Maretzek Italian Opera: Fra Diavolo

“Mme. Lucca’s second appearance as Zerlina in ‘Fra Diavolo’ attracted to the Academy of Music last evening an immense audience, and renewed the impression produced on Friday last night as to the variety of the artist’s talent. There is no occasion to write anew of the performance, the preceding rehearsal of the opera having been dealt with at length, and the later representation suggesting no fresh remarks. Mme. Lucca was thrice called before the curtain at the end of act the second, and after the final scene she was summoned before the footlights again and again.”

“In speaking of the performance of the Italian opera at the Academy of Music last evening, there is nothing to be added to our notice of the first representation for the current opera season of 'Fra Diavolo.’ Maugre the bad weather, the Academy was full, and Madame Lucca was received with a warmth which proves that she has acquired a high position in the esteem of New York opera goers. She was applauded to the echo and was repeatedly called before the curtain.”

“It is scarcely probable that before the appearance of Madame Lucca in the rôle of the pretty little daughter of the Italian innkeeper that the exhilarating opera of Auber served any other purpose on the stage than to give a handsome tenor with an éclatante voice an opportunity to win the hearts of the fair ladies present. A naughty bandit, with the grace and polish of a mousquetaire de la Reine, appeals irresistibly to the unreasoning female heart. The spruce little maiden who attends to the comfort of her father’s guests has been heretofore a very secondary character, at least when compared to the redoubtable brigand. But Lucca has made Zerlina the feature of the opera. Indeed, without her last night it is hard to tell what would have been a feature. Yet the music is in most of the opera without depth of thought or strength of feeling. It is glittering, noisy and strongly impregnated with the element of brass; and its melodies, catching as they are, possess little of the sympathetic order. There is a simplicity in the construction of the ensembles and the dramatic coloring that makes it readily understood even by the most untutored ear, and a ‘go’ about the music that takes well with the uncritical opera-goer. The fault of most of the writers of the French school is their irresistible tendency to imitation, and, like all imitators, they fail to reach the standard they aim at. Had Auber loved Rossini less or had trusted more to his own promptings, his works, his earlier ones particularly, would be free from many of the blemishes that disfigure them. There is one noble exception in the long catalogue of operas by this industrious composer, and that is ‘La Muette di Portici.’ 

The greatness of Madame Lucca’s abilities as an actress is displayed to rare advantage in the second act of the opera. It is no easy task to unite extreme delicacy with fascinating coquetry in a disrobing scene. In watching the minutest details of this portion of the opera one finds always something to admire. When she sits before her glass and carols forth her joy at the prospect of her approaching marriage, ‘Si domani,’ there is something so artless and bewitching in her voice and manner that the mere actress is forgotten in the guileless village girl in her humble room. Then she contemplates her face and figure in the glass and her inimitable apostrophe to her own beauty seems a pardonable display of vanity, that indispensable attribute of a pretty girl. The transition from this to sinking on her knees and breathing forth a simple prayer to the Holy Mother seems so natural that the stage fades from the view and the eye only beholds Zerlina as Auber painted her. In the last act her anguish at the cruel suspicions of her love, her bewilderment at the sight of the two brigands, who give an impromptu rehearsal of her bedroom ditty, and her cry of petition for a hearing, rise in interest even above the bustling features of the scene. The chorus and orchestra last night were on good terms, and Mr. Maretzek conducted both with the most satisfactory results. Mr. Grill, the chef d’attaque, although on some occasions he is dilatory in his duty—for instance, in the obligato to ‘Salve Dimora,’ in ‘Faust,’ where he does not keep strictly in tune—is generally reliable.

As for the other characters in the opera, what shall we say of their representatives? Vizzani does not seem to catch the abandon and, we might call it, trooper-like swagger of the title rôle, and his voice was again under the weather. This excuse of a cold and hoarseness as affecting the voice of a tenor may be all right as far as the singer is concerned, but the public here will not listen to it more than once. Vizzani’s voice last night was hardly equal to reaching even the ordinary A flat in the song ‘Young Agnes,’ for he gave forth that note with a very ineffective falsetto or some faint tone approaching it. Our climate, especially the variable weather we have had for the last month, has played sad pranks with the voices of all new comers. But something must be done to repair these damages. The best Fra Diavolo that has appeared here in many years is Mr. Habelmann, who, whatever his defects may be in other respects in art, certainly made a successful specialty of this rôle. Roconi is always clever and always welcome in his comic element, and one is inclined to forget occasional wanderings from the pitch of the orchestra. The successor of this veteran of a score of operatic campaigns has not yet been discovered. The two brigands (what a feature Sher. Campbell and Peakes used to make of them!) were entrusted to two very inefficient people. Poor old Weinlich evidently thought he was singing a rôle in the ‘Tannhäuser,’ in which we believe it is not always necessary to keep in tune. Two more obtrusive bandits on the patience of a hearer could scarcely be imagined. The unappreciated Reichardt, who seems to laboring under a chronic affection of the throat, and whose voice is infinitesimal in tone, made a very funny captain of carbiniers.”