MIMES AND MUSIC.

Evening Post, Volume LV, Issue 137, 11 June 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

MIMES AND MUSIC.

[By Ohpheus. j _____ COMING EVENTS. OPKRA HOUBB. Wollingion Amo-tour Oporatio and Dramatic Sooioty, iv 'Dorothy,' from 15th to 22nd Juno. The Amateur Operatio Society Las billed the town liberally for ' Dorothy,' the first of a series) of six performances of which will be given next Wednesday evening. The society is pxpouding si considerable Hum— between XIUO aucl £500- in mount' iug and staging tho opera, and as the whole of this money, with the uxception of copyright, feoH, is t.penfi loonlly, the Kociety doaerves every euppoi t in return. I have every reason to believe that the amateurs will acquit themselves with credit, and that the famous opera will lose none of its bounty at their hands. Aucklanders recently applied to Messrs. Williamson and Musyrove for permission to produce the Japanese opera ' Tho Geisha.' Mr. Williamson has instructed The Firm's representative in New Zealand (Mr. R. E. Bannister) to state that no licence will be iasuod to amateur societies in this colony for either that opera or ' The Circus Girl * until they have been performed in Sydney or Melbourne. The contemplated season by tho Ada Juneeu Burlesque Company, as from the 23rd of this month, is apparently 'oft, as the pencilled agreoment for dates with the Opera House Company has not been clinched. New Plymouth is moving with the times, and the proprietors of the local theatre are contemplating lighting their building by elootrioity. Mr. Tom Pollard's electrician has been asked for an estimate of the cost. The W. H. Cowan Dramatic Company is enquiring for dates for a season beginning at the Opera House about the Uth July. Mr. Fred. Duval, Mr. Tom Pollard's firht lieutenant, is reported to have prone to Melbourne on the look-out for ' something new ' for the company. At the end of April Manager Edwin Geaoh, jun., wus oooling his heels at Kobe, Japan, waiting for .the authorities to let Carl Hertz and company out of quarantine at Nagasaki. They arrived there from Hong Kong with a oaae of plague on board the boat, and all dates had to bo put back. The industrious little Jap, so friend Goach writes mo, has been suffering much from 'Bwelled head' since the bout with China, and as a consequence he is cocky and impudent. While Japtm hh a country has its good points, ho considers that for a tourist resort it ia not in it with Maoviland for charm and variety of scenery. Faithful Geach ! He desires to be remembered to all Wellington acquaintances, and they are many. The Heller Mahatma Company, now in the South, announces a visit to Wellington this month. Tho oompauy is understood to give a bright little show, calculated to drive away dull care, and make tho heart ;lad for at lea.st two and a hult' hours. Mr. Harry [Marnier, who went out East "with tho Broughs, hoped to reach Sydney again about the 20th of June. He describes the tour as having boen a ' glorious ttuoceNS.' which will probably induce other Australian managers to move Eastward Ho ! Mr. and Mrs. Brough and Miss Emma Temple have gone to London. . MissTbereae Sievewrlght, a New Zealand soprano, formerly with Madame Murchesi, is now studying with Siguor Pauzani, and was to have given a concert iv London at the end of May. Miss Ada Crossley, tho Australian, has been engaged for the Leeds Triennial .Festival, one of the most important musical garheiings of the year, which takes place in October. Mr. Joseph Tupley, the tenor, and husband of the late Miss VI Varley, stage managed a performance of • As You Like It ' at a fashionable house at Streatham, near London, last mouth. Fitzgerald's Circus has got back to Australia, and passes the winter in Queensland. Mr. G. S. Titheradge is still farewelling iv Melbourne, and at last advices was appearing as a missionary in the lurid molodrama ' Shall we Forgive Her ?' under the management of Messrs. Holloway & Co. A month's engagement was announced. Miss Oolbourue Baber (now Mme. Lil> - Harrison) and Mr. William Walshe, both well known in this colony, sang the soprano and tenor music respectively in the Easter production of 'The Messiah' at Portsmouth. Mr. Frank" Lawton, tho American whistler who visited us with the Matsa Company, has captured London audiences. He is Appearing' at the Shaftesbury Theatre iv 'The Belle of New York,' produced under the tegis of The Firm, and is compared as a comic aotor with Mr. Dan Leno, spoken of as a dancer of the highest excellence, and a whistler without rival. 1 Piper Findlater, of the Gordon Highlanders, and the heroic piper of Dargai, deolined an offer from a London syndicate of a six weeks' engagement at £100 a week to allow himself to be exhibited in public. Mr. Wilson Barrett is to close his Australian tour at Perth on Ist July, and depart for Enirland on 3rd July. Miss Edith Bland, one time of the Bland Holt company and now abroad, is contemplating another visit to the Australasian colonies. Mr. A.W. Juncker, who gave a Corsican opera to the Australian public last year, is completing a setting of the • Stabat Mater ' which will consirtt of ton numbers. It is to be produced in Sydney shortly. Throughout her tour of the Englinh provinces Mrs. Brown-Potter was accompanied by her father and mother, Colonel and Mrs. Urquhart, who caniu over from San Francisco to pay -her a visit. The tour was to end on Ist Juno, after which Mra. Potter and Mr. Bellew were to sot out with their company for South Africa. 'The Beauty Stone,' the new comic opera by Messrs. A. W . Pinero and Coinyns Carr, for which Sir Arthur Sullivan has written the music, will be a oomic opena in the sense in which the French use the term opera comique as distinguished from grand opera and opera boufi'e. The new opera will be next in succession at the London {savoy to "The Gondoliers." The Ada Delroy Company wbb at Natal, South Africa, at last advices, having just finished a profitable tour of India. They visited the frontier towns right up to the seat of war, playing one uitrht at tho mouth of the Kybor Pans. The company spends five months in Africa, then travels to London, and aftorwards back to Australia. A tuneful madrigal for five voices from 'The Sapphire Necklace, ' an opera which was composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan when a young man, but wbioh was never staged owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the libretto, has been published in London; A new conoio opera, • The Dandy Fifth,' by Messrs. G. It. Sims and Clarenoe O. Corri, has made its appearance at Birmingham. It was warmly received, and seems certain to prove a great success when it gets to London. The story is that of a 'gentleman ranker,' Trooper Dunville, who falls in love with his colon el's fiancee, wins her affection, of course quarrels with the colonel, and generally manages to keep the exoitement of the audience in a state of tension until the curtain falls. The dashing trooper, the frolicsome heroine— who disguises herself in fancy dress and gives an impromptu open-air concert to a crowd of soldiers— and the furious colonel, and another trio who have a separate plot all tp themselves — a sergeant-major and a Cookney trooper of the Mulvaney and Ortheris type, and the pretty barmaid with whom they are in love— are all skilfully drawn, and the humour and the pathos that run throughout the piece are of 'DagonetV best, while Mr. Corn's music is adaptable.