ficulties and
disadvantages. His voice was limited in compass, inferior in quality,
and habitually out of tune, his power of musical execution mediocre, his
physical appearance entirely without grace, picturesqueness, or dignity.
Yet Ronconi, by sheer force of a versatile dramatic genius, delighted
audiences in characters which had been made familiar to the public
through the splendid personalities of Tamburini and Lablache,
personalities which united all the attributes of success on the lyric
stage--noble physique, grand voice, the highest finish of musical
execution, and the actor's faculty. What more unique triumph can be
fancied than such a one violating all the laws of probability? Ronconi's
low stature and commonplace features could express a tragic passion
which could not be exceeded, or an exuberance of the wildest, quaintest,
most spontaneous comedy ever born of mirth's most airy and tameless
humor. Those who saw Ronconi's acting in this country saw the great
artist as a broken man, his powers partly wrecked by the habitual
dejection which came of domestic suffering and professional reverses,
but spasmodic gleams of his old energy still lent a deep interest to the
work of the artist, great even in his decadence. In giving some idea of
the impression made by Ronconi at his best, we can not do better than
quote the words of an able critic: "There have been few such examples
of terrible courtly tragedy in Italian opera as Signor Ronconi's
_Chevreuse_, the polished demeanor of his earlier scenes giving a
fearful force of contrast to the latter ones when the torrent of pent-up
passion nears the precipice. In spite of the discrepancy between all our
ideas of serious and sentimental music and the old French dresses, which
we are accustomed to associate with the _Dorantes_ and _Alcestes_ of
Moliere's dramas, the terror of the last scene when (between his teeth
almost) the great artist uttered the line--'_Suir uscio tremendo lo
sguardo figgiamo_'--clutching the while the weak and guilty woman by
the wrist, as he dragged her to the door behind which her falsity was
screened, was something fearful, a sound to chill the blood, a sight to
stop the breath." This writer, in describing his performance of the part
of the _Doge_ in Verdi's "I Due Foscari," thus characterizes the last
act when the Venetian chief refuses to pardon his own son for the crime
of treason, faithful to Venice against his agonized affections as a
father: