Maretzek Italian Opera: Crispino e la comare

“At the Academy of Music last night Miss Kellogg resumed her favorite part of Annetta, singing and acting with her usual grace and finish. The Crispino of Ronconi was, of course, good and effective, though even this great artist cannot make us forget Rovere, who first introduced the lucky cobbler to an American audience. The other characters in the opera were acted and sung in only an average manner.”

“The ‘Cobbler and the Fairy,’ brightest of modern comic operas, was performed last evening before an audience brilliant in numbers and enthusiastic in temper; such an audience as delights a manager, and has a sense of complacency at its own size.

“The music of this work is of that spritely, tripping character, that accommodates itself so well to the light, flexible nature of Miss Kellogg’s voice, to her fluent vocalization, and her winning way while its humor gives the simplest scope to Ronconi’s great comic talent. The consequence is that when these admirable artists are in the cast, the opera is sure to go off successfully, and nothing more need be said than that it never went more smoothly or vivaciously than last evening.”

“The blithe and melodious little opera of the RICCIS, ‘Crispino e la Comare,’ was sung last evening at the Academy to an audience genuinely delighted with the performance. Miss KELLOGG delved in her fine vein of comic talent with the happiest effect, and Signor RONCONI convulsed the house by unexpected and original strokes of humor. ‘Crispino’ is too familiar and too popular to need present description. That it has taken quite an exceptional place in the favor of the New-York public is manifest. This has no doubt been due in part to its own intrinsic merits. But it has also been exceedingly fortunate in the representative of its principal characters. Such acting as that of last night, for instance. might have made even the dullest of operas seem gay. It is rare indeed that a lady so young in her profession as Miss KELLOGG exhibits an historic versatility that enables her to depict pathos and fun with real and almost equal ability, and to sustain herself side by side with go [so] great an artist as RONCONI without paling into insignificance by the comparison.  In this regard our young prima donna deserves the warmest praise and congratulations. Apart from her dramatic talent, her voice is now in excellent trim, and seems to us both stronger and more flexible than ever before. Mr. MARETZEK’S season has thus far been more prosperous than even the most sanguine anticipated, and we rejoice that such is the fact.”