get yourself and try to
represent _Gualtiero_. Let's try again." Rubini, stung by the reproach,
then sang magnificently. "I Puritan!" made a great _furore_ in Paris,
and the composer received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, an honor
then less rarely bestowed than it was in after-years. He did not live
long to enjoy the fruits of his widening reputation, but died while
composing a new opera for the San Carlo, Naples. In the delirium of his
death-bed, he fancied he was at the Favart, conducting a performance of
"I Puritani." Mlle. Grisi's first appearance before the London public
occurred during the spring of the same year, and her great personal
loveliness and magnificent voice as _Ninetta_, in "La Gazza Ladra,"
instantly enslaved the English operatic world, a worship which lasted
unbroken for many years. Her _Desdemona_ in "Otello," which shortly
followed her first opera, was supported by Rubini as _Otello_, Tamburini
as _Iago_, and Ivanhoff as _Rodriguez_. It may be doubted whether any
singer ever leaped into such instant and exalted favor in London, where
the audiences are habitually cold.

Her appearance as _Norma_ in December, 1834, stamped this henceforth as
her greatest performance. "In this character, Grisi," says a writer in
the "Musical World," "is not to be approached, for all those attributes
which have given her her best distinction are displayed therein in their
fullest splendor. Her singing may be rivaled, but hardly her embodiment
of ungovernable and vindictive emotion. There are certain parts in the
lyric drama of Italy this fine artiste has made her own: this is one
of the most striking, and we have a faith in its unreachable
superiority--in its completeness as a whole--that is not to be
disturbed. Her delivery of 'Casta Diva' is a transcendent effort
of vocalization. In the scene where she discovers the treachery of
_Pollio_, and discharges upon his guilty head a torrent of withering and
indignant reproof, she exhibits a power, bordering on the sublime, which
belongs exclusively to her, giving to the character of the insulted
priestess a dramatic importance which would be remarkable even if
entirely separated from the vocal preeminence with which it is allied.
But, in all its aspects, the performance is as near perfection as rare
and exalted genius can make it, and the singing of the actress and the
acting of the singer are alike conspicuous for excellence and power.
Whether in depicting the quiet re