Maretzek Italian Opera: L’étoile du nord

Performers.  “INCREASED CHORUS, ORCHESTRA, MILITARY BAND, BALLET, &c.”

“Last night ‘L’Etoile du Nord’ was repeated to a crowded house, and with some perceptible improvement.  We thought that even Signor Irfre made more of an effort than usual. Miss Kellogg was as successful and as heartily applauded in the first performance of the opera on Friday night.”

“ACADEMY OF MUSIC.—The second representation . . . attracted a full and thoroughly enthusiastic audience. The opera was given with spirit, and with that closeness and dash which we anticipated for its second performance. It is undoubtedly the most agreeable and pleasing work of Meyerbeer's somewhat brief repertoire, and it possesses the merit of being varied in its action and happily contrasted in the character of its music. Few operas, even under Mr. Maretzek's rule, have been placed on the stage so completely. When the uncertainty of public taste is remembered, it seems remarkable that a manager can be found who will willingly undertake the risk and labor of producing such a work.  In this instance we are happy to record a success.  The audience expressed its feelings clearly.”

“Meyerbeer’s ‘Star of the North’ was brought out last week at the Opera.  This work, the third of those which have given Meyerbeer his reputation, originally produced in Berlin in 1844, and under the title ‘En Feldlager in Schlesien,’ is also memorable in the annals of music, as the opera in which, re-christened, ‘Vielka,’ the Lind gained, a few years afterwards, some of her first laurels, and began to sing down the adverse criticism which her original manner and voice had at first awakened.  The work is presented with as much spectacular effects as the limited resources of our Academy of Music will permit; the cast is tolerably good; Miss Kellogg, pleasing and intelligent as ever, but the principal female part calls for greater vocal means than the favorite Chanteuse légére of the American opera possesses.”