Merchant of Venice (Excerpt), The

Synopsis: Ellen Terry reciting Portia’s speech from Act IV i beginning ‘The quality of mercy is not strain’d...' The speech is included in GREAT HISTORICAL SHAKESPEARE RECORDINGS issued by Naxos and catalogued separately.
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Audio
Recording date: 28 Feb 1911

Cast

Ellen Terry

Notes: Original issue number Victor 64194
General: In the autumn of 1883, during Henry Irving’s fist engagement in New York, Ellen Terry played a round of characters as his leading lady. In the Tribune, Mr. William Winter said: "Miss Ellen Terry’s Portia is delicious. Her voice is perfect music. Her clear, bell-like elocution is more than a refreshment, it is a luxury. Her simple manner, always large and adequate, is a great beauty of the art which it so deftly conceals. Her embodiment of a woman’s loveliness, such as, in Portia, should he at once stately and fascinating and inspire at once respect and passion, was felicitous beyond the reach of descriptive phrases."

SHAKESPEARE