Maretzek Italian Opera: Lucia di Lammermoor

“The closing night of Mr. Maretzek’s regular subscription series last evening introduced Senora Peralta in the rôle of Lucia.  After her successes in Amina and Elvira—those twin sisters of the operatic stage, which Bellini created for the benefit of light sopranos, with capacities and dispositions for ornamental fringing—it was to be expected that her success, in the entirely beautiful music that illustrates the third distraught heroine of his music, which appeared happiest when it treated of mad lovers, must be as entirely complete as it was.  The representation of the opera generally was equal to the performance when Mme. Parepa sustained the title rôle.”  

“The Academy has offered us no more brilliant performance during the present season than that of the world’s favorite, Lucia, last evening.  This is, of course, especially due to Signora Peralta’s charming assumption of the title role, one which in its delicacy, naturalness, and apparently illimitable freedom and skill, has not a superior in many of the more laurelled and triumphant seasons of the American stage.  We might venture even a more decided tribute to Senora Peralta: for her Lucia, compared to our ordinary standards of art, is an almost marvelous exhibition of vocal beauty.  There are voices which excel the new Lucia’s in volume and energy; but we look to none other for quite so much of the power of sweetness and mellifluity [sic], for grace of execution so facile and genuine at times that the voice of the singer can only be compared to that perfect standard of happy vocalism, Nature’s own warbler.  Elaborate music, rich and difficult with Donizetti’s passionate, extravagant, yet exquisite embellishment, ceases to appear, elaborate so fine and natural a solvent as Peralta’s soprano.  The ingenuity and flexibility of the voice are at the same time unquestionable and we must finally admit that in these essentials which, beside [sic] entitling an artist to the respect of musicians, give her a claim upon the popular heart.  Peralta is without a visible equal in the line of others which seems her own.  Miss Adelina Patti, in her early American triumphs, probably achieved none more gratefully popular than the three ambrosial nights of Bellinion and Donizettian sweetness, wherein the fresh and for the most part, faultless tone of Senora Peralta have entertained us.  Her Lucia is an unequal performance, not always completely sympathetic, not always impassioned and sustained.  But the three acts of the opera were the measure of an artistic progression much better than the admirers of her Bellinian performances could have expected.  We mention but a few passages in which her vocalization was so delightful as to rouse one of the largest audiences of the season to an absolute furore.  These were the famous cavatina in the fourth scene of the first act, and the whole of the scene of Lucia’s fascinating madness.  Mazzoleni’s Edgardo, pathetic and impassioned, was praiseworthy support to Senora Peralta, and in other parts the performance was not less efficient than the Academy usually affords us.”    

Peralta proved that dramatic roles are beyond her vocal and acting skills. Attendance was low.