Maretzek Italian Opera: La Favorita

“Despite the epihippic and other adverse circumstances the opera was very well attended last night, and the usual number of fashionable toilets graced the boxes of the dress circle. Lucca was even greater on this occasion than at the first representation of Donizetti’s chef d’oeuvre. In the last act, where she meets Fernando for the last time, her singing and acting were on a scale equaling the well-known scenes of Grisi, Truffi, La Grange and Gazzaniga. The struggle of mind between despair and at losing the object of her affection and the love which has taken full possession of her soul was interpreted with an affect that roused the audience to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. In this scene Lucca was actually sublime. One forgot everything but her inspired acting and her glorious voice. In the finale, which is similar in sentiment to the concluding duet of ‘I. Martiri,’ the listener was inclined to forgive, or rather ignore, the presence of the weak-voiced tenor in the thrilling tones of the prima donna. There was but one opinion among the audience at the conclusion of the opera—that never before in the Academy of Music was a greater evidence of artistic talent shown by a prima donna than by Madame Lucca in the rôle of Leonora in ‘La Favorita.’ It is to be hoped that Mr. Maretzek will take the earliest opportunity of repeating this wonderful representation of the best of Donizetti’s rôles.

We should like to be able to say a good word for the rest of the cast, but stern facts compel us to say otherwise. The tenor, Abrugnedo, did not even reach the standard of his first impersonation of Fernando, and his voice was in a terribly shaky condition. Sparapani, the baritone, has a voice resembling that of Orlandini, thin and ineffective, and although he deserves praise for the artistic manner in which he availed himself of his limited vocal powers, yet he failed to give an idea in this opera, so essential for the baritone, of the ‘divinity that hedges around a king.’ Coulon made a feature of Balthazar, and he proved himself to be a thorough artist, like his associate, M. Jamet. To enter into an analysis of the music of ‘La Favorita’ would be a task longer than our space can permit. From beginning to end the opera abounds in lyric beauties. Mr. Maretzek kept the orchestra faithfully up to their work last night, and the instrumentalism of this opera is one of its principal features. Donizetti seems to lavish all his wealth of melody in the orchestral chorus, and the finale of the third act is equal, if not superior, to the famous sestette of ‘Lucia’ or the grand concerted feature of ‘Poliuto.’”