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TOMMASO SALVINI<br />

interpretation of King Lear was of great<br />

merit, though some of the subtleties of the<br />

text did not reach him through the Italian<br />

version. His Hamlet was quite unsatis-<br />

factory to American audiences, and was<br />

seldom given in this country; but his per-<br />

formance of the Ghost far surpassed every<br />

other that our stage has known.<br />

Without dealing with his other admira-<br />

ble assumptions, I wish to put myself on<br />

record for an opinion which is shared by<br />

hundreds of my fellow citizens. Salvini's<br />

impersonation of Conrad, the central per-<br />

sonage of La Morte Civile of Paolo Gia-<br />

commetti, has not been rivaled, has not<br />

been approached, by any dramatic pur-<br />

formance of our time, in respect of pure<br />

and heart-searching pathos. The story is<br />

that of an Italian artist, Conrad, who, con-<br />

demned to imprisonment for life for the<br />

commission of a crime of unpremeditated<br />

violence, after many years of confinement<br />

escapes from jail, finds his wife and daugh-<br />

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