- Performer Name:
- Sgricci
- Performance Venue:
- Paris
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- [Stendhal]
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- The New Monthly Magazine
- Article Title:
- Review of La Morte di Carlo Primo re d’Inghilterra, Tragedie, en cinq actes, improvisée par M. T. Sgricci
- Page Numbers:
- 12: 509
- Additional Info:
- In the section “Foreign Publications, with Critical Remarks”
- Publisher:
- Henry Colburn
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 1824
Text:
La Morte di Carlo Primo rè d'Inghilterra, Tragedie, en cinq actes, improvisée par M. T. Sgricci; précedée de deux Lettres, l'une de M. C. Lacratelle, l'autre de M. Cuvier naturaliste. (The Death of Charles I. of England, a Tragedy in five acts, improvised by M. T. Sgricci; to which are prefixed two Letters, one of M. C. Lacratelle, the other of M. Cuvier.)
Mr. Sgricci is a young Italian poet, a native of Arezzo. In conversation he gives no indications of any superiority of intellect; but once mounted upon the stage, and with an audience before him, he will improvise tragedies quite as good as those with which the French theatre has recently been inundated, and certainly as dramatic, if not more so than the Louis IX. of M. Ancelot, or the Cleopatra of M. Soumet. What the French tragic poets take a year or years laboriously to eke out, Sgricci strikes off at a beat in two hours. Besides this talent of impromptu composition, he possesses no mean capabilities as an actor; so that his improvisation is a very remarkable intellectual exhibition. Two of his improvised tragedies have been taken down in short hand and printed: Ettore (Hector), which he gave a year or two ago at Turin, and the one now before us, The Death of Charles I., which he has recently improvised at Paris in the presence of a deputation from the French Academy. This deputation of the Academy need not have alarmed him much, as there was not one member of it sufficiently familiar with the Italian language to understand tragic verses uttered with all the fervour and rapidity of inspiration; for what is remarkable in Sgricci is, that he does not accompany his declamation by singing, like several other improvisatores, more or less celebrated, who gain time, by the slowness of the recitative, for collecting their ideas and rhymes. On the contrary, Sgricci declaims as rapidly as if it were merely an exertion of memory, not of invention. The intellectual effort is certainly an extraordinary one to witness; but when the result is taken down, printed, and submitted to the calmer judgement of the closet, it must be confessed that there is little originality or beauty of composition to be found in it. Sgricci is evidently an imitator of Alfieri, who was himself an imitator of Racine. His chief object seems to be the production of smooth and sounding verses; but as to keeping of character, or natural dialogue, it is vain to look for them in his dramatic essays. He generally prefers subjects taken from Grecian story, into which he never fails to introduce choruses, as in these, from their vague and general nature, he is enabled to pour out a torrent of sounding verse, which very often signifies nothing. Suspicions have been entertained that these tragedies were not really impromptu, but that Sgricci merely recited a number of verses made beforehand; but such a doubt can only be harboured by those who are altogether ignorant of the mechanism of improvisation, and of that species of inspired delirium into which the improvisatore is thrown upon these occasions. I myself was present upon one occasion, when the matter was put beyond doubt. The subject, taken from a number of others by chance, was Tippoo Saib, of whose character, actions, and death, Sgricci knew so little, that one of the company had to trace a rapid sketch of that prince's history for him; and after a few moments' reflection he commenced, and went though unhesitatingly a dramatic poem on the proposed theme. In fine, without being a chefs d'oeuvre of dramatic talent or composition, it may be said, and truly, that the greater number of his improvised tragedies (and he has given a great many) are fully as meritorious as the soi-disant tragedies given to their countrymen by the Parisian poets of the last thirty years. Like them also Sgricci's tragedies are insupportably tiresome, full of pompous common places and false and exaggerated sentiments, something in the style of the Spanish compositions of the sixteenth century—not one "touch of that nature which makes the whole world kin." In a word, one little scene of Macbeth or Othello outweighs countless millions of such rhapsodies. As for the Morte di Carlo Primo, it is of a piece with his other attempts, and has nothing remarkable enough to justify quotation. I have heard him attempt the fifth act of Othello; his improvisation of which lasted an hour an a quarter. The incidents, with the exception of one, were those of Shakespeare's tragedy. The only novelty introduced by Sgricci was representing Iago as dying raving mad, and which was apparently introduced to the purpose of contrasting it with the calm and touching death of Othello, whose last words, according to Sgricci, were, "I go to meet Desdemona, who loved me so, that I am sure she will receive me with as much ardour as on the first days of our passion, though I have been the cause of her death." As Sgricci intends going to London, it may not be uninteresting to mention that a good preparation for hearing him will be to read, some time in the day before going to his Academia, an act or two from the Aristodemo, or Cajo Gracco of Monti, or from the works of any other Italian dramatic poet.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- CB