SONG, STAGE, AND STORY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 156, 2 July 1892, Page 10

SON G, STAGE, AND STORY.

Ul/lIU) VKIUi.) rill i*.v v I \filf t t<, £'. j A threatened temporary elacknosa in i matters theatrical and musical in Auck 1 land has been well filled by Mr Snazelle' . the versatile single-handed entertainer and ■ I raconteur, at the City Hall during the tire. > sent week. The season will conclude next week. Mr Snazelle's entertainment hjr "' been justly described as • a sermon a poem, a sweeb consolation, a delight te ' eye and ear, most refining, educating, and \ amusing.' For one thine, an exhibition oj ! ' limelight views is not usually very lively 3 or very beautiful in the hands of the ordi. I nary lantern-man, but with Mr Snazelle's " • accessories and Mr Bishop's manipulation ' it becomes something more than a mere ' ' fleeting show of picture slides. Mr Snazoll Q ■ ; —whose collection of scenic pictures forms 3 aby no means unimportant feature of lug J entertainment —evidently believes with old ? Will Shakspere that there are * tongues in trees, bookß in the running brooks, set- ' ! mons in stones, and good in everything,' Nothing more beautiful than some of the r 1 ecenio effects in the show could be desired. ' The entertainment altogether is difficult of , | description. Mr Snazelle intends leaving Auokland at • [ the close of hie season here for Fiji, where * he intends to enjoy a short) and well-earned, ' holiday. . J ' Mr Hawkins, A.R.A.M., who acts aa „ ' pianist at Mr Snazelle's entertainments, ig " ' a very clever instrumentalist. His manip ulation of the piano and organ simoltane- ' ously is a pretty 'ticklish1 feat, but one : J which to him eeerns to possess no diffi-,' ' culties./ ■ | The members of the Auckland Amateur Opera Club are getting on well with their' tri-weekly rehearsals of 'Pinafore,'which I ia to be produced in Abbott's Opera House X ? in all its nautical glory in about a month's '. ,• time. . : ..■,...■ v. A new attraction will be planed "beforo Auckland theatre-goers next October, :{.: Oscar Smith, who was here with Charley ;! • Hugo > about two years ago, writes us ' | from San Francisco by last mail saying that f • he is coming down to the colonies Bhortly ' 1 with a Novelty Company, which he Bays 1 will be found • most wonderful.' The ' [ troupe— 'Steen's and Smith's Mystic ' Entertainers' — includes Mrs M. E. Steen, t 'Empress of All Second-sight Seers;1 Charles N. Steen, ' Spiritualist Exposer;' s and Oecar Smith, 'Ventriloquist.' Tho ' i Company play in Auckland first, opening r here in October next on their arrival from - 'Frisco., The good old melodrama is almost forgotten in Auckland, it occurs to vs f Bland Holt was to have come across here in July from Sydney with some new blood-and-thunder dramas of the orthodox type, bub" he has abandoned his proposed New Zea-:, land tour for various reasons, one of which • is stated to be the unduly high charges of ;"\ some of the Southern theatres. Bland j ' Holb's melodramas will ever be remembered;.,■>■. by the New Zealand and Australian public . with a curious sort of gratitude. .Who is there amongst us who is not familiar with the frock-coated glowering villain who held the boards of Abbott's. Opera House, what time Holt's blue-fira, depictions were to the fore; the poor and innocent heroine, who bewails her misery - in a magnificent silk dress and satin slippers; the heavy father with- his - paternal platitudes and his ' Bless you, my children;' the handsome hero, with tha duck of a moustache and velveteen waistcoat, and the inevitable policeman, who ' appears unexpectedly, but opportunely, in < order to collar the villain on the slightest]. pretaxb?, Who is there that has not been ">'.'■ roused, to intense excitement when, after .•■„■?)( working his wicked will through five acts, -)^, unfoilad, vice in a tall hat is at last un- . masked and led away to a hard, cold' cell just before the fall of the cur-, tain? Who would not welcome back" the bold, bad stage . nobleman of ourjfip earliesb recollections, with his .villain's wiles, hisr biased threatß of ' Rrrevenge,! !,'■■, and 'No matter-r; & time will .'come!'.. We jmay satirise melodrama1 of the, good old. sort, but we cling to the venerable his- v \ trionic institution1 the closer for that; andthe blood-and-thunder theatrical makes his ; | pile every time. ■ . .. ■ The Montague-Turner Opera Company; are now at Christchurch. They did excellent business in Wellington. At ex-Hangman Berry's lecture in Lew- I don : 'Mr Berry simply rose, coughed, shuffled his feet, and tried to read from half a dozen long sheets of paper fastened :, \ together with a nursery pin. Cable: ' Mrs Labouchere has joined the Church of Rome.' People smile; 'an ex- 1 actress has the fancy of keeping, herself in ■ evidence. Shakspere was being acted in three London theatres at once, by last ad\ vices—lrving, in ' Henry V 111.,' at the Ly-- :; ceum; Tree, in 'Hamlet,' the Haymarket"; Tearle, in 'Richard 111.,' the Olympic. According to a contemporary, there aref no theatrical advertisements in the Paris H papers, bub bjtief notifications are inserted as news.. Criticism is absolutely untram-, melled fey any advertising contingencies, ;V wherefore you do not see the canvasser and;; v his teeming family deadheads in the drees-,- ; circle, while the honafide journalist pays to the pit, _ A Sydney journal says that the Fitzgeralds, of circus fame, are getting up ,; ' steam for the production of a lurid equestrian drama on the-subject of Ned Kelly , and Company. Lance Lenton has prepared • ':■ a series of wild incidents and striking > , situations founded upon everything the -.. Kellys ever did and a number of things ? theynever thought of doing. Dead police-; ' men are scattered liberally amidst the plot, and Miss Kate Kelly figures as the virtuous, f:heroine who offers up prayers for the g&"g whilst they are rampaging round the circus ' in quest of blood and treasure. • Tara-ra-boom-de-ay' is not a German or American or Postal waltz, but .Austra-j '•;; lian. A correspendent writes us (says the Sydney 'Daily Telegraph') that he has often heard the blacks of the Bogan brandishing the nullah-nullah to a well-timed' 'Ta-ra,' savagely casting it on the ground1 with a dull, sickening thud to the sound of ' boom,' and raising it an instant later to a merry 'de-ay.' These actions, he says, portrayed the preliminary swing, the crash of an opponent's skull, and exultation upon completion of tho performance ; and he, ■ • is quite certain from the description of Miss Lottie Collins' acting that she has had a lesson from an Australian bushman. , Paderewski, the pianist, had a novel experience an Chicago recently. He was entertained by one Schwartz, a porkopoha millionaire, and played a few oratorio eolos. 'Twas Sunday night, but the Chicagoau was so much pleased by the performance that he gave the player a cheque for a thousand dollars. About two hours after, According to the story, Paderewaki eaO down to a ' quiet game of drawpoker' with his host, and lost not only the cheque, bub also several notes other than musical^ Th.a , Yankees have rare sport over the pianist, his name, and his hair. They call him tpe . ' human chrysanthemum,' pronounce his name ' Paddy's whiskers,' and depict him in the comic papers with a head-gear lika that of a Circassian girl—hair three feeo long, and stuck out with gumMiss Janet Achurch has fallen ill, a? d resigned Norah Helmer, pro iem., to MiS3 , Rose Norreys. Mr Charrington is about to revive ' Forget-me-Not at the Avenue. On dit Miss Achurch is bitterly disappointed at the reception of 'A Doll's House,'and' the strictures of the critics on her improved Norah. 'She has still, however, many ardent admirers. ' Tay-Pay' - 'P'Oonnor-. devote 3 two columns of last Sundays 'Sun ' to a rhapsody on the fair Janet 3 tforab. MrSantleyia going? to settle to Manchester, as chiet professor of singing at Sir Chas. Halle' 3 conservatorium....