Page:Twelfth Night (1922) Yale.djvu/128

erick Reynolds, who, in 1820, inspired with the zeal of his previous similar attacks upon A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Comedy of Errors, brought out at Covent Garden an operatic version of Twelfth Night. Leigh Hunt, indeed, reviewed the performance with evident delight in the scenery and 'the lyrification of this delightful play' and an uneasy conscience at the 'pickings and stealings' from Shakespeare which he could not quite bring himself to resent properly. That task, however, was assumed by the Reverend John Genest with whole-hearted satisfaction: 'In the Devil's name, why does not Reynolds turn his own plays into Operas?—does he think them so bad, that even with such music as he has put into Twelfth Night, they would not prove successful?—or has he such a fatherly affection for his own offspring, that he cannot find it in his heart to mangle them?'

Since the days of John Kemble, performances of Twelfth Night have been too numerous to note in detail. In the season of 1850–1, it was Charles Kean's most popular success at the Princess's Theatre. In 1865 Miss Kate Terry doubled the parts of Viola and Sebastian in the attempt to solve one of the practical difficulties of stage production. The Lyceum revival of 1884 was marked by Irving's appearance as Malvolio, with Miss Ellen Terry as Viola. Among more recent productions on the English professional stage have been those of Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, Sir Herbert Tree, and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Outdoor performances of Twelfth Night, such as those of Ben Greet's company, have been frequent.

Twelfth Night was produced in the United States as early as 1794, when it was given in Boston. Its most noteworthy American associations have perhaps been with such interpretations of the part of Viola as those of Adelaide Neilson, Madame Modjeska, and