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’ Tuer Lyceum has taken the lead during 
the last month: and the facility with 
which the lead might be taken has yet no 
right to depreciate the merits of the ma- 
nager’s zeal and activity. Mr. Arnold isa 
man of character and understanding, and 
such 4 man has only to follow the dictates 
of his good sense, to succeed. The public 
have had to thank him for the introduction 
of the Freischiitz among us, an immortal 
work, which might yet have been a stranger 
to us till this hour, but for the intelligence 
which hazarded its production at the Ly- 
ceum, while thé wise managers of the win- 
ter theatres had been repelling it for upwards 
of a year. The success of the Freischutz 
has now naturally. led public attention to 
the German school, and the Lyceum has to 
boast of another opera of great foreign ce- 
lebrity, and, to a considerable extent, of de- 
served London popularity. 
~ Winter’s Opferfest, which had been for 
a number of years a highly favourite per- 
formance on the Continent, is now running 
its course to large audiences. The vocal 
force of this theatre is unusual for the 
summer performances, and a remarkable 
improvement has been made in the general 
Style ofpreparation. Sapio and Miss Paton 
take the principal parts, and the remainder 
are filled up by a very respectable list of 
singers. 
The Opferfest is founded on one of those 
Peruvian stories which, fifty years ago, 
made so large a share of the light reading 
of the Continent. - Marmontel had turned 
the Indians into romance, and the half 
savage men of the transatlantic forests 
and mountains became heroes and lovers 
after the true Parisian mode. Marmontel 
‘was of all writers the feeblest—but his style 
was thoroughly Parisian; it was affected, 
meagre, superficial in the extreme, but it 
was the very language of the salons and the 
‘beaux-esprits of the literary cOteries that 
then carried every thing before them. On 
this hint the whole mob of French no- 
velists spoke ; and as France was, for her 
day, the dictator of fashionsin books, coats 
and cookery, the taste of Paris ran through 
the Continent, and all was Incas, Virgins 
of the Sun, Rollas, Pizarros, and Alonzos. 
The mania first overlaid Germany, where 
every phrenzy can find some brain or bosom 
extravagant enough to foster it. We had 
our luckless share of it soon after; and 
Pizarro is to this day a monument of po- 
pular absurdity, and the degradation of the 
matchless wit who stooped his pen to its 
production. 
The Opferfest has its Alonzo, its Elvira, 
and its Cora under other names; and a 
slight change would turn the whole into a 
German version of Pizarro, A Spanish 
Officer has joined the Peruvians, and assist- 
ed them to defeat his countrymen in a sig- 
nal battle. The Inca’s daughter falls in love 
with the young» hero, and, her,hand. is 
pledged to him by the soyereign.| A. Pe~ 
ruvian chieftain, indignant at this. prefe- 
rence, suborns one of the priests to. utter an 
oracle charging the’ Spaniard with blas- 
pheming the divinity of the sun, The 
charge is sustained by the princess, who 
has been deceived into supporting, this 
treachery. The Spaniard is condemned to 
die. A son of the Inca, an admirer of 
the victim’s bravery, determines, to, save 
him, enters’ the place of execution with 
troops, and stops the national crime. A 
civil conflict is about to occur, when the 
priest who had pronounced the oracle is 
brought forward to acknowledge the. trea- 
chery. The Spaniard is set at Jiberty of 
course—and of course marries the Inca’s 
daughter, who had gone mad previously in 
the idea of his saerifice ; but suddenly re- 
covers her senses, and becomes delighted 
and domestic ever after, according to the 
fashion of stage heroines. 
The music of this opera is, on the whole, 
heavy: the opera is too long, the music 
too frequent, and the ehorusses are too 
clamorous : but it comprehends a great 
deal of rich and powerful composition. 
The first act, the finales of the second and 
third, and some of the symphonies, exhibit 
variety, skill, and conception of a remark- 
able order. There isa deficiency of striking 
airs, and the vocal soliloquies are of a length 
that nothing but German patience—the 
patience of a nation of smokers—could en- 
dure. | But still there is power and beauty 
enough left to do great honour to the name 
of Winter.- The fine melody of ‘‘ Paga 
piu,” has been transposed from the “ Ratto 
di Proserpina,’’ and probably some similar 
changes would be of service to the opera 
but even in its present state it is popular, 
and what can a manager ask more ? 
An improvement has been made in the 
scenery, which hitherto at this theatre had 
been very mediocre. We can by no means 
yet congratulate Mr. Arnold on his drop- 
scene, which looks as if it were composed 
out of the frontispiece to a nursery-book, 
and coloured with something between chalk 
and buttermilk. Mr. Grieves has no rea- 
son on earth to rejoice in this fruit of his 
brush: and if he is to flourish among the 
immortal operators in distemper, he must 
found his claim to deathless distinction on 
some less equivocal testimony. The new 
scenery of the opera is not altogether the 
finest production of the: art, but, itis at 
least not chalk and ocre alone; there is 
some attempt at colour and some at, design, 
and there is some variety, and even, some 
appropriateness in the design; and so,far 
forth, any one who has been inthe habit of 
visiting this very pleasant summer theatre, 
will, feel and acknowledge that ail 
