214 Theatrical Review. 



it is that our fair countrywomen, with all their excellent qualities, are 

 deficient in this warmth of soul. Their voices are as good, we do 

 not hesitate to say better than those of the Southerns, but it seems 

 that an Italian sun is needed to kindle that chaleur du sang which 

 gives life and reality to the personification of an ideal character. We 

 have called her voice a contralto, not following the general dictum 

 which says mezzo soprano, and we will endeavour to account reason- 

 ably for this difference of nomenclature. We believe the most intel- 

 ligible definition of the three received classes of female voice to be as 

 follows: soprano, where the high notes are best; mezzo soprano, 

 where the middle notes are best ; and contralto, where the lower 

 notesWe superior to the others (as in Madame Giannoni'scase), with- 

 out reference to the compass of the voice, which must always depend 

 on the individual. To return to " Nina." She left nothing to be de- 

 sired on the score of acting or singing. Her representation of this 

 character was so vivid that had it been in dumb show the story would 

 have been most excellently told, and yet there was no exaggeration. 

 We defy the most fastidious of critics to name a point in which " the 

 modesty of nature was overstepped." And yet she was all fire where 

 a burst of feeling or access of insanity permitted such a display with- 

 out destroying the harmony of the whole. Her singing was free from 

 affectation, without that superfluity of ornament which so frequently 

 wearies the listener cloyed with sweets, but as neat and as classical 

 as the most refined taste could wish. In the scena at her first entry, 

 especially the aria commencing, 



" Un vuoto, un deserto 

 Mi trovo d'intorno," 



she was very successful ; and in the duet with her lover after she is 

 restored to reason. Madame Giannoni ought to become, and we 

 have no doubt will become, the first favourite of the metropolitan 

 conoscenti, if her succeeding efforts are at all equal to her first. 



COVENT GARDEN. 



January 4fh. This was the first representation of Lytton Bulwer's 

 first play, " The Duchess de la Valliere." Much had been said of 

 the play previous to its production, and it was pompously stated in 

 the bills to emanate from the pen of Edward Lytton 13ulwer, Esquire, 

 Member of Parliament, we suppose for the purpose of disarming the 

 critical acumen of such persons as revered the head of the lady school 

 of novelists. The first two acts of the play, which occupied the un- 

 conscionable space of two hours, went off satisfactorily enough; but 

 the third wound its slow length along with tedious dulness, occasion- 

 ally interrupted by sharp sounds of disapprobation audibly expressed 

 by that part of the audience whose yawns did not prevent them from 

 closing their teeth to hiss. The fourth act exhibited some symptoms 

 of returning vigour; but the fifth act, to use a nautical phrase, put a 

 stopper over all -finis coronat opus. The play was irrevocably 

 damned this is a harsh word, but it is rigorously true ; for though 

 we have seen many plays " devoted," as Mr. Bulwer would suy in the 



