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Its first Italian performance was given in the same city, July 3, 1860, the recitatives being supplied by Benedict, who also added several numbers from "Euryanthe." The original cast was as follows: REIZA Miss PATON. FATIMA Mme. VESTRIS. PUCK Miss CAWSE. HUON Mr. BRAHAM. OBERON Mr. BLAND. SHERASMIN Mr. FAWCETT. MERMAID Miss GOWNELL.
Sir Huon, by the order of Oberon, is also conveyed thither. He undergoes similar trials from Roshana, the jealous wife of the Emir, but proving invulnerable she accuses him to her husband, and he is condemned to be burned on the same pile with Reiza. They are rescued by Sherasmin, who has the magic horn.
The whole of the part of Reiza was trying in the extreme, even to the powers of the great singer for whom it was written, and quite sure not to be a favorite with prime donne from its excessive strain upon the voice, particularly in what is the weaker part of almost all soprano registers; and Reiza's first great aria, the first song of the fairy king, and Huon's last song in the third act, are all compositions of which the finest possible execution must always be without proportionate effect on any audience, from the extreme difficulty of rendering them and their comparative want of melody.
Huon enters, fights with and vanquishes Babekan, and having spell-bound the rest by a blast of the magic horn, he and Sherasmin carry off Reiza and Fatima. They are soon shipwrecked. Reiza is captured by pirates on a desert island and brought to Tunis, where she is sold to the Emir and exposed to every temptation, but she remains constant.
The knight then learns from an old woman that the princess is to be married next day, but that Reiza has been influenced, like her lover, by a vision, and is resolved to be his alone. She believes that fate will protect her from her nuptials with Babekan, which are to be solemnized on the next day.
Here Sir Huon rescues a man from a lion, who proves afterwards to be Prince Babekan, who is betrothed to Reiza. One of the properties of the cup is to detect misconduct. He offers it to Babekan. On raising it to his lips the wine turns to flame, and thus proves him a villain. He attempts to assassinate Huon, but is put to flight.
The storm rises, the orchestra being the medium of the description, which is very graphic and effective. The scene is heroic in its construction, and its effective performance calls for the highest artistic power. It represents the gradual calm of the angry waters, the breaking of the sun through the gloom, and the arrival of a boat to the succor of the distressed Reiza.
She sang with wonderful power and pathos her native Scotch ballads, she delivered with great purity and grandeur the finest soprano music of Handel, and though she very nearly drove poor Weber mad with her apparent want of intelligence during the rehearsals of his great opera, I have seldom heard any thing finer than her rendering of the difficult music of the part of Reiza, from beginning to end, and especially the scene of the shipwreck, with its magnificent opening recitative, "Ocean, thou mighty monster!"
Oberon instantly resolves to make this pair the instruments of his reunion with his queen, and for this purpose he brings up Huon and Sherasmin asleep before him, enamours the knight by showing him Reiza, daughter of the Caliph, in a vision, transports him at his waking to Bagdad, and having given him a magic horn, by the blasts of which he is always to summon the assistance of Oberon, and a cup that fills at pleasure, disappears.
The next scene is that of Sir Huon's temptation, a voluptuous passage for ballet and chorus, interrupted at intervals by the energetic exclamations of the paladin as he successfully resists the sirens. The gay scene leads up to the finale. Sir Huon and Reiza are bound to the stake, surrounded by slaves singing a weird chorus.
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