" THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2026, 22 December 1892, Page 31

" THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

CoitrftutUru from th« Profeiilou ohronlcllng their m»Tem«nti »od dolnfi »r« iorlud. All communication to be addniMd ti "r»«quln," OUfo Witaeu Office.

Mr Sidney CoJville, who has the reputation of being a clever entertainer, will make his first appearance in Dunedin, in the City Hall, on Boxing Night. He will be assisted by Miss Ethel Merritt and Mr C. Haimes.

Barry Marschel, of the Royal Comic Operetta Company, drQps me a line from the South in which he expresses himself as being well pleased with his tour so far. He says: — A month's tour of the operetta "A Village Belle" and the Scotch comedy "Cramond Brig " has been quite successful, financially an artistically. Miss Ethel Yelverton, our prima donna, delights her audiences everywhere, and as we were fortunate in hitting the "rose" season floral tributes have been very plentiful. Mr Geo. W. Newman, an immensely good tenor singer, secured at Invercargill, and lately a leading member of the Choral Union and Musical Societies there, is also very popular. Mrs Orpheus M'Adoo, the phenomenal tenor of the Jubilee Singers who are at present in the Wellington district, who has been in delicate health for some time, has gone to Hobart for a change of air. The company will join her there.

11 L. J. S." writes : — Wesfcporb has lately had quite a gay time in the matter of operagoing. The Montague-Turner Company had a good season here, and ' Pirates of Penzance ' by local amateurs — a description of which I sent for ' Alice's ' column — drew crowded houses on the two nights on which it was staged. Miss Georgie Smibhson has severed her connection with the Yelverton Opera company, and is at present resting in Invercargill, where she intends to spend the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The Steen-Smith combination have been very successful in the north. Mr and Mrs Steen have thoroughly baffled their audiences. The lady appears able to tell even the very hour on Avnich any member of the audience was born. Mr Oscar Smith is a clever ventriloquist. Auckland correspondent : — " There is little to record at present. Mr Jude has brought his season pretty well to a close, and leaves this week for Brisbane, to open the new £5000 organ imported there, said to be the second largest in Australia. He is to give a series of organ recitals. Though the Aucklanders were not puepared to pay a legitimate charge for a legitimate performance at the ordinary places of amusement, Mr Jude has had crowded audiences at his church organ recitals and Sunday lectures, where admission was free but a collection. The Aucklanders love a free show ; and as the collections when he played in aifl of church debts or organ improvements only averaged from 3£d to 8d per head, one can imagine what •♦the first organist in the Southern Hemisphere" gofc when the collection was for his personal benefit." One of the few people who ana capable of doing two entirely opposite things at the same moment is Madame, Modjeska, th« celebrated Polish actress. She will sit upon the stage writing a letter which appears to Isa breaking her heart. Giving utterance to sobs of despair, with the tears pouring down her faea, she conveys to the audience a real and terrible spectacle of a suffering woman writing worfis [ that cost her agony, while upon the paper ths.t lies before her she draws funny caricatures of people she knows.

The Wairarapa Observer goes into ecstacies over theSteen-Smithdombiuation, and verifies the proverb that " Comparisons are odious " hy remarking that " the so-called mind reading; feat which Hellers attempted to give here, last week is simply child's play to what Mrs Steen gave, and there is just as much comparison between Heller and the famous Steens' second sight as there is between day and night." A young actress named Ada. Juneen sued Charles Buxton for £5000 damages for breach of promise of marriage in one of the Sydney courts. The plaintiff had coma out to Australia as leading lady in Rickaxds' company, and was getting £6 a week and expenses paid. While playing in Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1886, she became engaged to the defendant, and subsequently at his request s&e left the stage and went home to Birmingham to live with her mother. The defendant told her that he had an income of £20 a week. He went to England, but always put off marrying her, and some time afterwards "went back to Australia. Since then she had never heard from him. She followed him to Australia, and failing to get any communication with him she instituted proceedings. The judge said that the circumstances of the case seemed very heartless and cruel. The plaintiff had lost her professional position through the defendant*, and also lost the prospect of £1000 a. year, the defendant's income. The jury, after about a quarter of an hour's deliberation, returned a verdict for the plaintiff for £1500.