Maretzek Italian Opera: Fra Diavolo

“Auber, the celebrated composer of ‘Fra Diavolo,’ recently spent the evening of his eighty-seventh birthday at a hall in the Hotel de Ville in Paris. He still frequents the opera, although it is said that he usually falls asleep during the early part of each performance, waking up refreshed in time to applaud vigorously the last act. If he could have been present at the farewell matinee of Miss Kellogg yesterday, we are confident that he would have kept wide awake whenever this favorite American prima donna appeared upon the stage in the character of Zerlina, the pretty and true-hearted daughter of the innkeeper Matteo. Auber would have heartily applauded Miss Kellog’s singing Guardato sulla roccia, in the first act, and of Si domani, in the second, as well as her fine acting throughout the entire opera and particularly while Zerlina earnestly and anxiously protested against the ill founded suspicions of her lover, Lorenzo, in the third act. We have so lately detailed the features of Miss Kellogg’s charming impersonation of Zerlina that it would be superfluous now to repeat what we have said in praise of it. Suffice it to add that her admirers in New York, determined not to be outdone by her admirers in Brooklyn, gave Miss Kellogg yesterday an ovation of which any artist might well be proud. During the operatic engagement which she has thus triumphantly finished Miss Kellogg has sung in ‘Faust,’ ‘La Traviata,’ ‘Don Giovanni,’ and ‘Fra Diavolo.’ The crowded houses she has drawn at each of her appearances attest not only her great personal popularity, but also the readiness of our public to welcome that revival of opera which can be expected only from a combination of the wisest and most liberal management and of the highest artistic talent. Let us hope against hope that such a combination will yet be made.”

“Concerning the performances on Saturday, it is only necessary to say that the matinée was very well attended, and that in the evening the lieges did not muster in their usual force.”