TALBOT1533

Berlin

29^th January 1827

My Dear Mother,

I am just returned from the Opera: the first representation of Nourmahal, ¹ the house crowded to overflowing. You have read no doubt Moore’s ² pretty poem but they have altered it in the Opera, and if I may say so, it has suffered in the operation. The author, Spontini, ³ last time in propriâ personâ. ⁴ The Spectacle was brilliant, and crowded almost to superfluity with all the pageants of Cashmere. The Royal family mustered numerous in their box, which is in the Center of the House, very large & splendid, taking up the room of 8 or 10 ordinary ones– Nourmahal herself was not so pretty as the “Light of the Haram” <sic> ought to have been. Mad^lle Sonntag ⁵ would have been charming in the character, but alas! she is said to be very ill and I have no hopes of seeing her again. The women of Berlin are not at all pretty, which gives her beauty the more éclat. ⁶ I saw a curious Album in the Kings Library which belonged to the painter Cranach. ⁷ It contains portraits by him of his contemporaries Luther, Melanchthon, ⁸ &c &c, with specimens of their handwriting beneath their pictures, which they did to oblige him.

Melanchthon’s writing is remarkably pretty.

Jan^ry 31^st

Last night I saw the Paria ⁹ a tragedy in one act, admirably acted. It is different from the French piece of the same name. Afterwards followed the Jew, ¹⁰ a comedy in 5 acts translated from Cumberland. After the Play I went to a masquerade or Redoute as they call it here, at the Opera house. It was a poor concern: but the house is a beautiful local being 120 or 150 feet long; It was well lighted which served to show the thinness of the Company & the monotony of their dresses- I am told that the next will be very good but that it is Mauvais ton to go to the first. I dine today at the French Ambassador’s. The weather is inclined for a thaw, & the streets are getting so slippery that I have been obliged to have sharp nails in my boots, in order to avoid tumbles.

Every now and then as you walk along you see somebody lose his center of gravity, which discomposes also the gravity of the spectators.

Fine sunny weather

Your Aff^te Son

W.H.F. Talbot

I am delighted to find that it is not true that M^lle Sonntag is ill. –

Lady E. Feilding
31 Sackville Street
London
Brighton
Susex