t lacked absolute precision, the
complete subordination of all details to the whole. In rendering
German music Italians often fail through want of discipline, or
through imperfect sympathy with a style they will not take the pains
to master. Nor, when the curtain lifted and the play began, was the
vocalisation found in all parts satisfactory. The Contessa had a
meagre _mezza voce_. Susanna, though she did not sing false,
hovered on the verge of discords, owing to the weakness of an organ
which had to be strained in order to make any effect on that enormous
stage. On the other hand, the part of Almaviva was played with
dramatic fire, and Figaro showed a truly Southern sense of comic
fun. The scenes were splendidly mounted, and something of a princely
grandeur--the largeness of a noble train of life--was added to the
drama by the vast proportions of the theatre. It was a performance
which, in spite of drawbacks, yielded pleasure.

And yet it might have left me frigid but for the artist who played
Cherubino. This was no other than Pauline Lucca, in the prime of youth
and petulance. From her first appearance to the last note she sang,
she occupied the stage. The opera seemed to have been written for her.
The mediocrity of the troupe threw her commanding merits--the richness
of her voice, the purity of her intonation, her vivid conception of
character, her indescribable brusquerie of movement and emotion--into
that relief which a sapphire gains from a setting of pearls. I can see
her now, after the lapse of nearly twenty years, as she stood there
singing in blue doublet and white mantle, with the slouched Spanish
hat and plume of ostrich feathers, a tiny rapier at her side, and blue
rosettes upon her white silk shoes! The _Nozze di Figaro_ was
followed by a Ballo. This had for its theme the favourite legend of
a female devil sent from the infernal regions to ruin a young man.
Instead of performing the part assigned her, Satanella falls in love
with the hero, sacrifices herself, and is claimed at last by the
powers of goodness. _Quia multum amavit_, her lost soul is saved.
If the opera left much to be desired, the Ballo was perfection. That
vast stage of the Scala Theatre had almost overwhelmed the actors
of the play. Now, thrown open to its inmost depths, crowded with
glittering moving figures, it became a fairyland of fantastic
loveliness. Italians possess the art of interpreting a serious
dramatic action by pantomime. A B