Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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version by Andrew Halliday, had been least important. Calvert»s
production in Manchester was a praiseworthy effort and its
text was used for a revival in London at the Princess*a with
Isabella Glyn as Cleopatra*
Mioa Glyn was by now established aa the Cleopatra of
her generation, having played the part at Sadler's .Veils.
The Illustrated London Newa pronounced her performance "the
most superb thing ever witnessed on the modern stage" (27
October 1849) and The Athenaeum considered her final scene
"a triumph":
With the asp at her bosom, the countenance of
Cleopatra became irradiated with a oudden
gladness.*,
(27 October 1849)
This was of a piece with her acting throughout the latter
iart of the tragedy, in which "indignant majesty, compulsory
resignation, heroic resolve, and tender mercy were all adequately
pronounced". The earlier scene of Cleopatra's interview
vith the messenger who brings news of Antony *@ marriage (II,
i) ic instanced as one of "those parts where di^iity and
.anger were expreased" - the reviewer did not look for any
comeOy in the Queen, In the list of the character's moods
•iven by The Illustrated London News there is a trace of
li irt-licartedneso: Mro Glyn
...combined cro.ce and dignity - all tb< fascination
of a Vectrio with the majesty of a Part?; oho was,
as it were, the impersonation at once of the aublinc
and the beautiful.. .Gorgeous in person, in costume,
and in her ctyle of action, che moved tlic Egyptian
Venus, 'inerva, Juno - now pleased, now civ Try - now
eloquent, now silent - capricious, and re olved,
according to the aituation and sentiir.rnt to be
rendered, withal she was clnccical, and her ^oooc
severely statuesque.
,'iss Glyn'u first role at Sadler's Welle wac Volumnia, and
her Cleo .atra appears to have retained traces of the uonan
matron. She was very much to the taste of her contempor .rieo,
although photographs do not convey iicr chrnn, t( .ivirv; rather
an impression of severe respectability. Rocsetti, after coaing
her in Leigh Hunt's Legend ;x Florence, wrote that chc waa
"godlike", but an engraving in Vhc Illustr-'ted London Hews
r - Proudie. 3