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Leader (1850-1860), 27th August 1853, Edition Town of 2, Page 837, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      THE OPERA SEASON " . ( EeTBOSPECT—BEFOEE BREAKFAST . ) The morning dew is not yet dry upon my feet , the soft rolling clouds of lazy mis t , which . I left drowsily recumbent on the far-stretching uplands , are still there in spite of the bright sun , the keen and eager birds are twi t tering , an d t he bee i s b usy ou t of door s , yet I come in to find a somnolen t , and a silent house , giving the vaguest possible intimation of breakfast ! To fill the painful pause I w il l do a bit of duty , and take a retrospect of the Opera Season ; if I am unusually savage , let some of that fierceness be credited to my Hunger . Wh y wri t e when h ungr y ? some unwise questioner will suggest . As well suggest , Why be hungry ? I t all co m es of ear ly r i sing !

      Earl y rising is a virtue greatly esteemed in books , and ver y necessary " for others . " It is not a virtue which distinguishes me . I am aware that the " earl y b ird gets the worm ; " but I am not immoderately fon d of worms . Are you ? I want some keener motive to make earl y rising a practice . Not that the charms of dawn , such as they are , find in me an inappreciative observer . There is a positive fascination in the freshness and quie t , smiling gaiety of dawn ; the silence is brought into delightful distinctness by the sharpness of the few sounds which start out of it—the cawing o f t h e d i stan t ro ok , th e crisp energ y o f t h e l it tl e b i rds , the bark of a dog , or the lowing of cattle . There is a magical influence in the air . The novelty of the sensation makes it delicious . But to enjoy earl y r i sing you must rise late ; then you have the full , k een appe t ite for t he newness of sensation which makes enjoyment healthy . You must not make early rising a debauch ! Use it with rare and exquisite moderation .

      One comes into the country a languid invalid in search of vi g o ur an d ruddy health ; from the hot dissipation and gaseous irregularities of a London season , one passes i nto t h e generous inf l uence of pure air , copious meals , early hours , and the not deliriously exciting conversation of the agricultural mind : the metamorph osis i s comp lete . A day is sufficient to convince you of the poet ' s truth" God made the country , man the town /' ( B u t who made t h e " part i es " one mee t s a t parties in the country P)—and feeling fanatically v i rtuous you beg in with a convert ' s energy to do al l that Virtue demands—you rise at unheard-of hours ! I once declared I couldn't get up at eight o'clock , not even to be hanged ; but illness greatly tames a man , making him meek and respectable ; it tamed me , and lo ! the result .

      However if I continue this desultory , and not strictly pertinent , con - versation much longer , the breakfast-bell will throb its welcome pulses , and my retrospect will not be written ; for aft 6 r Breakfast a loung ing , lazy indifference to duty , and an alacrity at taking up anything excep t a pen , characteristic of that period , will assuredly step between me and you , dear reader ! The Opera season of 1853 has been distinguished by a dreariness novor Jmown before ; of all the flat seasons it has been the flattest—yet would it he difficult to say why . It has certainly been mismanaged ; but when is it not mismanaged ? The fault cannot wholly lie there . There has boon » o enthusiasm ; it has formed but a fainttopicof drawing-room conversation . the

      yi three novelties , Benvenuto Cellini , Jessonda , and Higoletto , ono Jailed , one didn ' t succeed , and the other produced no impression , lienvenuto Cellini was a mistake , the mistake of a man of genius . Jcssonda has lovely writing , but is not dramatic ; I can compare it to nothing but a h ' . esco painted in the style of a miniature . JRujoleUo suffers from the prejudico against Verdi , but if Mademoiselle Bosio had any passion in her , the opera would hold its place among the second-rate works of the modern J-uihaiv school . The only real success of the season , in the shape of novelty , was \ Guillaume Tell , which was hoard for the Jirst time hero when Tam-Ixu'hlc sang Arnold .- that was singing ! Of the music I daro not trust myfl () ii to speak , my admiration is so overflowing . For indeed my idea of a ffrand

      opera is one in which the 'music ia grand , and , if I may bo allowed ¦ o say no , musical . To stun an audience during four hours with a pro"J tfality of military bands , organs , cannon , mus k etry , church-bells , and ! £ » ''iiti 8 , with tho trampling of horses , tho clang of cymbals , the booming - ""ombones , the tumult of mobs , with processions of cardinals , emperors , "NwnBo-bourors , troops , skaters , monks , nuns , with tho noise of orgies , the ¦ error of public executions , tho storming of fortresses , and tho burning of ^ 11 it ' ' (> k rlu < i '' ° y ° ' naras 8 tho ear , distract the-mind with these , and 'ho grandeurs of grand opera , is really not tho supremo ondof Art , m I ( <» iiceive it ; and if . you woro , a « an American would say , to boil down to " : » , » ( ; < ' » ce tho whole repertoire of grand oporas , you would not produco a t ' inllaumo Tellmuch loss a Fidelia 1

      , M V . " - ° ' K orH wnafc mft . y ono say P Tho novelties have- been—Madamo : ' ' < jon , n fino dramatic singer , hoard only twico , in sp ito of her success ; viiK . iuno Todesco , a " voice , " and that is all , but a noble voice ; Si gnor irrJj ' ' P U ( lding-fucod creinU tenor of dittmal incapacity ; and Mile . ' m / . '( Il nojl ! «» wr » decidedly usoful and improvable . Thoro was also Millie . Albini , of whom nothing need bo said . Grisi was in sp lendid eauty , and in wonderful voice , considering tho wear and tear that voice Aa « had . Marvellous woman ! oho , and eho alono , hus had tho power to

      attract large audiences this season ; and certainly her Lucrezia and her Norma are things one can never hope to see again . Mario has had a few g lorious momen t s , but , on th e w h ole , his voice has been more uncertain this year than ever it was . Tamberlik had an immense triumph in Guillaume Tell , bu t in Le JProp he t e he disappointed his admirers . Throughput the season , h owever , he haa been of rare service : iRonconi —what can be said of the greatest " artist" on the stage ? ¦ Nothing but that he is the greatest , an d h as b een equa l t o h is own grea t powers . Viviak .

      Untitled Article

      LANDSCAPE PAINTING IN 1853 . It is not many years since a careless public was betrayed , with reference t o Art , in t o a terrib ly false position . It had been assumed by certain authorities that painting on a large scale , and on subjects either classical or sacred , were alone wort hy to be considered examples of High Art . F in d ing tha t t h e assump tion was very quietly swallowed , these authorities did not rest until they had shown how vilely the public had behaved to H i gh Art ; and so the public , good-naturedl y and obli g ing ly horrified , submitted for a l ong time to the imputation , and to the scoldings of neglected egotism , which it all the while continued to neglect . And the public mi ght , to this day , have borne the imputation and the scoldings both , with British patience under insult , w h en t h e subject is only one

      about which Britons are at times vaguely enthusiastic ; but at length one or two voices of the crowd spoke up , and said , " W e are aweary , aweary ; good sirSj why all this talk about indifference to Hig h A rt ? I s not the highest Art that which best suits the time , being called forth by the highest intellectual requirements of the time , such as they may be ? You have no right to bid us worship ( at a shilling a-head ) the work of your hands , and to call us infidel because we wont . " The great want of the age , " forsooth , " is a want of faith" —in you ! Pooh ! Your pictures rem i nd us on ly of the " life-school , " ( in the narrowest professional sense , by t he b ye , ) and of the property-room and the wardrobe shop ; but we say that is no fault of ours . According to the standard you p lease to assume as t he only wort h y aim of A rt , we ma y be unable to deny the accuracy of your pictures ; but we prefer pictures which we can feel to be true . "

      T h i s was subs t an t ial ly the protest uttered by men accustomed to take a light and superficial view ( not to speak it offensively ) , but it was in the main a just protest . We know that the highest kind of genius is not and cannot be immediately popular . Misapprehension must , at first , b e expec t ed b y those who have to - strike the key-note of 'their own fame . It is , somewhere observes Hobert Browning , precisely the misapprehensiveness of his age , that a poet is sent to remed y . And he argues , in words which we repeat as nearly as we can recollect them , that the interval between the poet ' s

      operation and the generall y percep tible effect is not excessive ; that it is even less than in other phases of the great human energy ; as , for instance , the astronomer ' s , whose " Epur si muove" he asserts to be as bitter a sentence as the poet has a rig ht to utter , " in that depth of conviction , which is so like despair . " But with respect to the size of pictures , or the particular character of their subjects and treatment , i t is ' ludicrous to imag ine any depth of conviction ' at all ; and the possibility of growing savage and scornful on tho point cannot well occur , except in the case of some fretful old gentleman with one idea , who is exceedingly fai r game for the fun of our good friends , the light and superficial observers before

      mentioned . Again , though the " popular test" will never be a perfect test either of Art or Poetry , the space will continue to be lessened between the work and its effect , as it has been lessened so incalculably that the very nature of the difference has changed . We believe that a disregard of popular feeling is not now excusable , though it was once necessary , in the operation of Art . To familiarise beauty is no longer to run the risk of vulgarizing it . Tho endeavour of Art lias at all times boon to revive , in their noblest si gnificance , tho instincts of humanity . If the greatest amount of living truth and beauty , tho highest Art , ia to bo found almost wholly in landscape painting , the reason may be that life itself has taken that direction . Otherwise , if we had more natural life in our towns , landscape would properly form only tho background of Art , as it does in tho works of Millais , and a few other exceptional painters , in his school and out of it .

      When , therefore , we assert tho excellence of landscape art , which at oach of tho summer exhibitions now closed or closing , seemed to us to carry away tho palm from other departments of painting , it is with duo regard to the aims of Art , which wo need not Buy include higher life and beauty than those of the lilies of tho field . But at present tho landscape painter has most work in hand , to bring bacjc life among us " exiles from Nature ; " and wo find tho result accordingly in tho almost recent perfection of his powern . Comparisons of " established" painters with men of yesterday will show this result in a direct and very striking manner ; as anyone may see at tho British Artists' G ' allery , in Sud ' olk-strect , wlioro

      tho exhibition of Art Union prizes has recently opened . It was generally acknowledged that Leo made a bettor show oi' landscapes at tho Uoyal Academy this summer than he has done for Home yearn past . We , who do not join in the loud praise of this artist , were yet among tliosowho remarked on liin great hmccohh this season . ' From bin six or seven landscapes , a fortunate holder of an Art Union prize of a hundred and fifty guineas has selected perhaps tho very beat . It hangs , . now , on tho left an you enter the gallery , and a yard or two from tho door . A littlo further on , along the same wall , is an admirable picture by Boddington , called a " Weedy Branch of tho Thames . " It is considerably larger than Loo ' s wor k , and wo are afraid to say liow much better . Its price w eig hty pounds ; Boddimjf ton ' s fame being of more-recent growth than . Loo ' s , who is , nioroover , an J { ,. A .

      Wo may outer on a closer comparison of these two works , without lowing sight for an instant of our main nubjeet . On tho contrary , wo hope to gain ono or two useful illustrations by the way . Loe ^ in thia instance , as much as ever , scorns to call for that very safe praise whioK

      Untitled Article

      Of his rippling smiles , they heard her say , Wi th a haught y g lance at her marriage-ring , " Well is my home b y the forester ' s h earth , But Walter , my son , is the heir of a king . " When the shadows fell on , our quiet pool , And the birds were asleep ih the firs overhead , She return ed alone , but her f ace was whi te , W ho had g iven her Living in p lace of her Dead . B .

      Tfjrt Irk

      tfjrt Irk

      Untitled Article

      Avgvst 27 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 8 S 7

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 837, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/21/