THE MOUNTEBANKS.

Evening Star, Issue 8767, 7 March 1892, Page 4

THE MOUNTEBANKS.

A GILBERTIAN LIBRETTO AND WEAK SCORE.

CORDIAL RECEPTION.

(From Odr Special Correspondent.]

London, January 8. Passing the Lyric Theatre on Monday afternoon we came upon Mr W. S. Gilbert, who had evidently just finished his last rehearsal of ' The Mountebanks,’ talking to someone who may or may not have been the manager (I don’t know Mr Sedger by sight). “ Yes, yea,” I hoard him say as we passed. “ But tho music is not what it should be.” The same evening the critics, after hearing the first performance of the new opera, sorrowfully entered a similar verdict, Mr Gilbert has never written a better book. Supported by a Sullivanesque score, it would have ranked with the moat brilliant Savoy triumphs. Even poor Cellier's rather thin, body less music has not very seriously injured the piece. Some of theisolated numbers are indeed good enough, but the work that was done last, especially the finale to both acts, requires thoroughly overhauling and strengthening. Ccllier was a terrible procrastinator. He had the book of ‘ The Mountebanks ’ months back, but when rehearsals began only a fraction of the score was complete. Years ago, when Rice managed Covent Gardei), Cellier agree! to write the music for a certain pantomime. Boxing Day approached, but not a number was forthcoming. Rice stormed, adjured, prayed. At length, losing all patience, he wired intimating that he should sue the composer for breach of engagement, placing the damages at L 1,500. Cellier replied; “ Better send me LSOO and make damages L 2,000.” The scene of * The Mountebanks ’ is laid in Sicily at the beginning of the present century. There are a choir of monks who sing Gilbertian Latin, and good-humoredly imitate the old ecclesiastical 'Dies Lie,’ and u party of banditti, who with the mottoes “Heroism without riskperadventure Mr Gilbert’s reading of “Peace with honor”—and “Revenge without anxiety,” have sworn a vendetta against society in general because

Five hundred years ago Our ancestor’s next door neighbor Had a mother whoso brother By some moans or other Incurred three months’ hard labor.

There are also a party of merry maidens who are severally to be married, one each mornning, to these four-and-twenty peaceful bandits, and who in welcoming the bride of to-day sing a tripping chorus in waltz rhythm. Among the characters there are likewise a tenor lover who warblesa soliloquy to his mistress about daffodils and daisies; a village beauty who rejects this tenor lover, calls him a clodhopper (“For you do hop clods, you know,” she exclaims, whereupon ho is bound to admit “I have certainly hopped some in my time”), and laments that she alone, “an ineffective working minority,” does not believe herself to bo the most beautiful girl iu the district; her rival, for whom the tenor lover does not care ; and a party of mummers, two at any rate of whom are likely to make the fortunes of the opera. These form the principal dramatis persona , for a certain duke and duchess, who are “ awful sticklers for etiquette ’’—giving one man six months for using a pocket handkerchief in their presence, and fining another man a hundred crowns because he didn’t—and a certain alchemist who in bis search for the philosopher’s stone is perpetually blowing himself up, no that his landlord has to collect tho bit 3 ftr his bill, are never seen. Before the arrival of the mummers we have heard a pretty solo for the bride, an unmistakcably English ditty with tho refrain “ tio, ho, ho, their high jerry ho !” suns by tho chief of tho bandits (the catchy tuno of which also forms the finale to the opera), and a capital quarrelling duet between tho rival damsels, in which, after being reminded that birds in their little nest agree, the one replica:

DJcky birds don’t, to gain their ends, Depreciate their absent friends. While the other retorts: Dicky birds don’t, whal’er they hear, Forget that they arc ladies, dear.

When once the Mountebanks, accompartial by tv Thespian cart drawn by the “ Cigale ” donkey, appear on the scene, the fun, however, beccmea riotous. This is in great part clue to Miss Jenourc, tire dancing girl of the troupe (a graceful dancer, with a sweet voice, and a born actress) and to Mr Harry Monkhouse, the gloomy clown of the company, but

Who cannot for money ISj vulgarly funny— Uy object’s to make you rtflccfc. This clown, who in the moat diverting manner burlesques the gait and voice of the heavy tragedians of a past generation, has indeed only taken to clowning through disappointment. “ I’ve played the first acts,” he says, “and the first acts alone, of all our tragedies. No human eye has seen me in the second act of anything. On my last appearance I played the moody Dane. As no one else had ever played him, so I played that Dane. Gods ! how they laughed ! ‘Laugh on.’said 1; ‘laugh on and laugh your fill—you laugh your last! No man shall ever laugh at me again. I’ll be a clown !' I kept my word—they laugh at me no more.” The party are soon interrupted by a double calamity. The clockwork figt res of Hainltt and Ophelia, “as they appeared in the bosoms of their families before they disgraced their friends by taking to the stage for a livelihood,” are missing. Clown and dancing girls must take their places. The last explosion of the alchemist has proved fatal, for the bits cannot bo found. All he has left is a bottle, the label of which states that the liquid “ has the effect of making everyone who drinks it exactly what he pretends to be.” So the two mummers must swallow the dose, and become automata, to which, after a little wheedling on the part of the lady (who sings a love song in various languages, an idea which had previously been used by the late Mr Farnie) and a gallopade trio and dance, the clown, despite his objection to exchange his digestion for “ a handful of common clockwork,” finally consents. Before, however, they appear again we have a lovely soprano ballad for the village beauty, a mock Latin chorus for the bandits, who have assumed the disguise of Dominican monks, and who now goodhumoredly parody the Gregorian style, with which Alfred Cellier, as an old church organist, was thoroughly familiar ; and a delicious little solo far the bride disguised as an old woman, the music to which is one of the gems of the opera, The automata, duly placarded “Put a penny in the slot," are wheeled in, and, the figures suiting the action to the words in wooden and jerky fashion, the mountebank manager thus describes the history of Hamlet

He’s backed himself at heavy odds, in proof of his ability, That he’ll soliloquise .her Into utter imbecility. She wildly begs him to desist appeals to his

humanity, But all in vam—observe her [eyes a-goggling with in.

sanity. The transformation of the automata is real. So, too, is that which affects the who, refusing to drink the potion on the ground that it ia poisonous, feels a'l the pains of real poison ; while the bride, being disguised as an old woman, becomes seventy years of age. The tenor and his lady-love, who have donned the robes of duke and duohess, as dummies in a rehearsal in correct attitude towards the nobility on the part of the innkeeper (who has “ never in my life addressed anybody of higher rank than an oil and Italian warehouseman”), are also transformed into the characters they represent ; the bandits become monks, and the village beauty, who has feigned madness in order to cause the tenor to jilt her rival is so far feather-headed that “1 whose very soul is possessed by my love of him, have retained the village fiddler to compose crazy love-songs for me to sing when occasion ariaeth; for I am going mad, mad, mad; and, bo a girl never so crazy, her songs should be in accordance with the rules of thorough bass.” The early part of the second aot may drag a little, although some of the music is far superior to that in the first; but the fun once more beoomes furious with the return of the automata, Miss Jenoure especially has exactly caught the spirit of the joke, and the quaint movements of her hands, the stiff jerk of the arm, and her laugh aa she throws back her head and allows her long flaxen hair to reach almost to her heels, are irresistible. This Hamlet and Ophelia in village waxwork have a whimsical duet, in which the music of

the "schools” is imitated, and their excruciatingly funny wooden danoo would almost suffice to make the fortunes of the opera. Both lament the time when the delicately beautiful apparatus with which they were fitted "never, never ticked,” but although Ophelia is " rather fast,” and Hamlet constantly wants oiling and winding op (altogether apart from such accidents as that a half-penny "put in the slot” occasionally gets into his escapement), both reflect that it might have been worse, and that instead of "common clockwork, the cheapest thing in the trade, we might have been Waterbury, with interchangeable insides.” There is also a capital scene in which the bandits, now transformed into monks, but occasionally indulging in a quiet dance on the sly, receive their former lady loves— Though our emotions, as you see, Wo try to freeze, we try to freeze, We don't as yet pretend to be St. Antbonys. St. Anthony? I Still, to the diatreas of the ladies they cannot now marry. However, the antidote is promised in an hour, and the brief ensemble which closes the incident (the gay chorus and dance of the girls being effectively mingled with the solemn chant of the temporary priests), and the unaccompanied "La, La, La,” in mock imitation of the old English madrigal style, sung by the chorus of monks in whimsical welcome to the supposed duke, are among the best constructed musical pieces in the opera. With the last appearance of the automata the plot draws to a close. The clockwork Hamlet does not at all relish the idea that Ophelia must commit suicide. He demands; "Amlto be the only Hamlet who is not permitted to discover new readings ? ’ and he insists that, even at the risk of " trifling with the text,” be shall be allowed to marry her. It is true that in Shakespeare,

When she found he wouldn’t wed her, la a rivet in a meadder Took a header, and a deader Was Ophelia!

But we now live under modern and more civilised conditions. The lady automaton therefore boldly declares— Ophelia to her sex was a disgrace,, Whom nobody could feel compassion for; Ophelia should have gone to Ely place To consult an eminent solicitor. When such promises as these, Breaks a suitor rich and regal, Why substantial damages Is the panacea legal. Erom a jury—eons of Adam, Though its stony as macadam, Maid or madam, she’d have bad ’em, Would Ophelia.

The antidote is at last produced, The parchment label to the bottle has been found, and it has only to be burnt to release the whole party from the spell. So Hamlet and Ophelia—" Gone our tickings and our clickings’’—once more become clown and dancer, the manager’s poison pains are stilled, the bride who has found senility " just a little disappointing ” becomes young again, and the monks merrily singing

With our high jerry ho! And our cantical pedantical And our mystic, though artistic

Jerry high, jerry ho ! are once more converted into jovial bandits, and pair off with their bright-eyed sweethearts as the curtain finally falls.