"Tne Davouren or tae Reciusst."
A Comic Opera in Two Acts Marie. Mrs. Douglas Dick. The Marchioness of Berkenfeld......... Mrs. Noslrac. The Duchess of Grack-
Williams.
Reginald Bevant.
It is considered the mark of a Philistine in these days to confess to a liking for melody, and Donizetti with his abundant, inexhaustible vein of melody, is out of date with all lovers of music who pretend to modern culture; but the ordinary man still clings tu melody as the most admirable factor in real music, and he must still enjoy The Daughter of the Regiment, on which Donizetti has lavished some of his sweetest strains. The Daughter of the Regiment, which was first known as Murie, was written, to a French libretto by Messrs. Bayard and Saint-Georges, for the Paris Opera Comique, and first produced there on the 11th of February, 1840, the title-role being created by Mine. Borghese. In its first year it was presented forty-four times, and its one-thousandth representation at Paris took place two months ago, in honour of the centenary of the composer's birth. The Pail Bfall Gazette stated recently that it was reserved to Paris to celebrate the composer's centenary, but this is a mistake; for we have before ts as we write a splendidly illustrated folio of 48 pages, issued at Bergamo, where the composer was' born and where he died in 1848, in November last, on the occasion of the celebration there of his centenary.
Thestory of The Dayghter of the Regiment is unusually simple, for an opera. Fifteen years before the opera begins, Marie, then a child, was picked up, abandoned, by the 1th Regiment of the French army, which adopted her and brought her up as its daughter. She has fifteen, hundred fathers, all sworn to give their lives for her, for as the old sergeant Gaston, her favourite father, says, the men change but the re; ment remains. Her life has been saved by a young Tyrolése, Tonio, and the course fall miadly in love with each other. But she has vowed never to wed out of the regiment, and so Tonio enlists, and is rapidly promoted for his courage in the field to the rank of lieutenant. The Marchioness of Berkenfuld, however, discovers that Marie is her niece and carries her off tu her castle, to muke a great lady of her. She arranges a marriage for Marie with the young Duke of Crackenthorpe, and the marriage contract is about to be signed, when Lieutenant Tonio announces that he is charged with a secret which he will not reveal, if he is allowed to marry Marie. The secret is that Marie is not the niece but the natural daughter of the Marchioness, and to uvoid.the scandal of its disclosure, the Murchioness relents and all ends happily. It may be mentioned that the dialogue in the original French version was changed to recitative when the opera was translated into Ttalian, but is replaced in the English version, as to the quality of which the less said the better. For the only drawback to the opera is the heaviness of this dialogue, a heaviness which is only too fully realised by those who have to deliver it.
Tt might seem at first sight audacious for amateure at this distance from the world's centres of music to undertake an opera of this class. It is troe.thnt our amateurs have been very successful with. the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, but Donizetti's music is micro difficult than Sir Arthur Sullivan's, and the" part of Marie is a specially exacting one. In Comma ela] however, we have a musician thoroughly covenant himself with Ita-lion! opera, and with the ability and zeal necessary to transform amateurs into artists; and when Mrs. Douglas Dick felt that it was within her power to play such a leading role. it became possible, under Commander Vela's direction, to produce The Daughter of the Regiment so well, from a musical point of view, that it makes our A.D.C. not an unworthy participant in the celebration of the centenary of the composer of some of the most renowned operas of the Italian School, The opera opens, after a very pretty overture, with a' chorus of Tyroleso peasants, so charmingly grouped, 50 nuruerous, and with voices so well balanced, that the audience was charmed at once. This chorus includes a very difficult prayer in which the sweet voices of the girls are heard most effectively, and then comes a very pretty allegro. Following this comes the great Rataplan duet between Marie and Gaston. Mrs. Douglas Dick's singing of the difficult. part of Marie was throughout very artistic. She hus studied the part until she has entered into every. corner of it; her beautiful soprano voice was in capital order, considering her recent illness, which caused the postponement of the production; in perfect tune, every note round and sweet, she sang throughout deliciously. 'The part of Gaston is for a basso cantante, and Mr. Horatio, who is well-known' and appreciated on the concert platform, is a baritone, and his powerful voice
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.