Juignet and Drivet’s French Opera Company: Diamants de la couronne

“The second representation of Auber’s brilliant opera, Les Diamants de la Couronne, at the French theatre last evening did not attract as large an audience as it should. A lighter, more versatile or comprehensible work could not be placed on the stage. The cast was the same as on the first night, and there were about the same good and weak points in the representation. The charming overture, ever a favorite in the orchestra, was well played. The opening andante is hummed by every opera goer, and is a most delicious subject to introduce an opera. The succeeding allegro is also familiar and intelligible to all. Throughout the entire opera, the orchestra showed a marked improvement on the first representation. The music is so buoyant with spirit and humor that it is susceptible of and requires the most delicate shades of coloring. The mysterious little vocal fugue, ‘Voici minuit,’ and the chorus, ‘Dans l’ordre de la nuit,’ immediately following the couplets sung by Catarina (Mlle. Naddie) in the first act show considerable ingenuity and are very effective. The panpan chorus, especially in the last few measures, and the table duet between Catarina and Henrique (M. Anthelme) afford a great deal of amusement. If in this act Muguaz had spoken his part, instead of attempting to sing it, it would have been better for the opera. The chorus, C’est [illeg.], is an excellent burlesque on religious chants. It seemed as if the vassals, who wore cowls and robes to conceal their identity from the soldiers, were mocking the worthy monks of the convent whom they represented. Here again the best tableau in the opera was rendered ridiculous. The suggestions given in the Herald after the first night of the Crown Diamonds regarding this scene were only in part carried out. The soldiers were indeed brought on the stage at the back, but made only matters worse. Roboladdo (M. Walter) in full brig and costume, stood full in their view, pointing two preposterous pistols at Henrique, and the soldiers took no part whatever in the matter. In the second act the first noticeable piece is the spirited Du plaitir qui nous speile; then the bolero duet between Catarina and Diana (Mlle. Laurentis), and the brilliant solo Ah! Je veux, with variations that would frighten a less accomplished artist than Mlle. Naddie, who personated the wayward young queen. The duet Ah! Si je Vordis, between Diana and Sebastian (M. de Surmont) is another pretty, sparkling theme. The finale of the second act is worked up in a highly dramatic manner. The galloping of the horses and the rumbling of the carriage wheels are wonderfully well imitated and the chorus is telling. The third act also abounds in beauties of the same description as the preceding acts. With a little more care and attention to the stage and scenery, the third representation of Auber’s excellent work will, we hope, leave little to find fault with. Regarding the stage, we think it would be a decided improvement, and a relief to the audience besides, for the upright piano used in the second act to be placed in a different position from having it hauled out into the centre, with its back turned to the audience. On Saturday night Genevieve and Les Premieres Amours, both by Scribe, and Le Maitre de Chapelle, will be given. Librettos containing the French and English of the comic operas to be brought out this season will be ready in a few days. Then a want will be supplied which the audience have felt to a considerable degree since the season opened.”

[Article begins with material about Ristori.]

Music is a real language, that transmits ideas, not by this or that conventional sense given to this or that assemblage, but by feelings that, attached to these ideas, can reveal to the listener the mind of the musician. Explained in words, many of the ideas are simply vulgar. Explained musically, they take on a more lively and interesting color. Auber excels in this transformation of the dullest words, and he’s never dressed up the bourgeois prose of Scribe better than in the Diamants de la Couronne. This little masterpiece, whose second performance took place Thursday, deserves to be heard twenty times, and its interpretation was excellent.

Mlle Naddie (Catarina) seemed to us a bit tired in her first song, but this appearance of fatigue quickly disappeared. A curious thing: this singer performs pieces bristling with difficulty relatively better than simple pieces. She’s very good in a cantabile, but there she has rivals; she is absolutely superior in passages that demand a voice accustomed to all the complexities of the art of song. Her vocalization is of irreproachable taste; her tills, her spun-out sounds, her grupetti leave nothing to be desired in virtuosity, and the manner in which she performs the ornaments, in the song Je veux briser ma chaine, makes you see that she had to expend enormous effort to arrive at such perfection. In the same air, she sang a trill in half-voice, on the phrase Il m’applaudira, which was a veritable masterpiece of execution: the public couldn’t wait until the end of the piece to cover her with applause.

Where Mlle Naddie is again superior, is in the ensembles, where her well-toned and always steady voice never lets itself be covered. And yet Mlle Naddie never screeches, like so many singers of our day. Such renowned singers have only power, but that isn’t enough; power without warmth, without emotion, is a purely material phenomenon; it doesn’t express anything, and in all music, above all the point is expression. Lots of singers, and eminent singers, scarcely have a voice when they have to sing mezzo voce, and sometimes find too much of one and produce heavy effects. That can appear strange at first glance but maybe isn’t when one takes the effort to reflect a moment. It seems to contradict the proverb: “Who does the most does the least.” But in reality that isn’t a contradiction. The most, in effect, is to sing; the least is to scream. To sing in the good and full sense of the word, you have to have a pure voice. To shriek, it is enough to have any voice whatsoever, carried away in a certain fashion of pushing [poussage] and to which is given the too-poetic name, in our opinion, of powerful exertion.

Mlle Naddie, herself, belongs to the good school; she doesn’t yell, she sings, and we love her as much for the faults she doesn’t have and which are found on almost all of today’s stages, as for the shining qualities that she has evidenced on every occasion. In this ensemble, which is only the reprise of the preceding chorus, O surprise nouvelle, her voice broke away with a purity, [illegible], and an unequalled dimension. As an actress, Mlle Naddie should be no less appreciated. She has graceful and temperate movements, very accurate delivery, very expressive facial expression. If we understand one another as to the reckoning of Mlle Naddie, it’s that an artist of this skill is worthy on all points of a rational critique, and that she deserves something other than banal and unjustified praise.

Mlle Laurentis is an enchanting Dagazon; she has almost nothing of importance to sing in the Diamants, but she draws out a lot from her three duets, one with Catarina, another with Sébastien and the third with her cousin. M. Anthelme was in good voice, and he acted with more warmth than the first time. In the third act, M. Chol (Campo Mayor) missed his entrance; that’s the second time, and these kinds of accidents should never happen at the French theater.