Ristori Recitation: 1st

“…[S]he will read from the Poets in Italian and French. . . . Mr. Theodore Thomas’ full Orchestra has also been secured, and will perform a selection of Classical Music appropriate to the occasion.”

"Ristori's Recitation.--The sale of tickets for Mme. Ristori's recitation at Steinway Hall on Tuesday next, commences to-day at the various offices."

“Our readers must not forget that Mme. Ristori gives her first and only recitation—for the present—to-night at Steinway Hall. The lady’s declamatory powers have received the fullest indorsement [sic] in Europe. Any one, indeed, who has witnessed her dramatic efforts in this country must see at once that in the art of language she is unequaled.”

“The celebrated tragedienne appeared last night at Steinway Hall for the first time in declamation and recitation. The programme was one that should draw even a larger audience than the one that crowded the hall last evening. ‘The Maniac Girl,’ by Bisazza, was the first on bill; the fifth canto of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ followed; then ‘Les Pauvres Gens,’ by Victor Hugo, and concluded by the ‘Italian Mother,’ a poem composed for Madame Ristori by Professor Botta, and declaimed by her for Garibaldi’s wounded, in 1860. The frenzied words of the despairing girl whom the long absence of her lover has driven to distraction, the mournful episode of Francesca di Rimini, the charming history of the poor, in which every painful circumstance of poverty is strongly delineated, and the thrilling words of the bereaved mother of the Italian patriot, were given by Madame Ristori with that earnestness, admirable diction and fire that characterize her acting on the stage. Her declamation is marked with the same strong, nervous, passionate and earnest delivery that shines forth so pre-eminently in her Elizabeth and Medea. A very efficient orchestra played between the dramatic selections and was much applauded. Madame Ristori was, of course, the attraction of the evening, and many who were prevented from hearing her before through religious motives were regaled last night by the sound of her silvery voice and the animated manner in which she expressed the varying sentiments of the poems selected for the occasion. To Mr. Lafayette Harrison the meed of praise is due for introducing at this beautiful hall such an accomplished artist and such a programme. He dared the almost omnipotent magnetism of the two centipedes and eagerly seized upon the opportunity which was offered him of presenting before his patrons the greatest actress of the present day in an entirely new rôle, namely, that of a declaimer, or elocutionist. The result did not disappoint him, for the audience seemed to regard Madame Ristori with enthusiasm and actual idolatry, to judge from the applause. Her clear, ringing voice told well in the spacious, acoustical and well built hall in which she recorded the wrongs of the poor, the burning words of the Italian mother and the sad tale of the Maniac Girl.”