Maretzek Italian Opera: The Carnival of Venice

“The recent remarkable account in a morning paper of the dreadful ‘explosion’ at the Academy do not seem to have greatly terrified the public, if one may judge from the very large audience assembled at the opera-house Friday evening. ‘The Carnival of Venice’ was presented for the second time, and was received by an overflowing house with every expression of delight. The opera itself, though very light, is yet so graceful and charming, and is mounted so well upon the stage, that it pleases both eye and ear alike, and compels the applause of even the most captious. Thoroughly unpretentious, it will yet establish itself as a prime favorite, and we confidently look to see it often repeated.

The ‘Carnival’ went off more smoothly than on the first night, though even then change was very little to complain of, and all the artists seemd to throw themselves into their parts with an ease and grace that prevented anything like fatigue on the part of the audience, and made the opera go off with a completeness and finish of execution that are unusual, even at the Italian opera. Miss Kellogg made the most of the small vocal opportunities allowed her part by the composer, and sang with great delicacy and beauty the principal air set down for her ,’Come si puo sonidere,’ a number that we think will soon become a drawingroom favorite. Mlle. Ronconi and Mme. Natali Testa sang their parts very well, and although their opportunies for display, in a musical point of view, were like Miss Kellogg’s limited, fully filled up by their arch and graceful acting the conception of the characters for which Petrella has assigned so little music. Ronconi in the part of the stupid servant Cola was simply ‘immense,’ and must be seen to be appreciated. From the very moment he came on the stage in the first act, soliloquizing upon the loss of his new master Muzio’s address, he kept the audience in a state of constant laughter by his drolleries. The scene where the three ladies cajoled and befooled him into letting them go to the carnival, thereby betraying the trust Muzio reposed in him, culminating in an evident determination on their part to faint in his arms if he did not yield to their wishes, was irresistibly funny, and drew forth the warmest expressions of delight from the audience. Bellini, whether as the merchant perplexed by the crowd about him, the irate master, or the stern and cruel but finally amiable parent, who says ‘Bless you my children,’ fairly divided the honors of the evening with the great buffo. Baragli and Marra, as the two friends Orestes and Pylades, who cause all of the commotion in the house of Muzio, were excellent, and, in fact, the whole of the cast was so well distributed that the ‘Carnival’ was given with a roundness and completeness which left nothing to be desired.

We repeat what we said before that the carnival scene, with Calyo’s beautiful picture of the plaza of St. Mark in the background, the gondolas illuminated with lanterns, and filled with maskers sailing slowly backward and forward, and the dense crowd of gaily dressed Venetians, in all kinds of of costumes, some grotesque, with small bodies and enormous heads, some as peasants, clown, harlequins or knights and several as bears and monkeys, together with a very picturesque ballet and some of the most charming dance music we have heard in a long while—all this makes up a picture that for striking beauty and effect we have never seen equaled on the stage.”   

“The second performance of Petrella’s ‘Carnival of Venice’ was calculated to reassure any who had formed impulsive opinions upon the first representation.  The opera, if it may not establish itself as an intimate abiding delight will always have the welcome of a merry-making acquaintance, whose coming is a joy.  The music is altogether gladdening and even to express her maidenly tearfulness in the second act, the composer has shaped Albina’s complaints into a cavatina whose easy flow shows the grieving to be well mixed with hopeful anticipations.  But the ‘Carnival’ is a subject that can scarcely provoke anything but lively treatment.  As fresh and effulgent as a legend of childhood, it is a theme of perpetual joy.  Spectacularly it is an ‘institution’ which exhilarates and invigorates all who have recourse to it. Its beauty, like Cleopatra’s, is amaranthine, and cannot be better described than in those oft-quoted words, ‘Time cannot wither, nor custom stale its infinite variety.’ Sig. Ronconi, out of the character of the stupid Cola, has built a humorous part which is as much of a model, in its lesser degree, as ‘Crispino,’ and his English Tourist in ‘Fra Diavolo’ were. The spirit of humor seems to possess the artist entirely. He appears to be funny without the power of resisting the impulse to make you laugh. Mme. Testa is also inexpressibly droll in those scenes with Cola and her admirer, where the action calls for the assumption of mature coquetry. It is so much more difficult for the young to imitate the manners of their elders, than for the old to re-enact their own youthful follies, that Mme. Testa’s success in this instance is all the greater. A delightful reminiscence of the opera must always be Miss Kellogg’s irresistible wheedlings in the coaxing quartette of the second act. Petrella has filled this scene with infectious strains, and Miss Kellogg aids them with such personations as only beauty with an object in view can lend. Signora Ronconi has easy duty in the rôle of Romilda. She looks however, as graceful as a lily, but, like the stars that shone in the Irish ballad, ‘She’d nothing else to do.’”