The
Opera I Saw Represented Is Called L'Italiana In Algieri, Opera Buffa, By
Rossini.
The Ballo was one of the most magnificent spectacles I ever beheld.
The
scenery and decorations are of the first class and superior even to those
of the Grand Opera at Paris. The Ballo was called Il Cavaliere del
Tempio. The story is taken from an occurrence that formed an episode in
the history of the Crusades and which has already furnished to Walter Scott
the subject of a very pleasing ballad entitled the Fire-King, or Count
Albert and Fair Rosalie. Battles of foot and horse with real horses,
Christians and Moslems, dancing, incantations, excellent and very
appropriate music leave nothing to be desired to the ravished spectator. In
the Ballo all is done in pantomime and the acting is perfect. The
Italians seem to inherit from their ancestors the faculty of representing
by dumb show the emotions of the mind as well as the gestures of the body,
and in this they excel all other modern nations. The dancing is not quite
so good as what one sees at the Paris theatre, and besides that sort of
dancing they are very fond in Italy of grotesque dances which appear to me
to be mere tours de force. But the decorations are magnificent, and the
cost must be great.
It was a fine moonlight night on my return from the Scala, which gave a
very pleasing effect to the Duomo or Cathedral as I passed by it.
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