Maretzek Italian Opera: La Favorita

“Donizetti’s beautiful and melodious opera of ‘La Favorita’ so abounds with charming airs, fine musical effects, and striking dramatic situations, that it is difficult to account for the neglect into which it has fallen of late years in New-York. Since Grisi and Mario made such an impression with it in 1854, it has rarely been sung, though it always pleases, and requires no particular outlay nor a long list of dramatis personae. To be sure it needs a quartet of good artists in the principal roles; but Mr. Maretzek is a witness that it can be given with only one voice. Madame Lucca’s Leonora, unlike some of her other personations, is remarkable more for the excellence of certain detached scenes than for the spirit and coloring of the whole performance. Perhaps as a musical exercise it is one of the most unexceptionally pleasing of all her efforts that we have yet enjoyed; the notes are nearly all within the best range of her voice, and she delivers them all with an ease, a simplicity, a purity and volume of tone in refreshing contrast with the attempts of her companions. This is a merit, however, which the general public is slow to appreciate, and it is not until the Third Act that she arouses any enthusiasm. Then, by her ‘O mio Fernando,’ she fairly excites the house, and for the rest of the evening she is constantly inspired by the passion of the drama and the pathetic character of the music. If her support had been better she would have made in this opera one of her most brilliant successes. But what is ‘La Favorita’ without a Fernando? Sig. Abrugnedo last night crowned all his previous failures by a surpassing and exasperating inefficiency. Sparapani, as Don Alfonso, confirmed his reputation for mediocrity; and Coulon with his harsh and tremulous bass made a disagreeable Baldassare. Of the minor characters, the chorus, the orchestra, and the appointments, we have not patience to speak in detail. Anything like a conscientious representation at the Academy of Music this season we have ceased to expect.”

“A welcome change was made last night at the Academy by the production of Donizetti’s ‘Favorita.’ The performances of opera have been a trifle ragged of late, and the representation named was the more acceptable for being smooth and correct, in an uncommon degree. The fire and dramatic force of Mme. Lucca’s Leonora deserve all the strong praise they have received at competent hands abroad. It is certainly one of the lady’s best characters. Her audience was with her last night from the outset. Twice called before the curtain at the end of the first act, the compliment was repeated again and again during the rest of the performance, and the enthusiasm thus indicated was assuredly spontaneous. Parts that call for depth of feeling, for the abandon of passionate emotion, are the ones perhaps best suited to Madame Lucca’s abilities, excellent as she is in the [home? ?ange] that on the English stage would pertain to what we call the domestic drama. Her efforts on this hearing were strengthened by vocal conditions of an auspicious nature, and in all respects the impersonation of Leonora was thus made delightful to the crowded audience. Signor Abrugnedo was also in better voice than heretofore, and sang to the real satisfaction of his public. Certain passages have been rendered here to better advantage, no doubt, yet, on the whole, the gentleman’s Fernando was an effort the symmetry and completeness of which deserve full recognition, and are not easily to be surpassed. The Alphonso of Signor Sparapani was very creditable, and was honored with no little applause; and the Balthazar of Signor Coulon was dignified and effective. The concerted pieces were given with considerable care, and altogether the performance of ‘La Favorita’ was an advance on the majority of representations furnished by the present company. The opera will bear repetition, and we can conscientiously recommend the public to listen, in hearing it, to an entertainment of genuine merit, not on the part of the admirable artist sustaining the chief character alone, but in the surrounding and subordinate figures and accessories. Were all the work given by this troupe as praiseworthy as that of last night, criticism would have little to except to, and the manager and public would be equally well satisfied.”

“The immense popularity of Madame Lucca was strikingly attested last night in the crowded audience which greeted her at the Academy in the part of Leonora, in Donizetti’s sparkling opera of ‘La Favorita.’ Notwithstading the compulsion with many of walking to Irving Place and Fourteenth Street from distant points of the city, occasioned by the epidemic among the horses, there was a large and fashionable house, and the performance would have been, perhaps, the greatest triumph Madame Lucca has yet achieved but for the weakness and incapacity of the company. Throughout the opera she sang deliciously, and in the third act roused the house to a high degree of enthusiasm by her passion and tenderness in ‘O mio Fernando.’ As Leonora, too, her dramatic effects, which have never been less remarkable than her musical renditions, were extraordinary, well-nigh magical. The result was all that Mr. Maretzek could have wished in plaudits and encores. Madame Lucca bore her honors with her accustomed grace.”

“’La Favorita’ will ever be associated with the name of Mario. The tenor being the personage who excites the largest share of interest in the opera, Donizetti’s work has been a very infrequent visitor on our boards, owing to the difficulty of obtaining a Fernando worthy of the rôle. The action, also, in some of the scenes being sluggish and wanting in the animation and picturesqueness of other works of this composer, has an unfavorable effect on an audience. But the music is in the best vein of this prolific composer. As we predicted in an announcement of the opera, on Madame Lucca’s shoulders rested the chief share of the work of making it a success. And she nobly responded. Her voice seemed richer in tone, more prodigal of that intense passion that thrills the heart and so thoroughly en rapport with the music of Leonora that one would think she had made the rôle an especial study to the exclusion of all others. Her mournful response to the passionate declarations of the King, lamenting over the loss of his happiness, for which the only compensation given her was the title ‘La Favorita del Rè,’ her incomparable rendering of the well known aria, ‘O Mio Fernando,’ that perennial favorite of the concert room, and her acting and singing would be sufficient to lend a strong interest and attractive power to any opera, no matter what the calibre of her assistants might be. There are many remarkable points of excellence in the Leonora of Madame Lucca. She has a complete knowledge of every detail that can make a scene a picture to be admired. She attempts, with success, too, to merge her individuality in the character she represents and in the last scene of this opera her acting reached the standard of her representation of the death of Marguerite. The effect on the audience was electrical. The house rose at her and was warmed into an enthusiasm unwonted in the chilling atmosphere of the Academy. It has been a question of dispute among the admirers of the Diva as to in which capacity she excels, as an actress or a songstress. She gave a satisfactory answer last night by showing that she is equally great in either. In the ensembles her glorious voice seemed to lend to its companions a peculiar charm, and to encourage them to rise to the grandeur of the situation. In every rôle in which she has appeared in this city Mme. Lucca has borne out the high expectations formed of her from the commanding position she occupied in Europe, and in none of these rôles has she gained greater honors than in that of Leonora.

Signor Abrugnedo, the Fernando of the occasion, did much better than as Vasco di Gama or Manrico. He sung ‘Spirito Gentil’ with much feeling and expression. His voice is an organ of a peculiar kind. There is at times an uncertainty about its tones that make it difficult to know whether he is singing in tune or not. At other times the tone is decisive and really fine. The training of this voice or a want of knowledge of music may be the cause of the unintelligibility of some of the phrases and the liberties he takes with the composer. No singer can be considered first class who does not know how to phrase well, and the declamatory passages in the music of Fernando went for naught in the hands of Signor Abrugnedo. At the end of the opera his voice broke twice, causing the usual sensation among the audience. As an actor he is cold and unimpressive, and a love duet with him is a thankless task for a prima donna. With the memory of Mario in our mind, the Fernando of Signor Abrugnedo cannot be considered as worthy of the rôle or a fitting exponent of the music.

The baritone, Signor Sparapani, revealed for the first time since the season opened the existence of a voice, an article in which, judging from his Valentine, we thought he was deficient. But although there were some really commendable passages in his singing, yet he by no means achieved a success in the rôle of the King. His voice is more tenor than baritone in quality and is of such a small degree of power that when he forces it he invariably sings sharp. The basso, M. Coulon, who undertook the part of the monk, Balthazzar, made a very favorable impression. He is a good actor, as nearly all French artists are, and his voice shows indubitable signs of high cultivation. The unappreciated Reichardt, who in a country choir or in some parlor opera among the tribes adjoining Lake Tanganyika, might receive consideration, was unfortunately entrusted with a rôle in which there were a few solos, and he executed them in his own unapproachable manner. The chorus was better than usual, and as this opera abounds in choice choral selections the improvement in this department may be hailed as encouraging. The orchestra was guilty of sundry escapades, especially when the horns in the introduction to ‘O Mio Fernando,’ got on bad terms.

But the Leonora of Madame Lucca, even with those who witnessed Grisi, Piccolomini and Gazzaniga in the same rôle, was such a delightful embodiment of one of the most difficult of Donizetti’s creations that the audience went away from the Academy last night pleased and impressed with the power of her genius.”

“It is not easy to give a first-class performance of an opera where the tenor is clearly overweighted with his part, and the baritone has to sing so cautiously that he dare not give his mind up to the action of the piece lest he should forget the music, and the bass finds some of the notes too low and some too high, and gives a shimmery and tremulous character to the music of his part, and when, also, the inevitable Reichardt flaunts in one of the subsidiary characters and Miss Cooney in another.

Not only is it not easy, but we may safely go so far as to say that it is quite impossible, even where a prima donna so entirely competent as Madame Lucca is cast in the leading rôle. There was a time when ‘La Favorita’ was a famous opera with us, and famously performed. Truffi and Benedetti used to delight their audiences in it, and then came Salvi, whose Spirito Gentil was a thing once heard never to be forgotten. Then followed the glorious singer, Angelina Bosio, who gave the opera with the support of Bettini, Badiali, and Beneventano, and still later were Grisi, Mario, Badiali, and Susini, the latter being then in his prime. They made a most effective performance of the work, for it repays those who sing it well. It has some of the sweetest melodies that ever flowed from an Italian pen, and plenty of passionate and dramatic music. A man or a woman of any gifts can easily stir the public pulse with its love songs and finely worked-up climaxes. But Maretzek’s artists, except Lucca, were unable to cope with the situation, especially Abrugnedo, the tenor, and in consequence we had on Wednesday evening a somewhat tame and colorless performance of an opera that ought to have been well sung, for it does not present a single point of difficulty to a really competent artist.”