Page:Repository of Arts, Series 1, Volume 01, 1809, January-June.djvu/401

 of the season, and are now performing at that place under very auspicious circumstances. This theatre is admirably constructed for the representation of the drama, the remotest part of it being equally well calculated for hearing and seeing; and here we cannot forbear expressing our regret that our metropolitan theatres are on so extensive a scale. The system is ridiculous, unless the visual and the auricular organs of the auditor could be extended, or the stature and the features of the performers could be magnified in proportion. We wish, nevertheless, that these buildings may always occupy an extensive plot of ground, in order that our national taste and magnificence may be displayed, and that every accommodation may be given to the public in the avenues to the theatre and in the lobbies, all of which should be so constructed as to give every possible facility of ingress and egress to the audience. What we contend for is, that the interior or auditory part of a theatre should be in some ratio to the faculties to which we have before alluded; for we are inclined to believe, that if Garrick himself had laboured under the disadvantages which our present performers experience in this respect, his reputation would not have been handed down so unequivocally to posterity.

A concert of vocal and instrumental music was performed at the Opera-House on Thursday evening, the 6th of April, for the benefit of this celebrated composer, who, we are sorry to state, is labouring under a severe indisposition. Every seat in this extensive house, was occupied at an early hour. The concert was ably led by Mr. F. Cramer. The vocal part by Mrs. Billington, Miss Parke, Mrs. Bianchi, Mrs. Vaughan, Messrs. Harrison, Knyvetts, Bartleman, and Bellamy. An excellent concerto was performed by Mr. John Cramer, forming altogether a treat of the first description, and commensurate with the elegance, taste, and liberality of one of the most fashionable audiences we ever beheld.

Mr. Spagnoletti’s concert at the London Tavern, on the 17th of April, afforded one of the highest treats which the musical public have enjoyed for some time past. In compliance with the wishes of his numerous friends in the city, the whole of Mozart’s opera of Don JuanGiovanni [sic] was performed. This sublime effort of that immortal composer, the masterpiece of dramatic music, had hitherto been but partially known in England: the surprise and raptures therefore of the audience, which had crowded from all parts of the town, can scarcely be described; it brought to our recollection the tales of wonder which ancient history records of the strains of Orpheus and Amphion. The feelings of the company appeared entirely at the mercy of the great composer. The sweet, the pathetic, the terrible, succeeded each other in modes hitherto unknown; and repeatedly new and astonishing chords burst to the very hearts of even the unlettered. Of Mozart, the Milton in harmony, it may truly be said,

“Into the heav'n of heav'ns I have presum’d, “An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air.”