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One of the theatres opened during the revolutionary epoch was the Théâtre Feydeau. The second opera performed was Cherubini's "Lodoïska" , at which he had been laboring for a long time, and which was received throughout Europe with the greatest enthusiasm and delight, not less in Germany than in France and Italy.
I submitted to the punishment which I had merited, and which you had imposed upon me. I led Lodoiska to the altar, at which I had hoped to see you. I made her my wife, and my heart pronounced your name, while my lips bound me to her. It was a terrible hour, a fearful agony raged within me, and it has never left me since. It was there, when Lodoiska pressed me to her heart.
Outside Feodor's voice called Elise's name louder and more pressingly. A moment she listened, then rushed to the window, threw it open, and called out, "I come, I come!" Lodoiska flew to her; drew back the young girl violently from the window, and throwing both arms firmly around her, said, almost breathlessly, "Traitress! You shall not cross this threshold! I will call your father.
He had a letter to deliver from the Countess Lodoiska, of St. Petersburg." Elise uttered a cry, and sprang from her seat she knew all. Her heart told her that he was near. It must be himself. She felt as if she must hasten to her father for protection and safety; but her feet refused to carry her. She trembled so, that she was obliged to hold on to the arm of a chair to keep herself from falling.
Lodoiska had loved her husband sufficiently to be aware of the cause of his wild and extravagant life, to know that in the bottom of his heart he was suffering from the only true love of his life his love for Elise; and that all the rest was only a mad and desperate effort to deaden his feelings and smother his desire.
So Hyde easily became the hero of the hour; he was permitted to teach the girls the charming old-world step of the Pas de Quatre, and afterwards to sing with them merry airs from Figaro, and sentimental airs from Lodoiska, and to make Rem's heart burn with anger at the expression he threw into the famous ballad "My Heart and Lute" which the trio sang twice over with great feeling.
Elise shuddered, and cast a wandering, despairing look around. "Will you listen to me?" repeated the countess. "Speak I am listening," whispered Elise, languidly. And then, the Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, often interrupted by Elise's plaintive sighs, her outbursts of heartfelt sympathy, related to the young girl the sad and painful story of her love and her betrayal.
On his proud countenance was seen, for the first time, the light of a soft and gentle feeling, and when he approached his beautiful bride, the Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, there beamed from his dark eyes a glow holier and purer than the fire of sensuality.
As when, some notable performer not having yet arrived behind the scenes, or having to change his dress, or not having yet quite recovered an unlucky extra tumbler of exciting fluids, and the green curtain has therefore unduly delayed its ascent, you perceive that the thorough-bass in the orchestra charitably devotes himself to a prelude of astonishing prolixity, calling in "Lodoiska" or "Der Freischutz" to beguile the time, and allow the procrastinating histrio leisure sufficient to draw on his flesh-colored pantaloons and give himself the proper complexion for a Coriolanus or Macbeth, even so had Sir Sedley made that long speech requiring no rejoinder, till he saw the time had arrived when he could artfully close, with the flourish of a final interrogative, in order to give poor Pisistratus Caxton all preparation to compose himself and step forward.
Absorbed in his duties at the Conservatory he did not come before the public again till 1797, when the great tragic masterpiece of "Médée" was produced at the Feydeau theatre. "Lodoïska" had been somewhat gay; "Elisa," a work of graver import, followed; but in "Médée" was attained the profound tragic power of Gluck and Beethoven.
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