60 
THE OLD MASTERS AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION. 
[■Nature and Art, July 1, 18GG. 
the performances were tame and insipid, and Madlle. 
Adelina Patti alone kept the theatre open. Nevertheless, 
M. Bagier possesses such influential patrons, that he has 
again obtained an imperial grant of money. At the Opera- 
Comique, Herr von Flotow’s new opera (words by M. St. 
Georges) entitled Zilda, has been successfully produced. 
The plot is laid in the time of the Caliph, Haroun al 
Raschid, that is in the time of the Thousand and One 
Nights. The music is pleasing, and contains several very 
effective pieces. The principal part is confided to Madame 
Marie Cabel, who is excellent in it, both as a vocalist and 
an actress. A two-act opera, by M. Gounod, will shortly 
be produced at the same establishment. It is called La 
Colombo, and has already been performed at Baden-Baden, 
with Madame Miolan Carvallo, and M. Roger, as its prin- 
cipal interpreters. A third novelty at this theatre will be 
the Salteador of M. Jules Cohen, a talented young com- 
poser, who is professor in the Conservatory of music, so 
that there is no dearth of novelties. In addition to the 
foregoing, moreover, the management of the Theatre- 
Lyrique, has accepted one in three acts, and bound itself 
to bring it out before next February. The music is by M. 
Victor Joncieres, and the book by M. Becque. Its title is 
Sardanapale. Another opera of the same name is being 
composed by a great lady, the Baroness de Maistre, for the 
Grand Opera, the manager of which, M. Perrin, is said to 
have discovered a new operatic genius, in the person of a 
M. Duprat, who, in his turn, is said to have written an 
opera called Petrarca. This, also, is said to contain 
numerous beauties of a high order. M. Ambroise Thomas 
is working on an opera, entitled Mignon ; and M. Offenbach 
on one named Haroun al Raschid. 
M. Gounod has been elected a member of the Academie 
des Beaux Arts, in the place of the late Louis Clapisson. 
Thirty-six members voted ; nineteen for M. Gounod and 
sixteen for M. Felicien David, the rival candidate. 
One of the greatest musical lions of the season has been 
a M. Bonnay, a young Frenchman, who plays upon an in- 
strument called the “ Xylophon,” Anglice, an instrument 
made of wood and straw, with which he has excited the 
wonder of the fashionable public. 
All who have heard Les Huguenots — and what lover of 
music has not done so ? — ag'ree in pronouncing the grand 
duet in the fourth act, between Raoul and Valentine, as one 
of the most brilliant gems in this chef cl’ oeuvre, which con- 
tains so many. While, too, the composer has been praised 
for what he has done, there had been no want of laudation 
heaped upon M. Scribe, for his share in the work. With 
an amount of modesty that is quite charming, M. Scribe 
allowed the public and the critics to go into ecstacies about 
his great merit, in having furnished the composer with such 
a situation, and such words, as a basis on which to build up 
the fabric of his music, for — as far as we know — the popular 
author never let drop a hint that the encomiums thus 
lavished on him were not his due. Yet such was the case. 
M. Scribe did not write a word of the duet. For a long 
time there was a report current that Meyerbeer composed 
the duet at the suggestion of the famous tenor, Nourrit. 
Scribe had made the grand scene of the oath the principal 
feature of the act, but Nourrit thought it strange that he, 
the hero of the opera, should have to appear only once, hide 
himself immediately afterwards, then rush out of his retreat, 
run off, and not be seen again till the next act. Rather 
than submit to this, he preferred not coming on at all. This 
version of the matter, especially since Berlioz gave it in his 
Soirees de V Orchestra, was accepted as correct. On the one 
hand, people were wrapt in admiration of the genius of the 
composer who could extemporize, as it were, so magnificent 
a production as the duet in question ; on the other, they 
were never tired of expatiating upon his good fortune, in 
having - been incited to the task by the caprice or ambition 
of a tenor. Recent investigations have, however, demon- 
strated that the idea of the duet existed in M. Scribe’s 
sketch of the plot, and that it was actually carried out by 
him, but that Meyerbeer, who had been delighted with the 
notion, was far from satisfied with the execution of it. In 
this dilemma, as M. Scribe had gone on a trip to the 
Pyrenees, Meyerbeer applied to M. Emile Deschamps, with 
whom he was on intimate terms, and, after showing him 
M. Merimee’s “1572,” from which the idea of Les Huguenots 
was taken, requested him to write a new duet. M. Emile 
Deschamps consented to do wkah he could, and wrote the 
duet now sung. 
But M. Emile Deschamps did more than this. He wrote 
the air of the Page, at the end of the first act ; the romance 
of Valentine, at the commencement of the fourth ; the grand 
air of Raoul, in the ball-scene ; the scene d’entrde of Marcel, 
in the first act; the famous “Piff-Paff” song; and the 
trio in the last act. For this large amount of work, M. 
Emile Deschamps still receives a royalty upon every per- 
formance of Les Huguenots, but that royalty is taken from 
M. Meyerbeer’s share, and not from M. Scribe’s, because 
the alterations in, and additions to, the book were made 
solely at the wish of the composer, without consulting his 
first literary collobomteur. 
At St. Petersburg-, the musical season is over, and a 
very bad one it has proved for most of the foreign artists 
who have visited the Russian capital. A great many 
scarcely earned sufficient to defray their travelling expenses. 
Russia is no longer the Tom Tiddler’s ground it once was, 
where musicians had only to appear in order to commence 
at once the agreeable task of picking up gold and silver. 
The railways have overstocked the musical market, and 
travelling virtuosoes are at a heavy discount. For some 
considerable time, some extraordinary attraction has been 
needed to attract the public to a concert given by a foreign 
artist. Perhaps Madame Clara Schumann is the only person 
who of late years has given a series of concerts that were 
really well attended, and the fact of their being so was 
attributable more to the popularity of her late husband’s 
compositions than to her own merit, great though that be. 
Unless possessed of the very highest talent, or holding letters 
of inti’oduction from most influential patrons, foreign artists 
would do well not to visit Russia with the idea of reaping a 
good rouble harvest, except they have in their pockets an 
engagement, duly signed and sealed, before they start. 
THE OLD MASTERS AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION. 
rjIHE public — si su a bona nbrint — are really much indebted 
X to those kindly — if, indeed, we may not say patriotic — 
collectors who, year after year, denude their walls of heir- 
looms and household gods, to furnish forth the interesting 
exhibitions in Pall Mali. Here, in modest space and among 
sober canvasses, the dazzled eye and crowd-tossed frame 
that have borne the burthen and heat of a day among the 
modern painters, may enjoy a repose at once grateful and 
instructive. The Gallery is perhaps more than usually 
attractive this year, in consequence of the number of works 
by Sir Joshua Reynolds contributed by several families of 
distinction ; and all must rejoice that Lord Crewe was so 
fortunate as to save his priceless Sir Joshuas from the 
flames that stripped his noble hall of so many objects of 
antiquarian interest. A portrait of fair and frail Kitty 
Fisher ; one of Master Crewe, posed and dressed as the 
Bluff King ; another of a Mrs. Crewe, as a shepherdess ; and 
yet another of two Misses Crewe, have been pronounced by 
the world of connoisseurship to be the finest examples sent 
by his lordship. The Mrs. Fisher has, it is true, yielded her 
complexion to time, and is of a melancholy greenish hue ; 
but the grace and beauty of both the subject and the paint- 
ing have been, so far, proof against the attacks of the 
destroyer. Mrs. Crewe’s portrait, a full-length, is a splendid 
