Venue(s):
Wallack's Theatre
Conductor(s):
Max Maretzek
G. Carlberg
Price: $1; $.50 extra, orchestra chair; $.50 family circle
Performance Forces:
Vocal
Status:
Published
Last Updated:
30 November 2024
“The second of Mr. Maretzek’s operatic concerts took place on Sunday, to the great acceptance of a most demonstrative audience. These entertainments afford the artists an opportunity of displaying their abilities in music of their own choice, while the exigencies of the opera-house frequently constrain them to sing that in which they are at a comparative disadvantage. The two tenors, Messrs. Kizzani [Vizzani] and Abrugnedo, who have been so persecuted by fate and faction, sang delightfully on Sunday in a house of less terrible dimensions than the Academy. Mme. Lavielli returned to her own language and the music in which, doubtless, she has won many triumphs, and sang the duet with Marcel, from the ‘Huguenots,’ with a strength, pathos, and dramatic effect that, aided as she was by the fine singing (and we might say acting) of M. Coulon, almost conjured up the full illusion of the lyric scene. The famous quartet, from ‘Rigoletto,’ with Signor Sparapani as the jester, was encored with enthusiasm. The event of the evening, however, was M. Jamet’s delivery of the solemn air, ‘Si la Rigeur,’ from Halèvy’s ‘La Juive.’ This was one of those things, short but impressive, which once heard can never be forgotten. Music and vocalization were in the highest degree noble and grand. The drinking song, from ‘Martha,’ by which this was followed, gained much in dignity, while it lost nothing in heartiness, from M. Jamet’s singing. An audience roused to enthusiasm by such performances was in no humor to listen to pretty German parlor songs, and the treatment Mme. Scherenenberg received was scarcely generous. Mlle. Sanz and her Spanish ballads, on the other hand were equally appropriate and successful.”