Di Murska Italian Opera: La Sonnambula

“The performance at the Academy of Music last night calls for notice scarcely as an opera, but rather as the exhibition of one great singer. Under ordinary circumstances an entertainment of such a character, coming close after the opera in its most severely artistic form, and contrasting strongly at every point with a really memorable series of representations, would not have been justified. Indeed the introduction of a company which contains so many very bad singers as this one must be regarded at any time as an enterprise of great daring. It would have been a sad pity, however, if Mme. Ilma di Murska had closed her adventurous American tour without appearing on the chiefest of the few stages in the United States really worthy of her powers. Neither at the Grand Opera House nor at the Lyceum Theater did she ever sing to that public upon which Italian Opera depends for support. We must welcome her coming, therefore, to Irving-place, though she comes with Verati as a tenor, and Rossi-Galli as a baritone, with a chorus that makes but the faintest pretense of knowing how to sing, and a band that is too small to be termed an orchestra. To tell the truth, we are not sure that Mr. Maretzek’s arrangements are not as good for the occasion as any he could make. Di Murska is like a solitaire diamond that shows a greatest advantage when it has no other setting than a bit of apparatus for keeping it in place. We enjoy her most when our attention is fixed exclusively upon her amazing vocalization, and our mind is not disturbed by an interest in the progress of the drama or by any suggestions of sentiment in the music. With these things Madame di Murska does not assimilate. In a company of performers heartily cooperating toward the dramatic development of an idea, she would be out of place. She is not an actress. Her gestures and motions are without significance, her features are without expression. Nor have we ever cause to believe that she is any more sensible of the poetical character of the music than of the meaning of the words. She is entirely unemotional. She is simply a vocalist—the most phenomenal vocalist perhaps now living; and it just as well not to contrast her with singers who, without her technical accomplishments, surpass her in depth of feeling and delicacy of appreciation. It is just as well, in listening to her, to forget the story of the Sonnambula and the grace of Bellini’s pretty melodies. And certainly, with such an Elvino and Rudolfo, we could forget anything. There never was a company better fitted than this to lull the imagination to profound repose. Reyna and Mari may now and then ruffle the public temper with momentary anger, but the rest can be depended upon never to awaken a spark of interest in a human bosom. They serve their purpose as humble satellites revolving about the one bright star of the evening, and the public bears with them because she has no use for their action and their voices. In fact, to an artist of the class to which Di Murska belongs an opera is nothing but an arrangement of musical forms for the convenient exhibition of individual proficiency. The libretto is of no value except as it supplies syllables that are euphonious and easy of articulation, and the subsidiary characters are of no consequence except as they give the prima donna an excuse for coming on the stage and going off again, and fill up the harmonies in the duets, trios, and ensembles.

 

In this school of opera Di Murska is probably the most brilliant singer of our time. She takes the simple fabric of melody the composer has woven for her, and covers it with a marvelous embroidery of ornament. Every graceful device that the most ingenious fancy can conceive is wrought upon it until we are dazzled by the splendor of the exhibition. And yet the melody is never injured by an over profusion of embellishment. The rhythmic regularity is never disturbed. The florid and abundant ornamentation is always in good taste. One might well believe that Bellini intended his Amina to startle the world with the very same feats of vocalism which called forth the enthusiasm of the house so many times last night—they all seemed to spring so naturally out of the musical text. We never heard a singer who produced the most difficult passages of this kind with such apparent ease. It is, no doubt, one of the secrets of Di Murka’s indescribable fascination that, unlike Carlotta Patti, Peschka-Leutner, and others of that class, she never invites attention to her most wonderful achievements, and never seems to expect applause when she has finished. Although her general style of singing is not remarkable for repose, she has reached the very extreme of facility in all manners of florid music, and marvels of execution seem in her mouth to be perfectly simple and natural. She was unusually profuse, we thought, last night in scattering the jewels of her art, and there was also an unusual variety in the glittering display.

 

The house was not full, but there was a good audience, and the applause was hearty and abundant.”

“Before a large audience, and a decidedly enthusiastic one, Max Maretzek began last night at the Academy of Music his brief season of Italian opera. Mlle. Di Murska is his only star, for the other members of his company, though useful performers, are not calculated to dazzle by their brilliancy. But Di Murska,

 

“---fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky,’

 

lights up the whole Maretzekian firmament. Last night, despite the fact that she was suffering from a severe cold, and her physician had advised her not to sing, she rendered the music of Amina in Bellini’s ‘Sonnambula’ with all the grace and crystalline brilliancy which have won for her marvelous vocalization its wide reputation. A more splendid display of pure vocalism has seldom been heard on our stage. In the ‘Sovra il sen’ in the first act and the ‘Ah! non giunge’ of the last, she awakened in her hearers the most demonstrative enthusiasm. Signor Verati, a new tenor of the robust school, was much applauded for his rendering of his air in the last act.”

“One of Bellini’s most tuneful and popular operas, and the one in which the greatest lyric artists from Pasta, for whom it was written, down to the present time, have won their chiefest triumphs, signalized the first appearance of Mlle. Elma Di Murska last evening at the Academy of Music. ‘La Sonnambula’ has been favored with many remarkable representations in this city. We have had Bosio, Salvi and Marini, Sontag, Salvi and Marini, LaGrange, Brignoli and Badiali, Adelina Patti, Brignoli and Morelli and Kellogg, Brignoli and Amodio, and last night there appeared Di Murska, Verati and Rossi Galli. Of all the Aminas we have mentined none can be accredited with a greater facility of execution, a more extraordinary voice, a more artistic method and such a command of phenomenal effects in roulades, cadenzas, trills, &c., than Di Murska. Equally to be admired is the neatness, finish and taste she brings to cantabile passages, from the opening cavatina, ‘Come per me sereno,’ to the beautiful ‘Ah! non crede mirarti’ in the last scene. Her phrasing is characterized by intelligibility and finish, and even in recitative passages, which so few of the artists of the present day are capable of interpreting, Mlle. Di Murska shows the school of the thorough artist. The bravura music, which is plentifully distributed throughout the rôle of Amina, was sung with a degree of brilliancy that electrified the house. In the concluding cabaletta, ‘Ah! non giunge,’ she introduced the most beautiful variations, and her voice ran up to G in alt, with the most perfect ease, and flung around the melody a glittering spray of fiorituri and bravura effects that caused a thrill of astonishment among the audience.

 

It is unnecessary to speak of the other members of the company who appered last night. They were not calculated to inspire confidence or admiration. The prima donna might have justly said on the occasion, Aprés moi, le déluge.”