not there that it is likely to be carried to
any offensive extent. The lesser theatres would in many instances do
well to copy closely the etiquette and decorum of all kinds which the
great national theatre exhibits: but perhaps it is hardly fair to
expect this; and besides, we might be told, justly enough, to _look at
home_.
The theatres, particularly the minor ones, appear to be still very
well attended: but I constantly hear the same observations made in
Paris as in London upon the decline of theatrical taste among the
higher orders; and it arises, I think, from the same cause in both
countries,--namely, the late dinner-hour, which renders the going to a
play a matter of general family arrangement, and often of general
family difficulty. The opera, which is later, is always full; and were
it not that I have lived too long in the world to be surprised at
anything that the power of fashion could effect, I should certainly be
astonished that so lively a people as the French should throng night
after night as they do to witness the exceeding dulness of this heavy
spectacle.
The only people I have yet seen enjoying their theatres rationally,
without abstaining from what they liked because it was unfashionable,
or enduring what they did not, because it was the _mode_, are the
Germans. Their genuine and universal love of music makes their
delicious opera almost a necessary of life to them; and they must, I
think, absolutely change their nature before they will suffer the
silly conventional elegance supposed by some to attach to the act of
eating their dinner late, to interfere with their enjoyment of it.
I used to think the theatre as dear to the French as music to the
Germans. But what is a taste in France is, from the firmer fibre of
the national character, a passion in Germany;--and it is easier to
abandon a taste than to control a passion.
Perhaps, however, in England and France too, if some new-born
theatrical talent of the first class were to "flame in the forehead of
the morning sky," both Paris and London would submit to the
degradation of dining at five o'clock in order to enjoy it: but late
hours and indifferent performances, together, have gone far towards
placing the stage among the popular rather than the fashionable
amusements of either.