OCR Text |
Show T H E COMPOSITION OF BALLETS. 153 this is done in Italy, and ought to be done in France; it augments the means of the composer, and on the other hand increases the stock of public amusement. Comic Ballets, and those of the melo-dramatic class, may be written in any number of acts beneath five, for generally that class of sentiments represented in these Ballets, from their sameness, want of force, and contrast, will not allow of an action so prolonged as that of the serious sort. At the conclusion of each act a pause of the action should appear to take place naturally; the construction of the piece should be of a nature to demand such a rest. The imagination of the spectators should fill up this space by supposing what might happen with respect to the principal action during this cessation. M. E . Gosse justly observes, that the moment the performers withdraw, is not that in which attention should be withdrawn too. W h en retiring from our view, they should excite a desire for their re-appearance; though they are absent from our sight they should be present to our imagination; for if interest and curiosity languish but a very short time, the whole flags and dies away. The exposition of a piece being effected in the first act, the plot begins properly in the second, and is continued during the third and fourth ; and in the fifth we naturally expect the final catastrophe. |