| OCR Text |
Show THE COMPOSITION OF BALLETS. 149 amusing variety, but it should be done with moderation. Unity of place requires that the action should always pass on the same spot on which it began, and that the scene should not be removed from it. Unity of time, that it should be completed in the space of twenty-four hours. These rules are, perhaps, too rigorously observed by French authors. The English and Germans disregard them totally5, and widely wander from whatever regulation depends upon them. Nothing, however, is more pedantic, ridiculous, or awkward than to oblige the poet or composer of Ballets to continue his characters in the same place in which they first appeared, and where the action commenced: an author would be thus constrained and enchained, by one of the most palpable blunders. If sometimes a talented performer do' not answer general expectation, it ought to be attributed to some such shackles as these; and he may answer his censurers in the following words : " Non mi lascia piu irlo fren dell' arte."-DANTE. The celebrated Abbe" Conti was one of those who piqued himself on paying a religious respect to the law of the unities; and fancying that any subject might be subjected to these rules, he was ridiculed by every sensible man. H e wished every act of his tragedy of Covsar to pass in the same place. The unalterable scene was a vestibule, and here every circumstance of the death of the illustrious R o m a n was to be transacted. But was it possible that the orations and every particular of that great event could pass on the same spot ? What improbability and absurd falsification ! A production of this sort might have been admired by Pere Brumoy. Conti did what many have done ; he distorted history, and outraged common sense. La Motte, on the other hand, is not less to be blamed for having attempted to destroy the unities entirely. 10 |
