FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

Evening Star, Issue 10931, 13 May 1899, Page 4 (Supplement)

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

[By Call Boy.] PRINCESS’S THEATRE BOOKINGS. Pollards.—May 16 to May 30. Northcote’s Kinematograph.—June 5 to June 10. Williamson and Musgrove.—July 17 to July 29. Pollards.—August 15 to August 26. Bland Holt.—September 28 to October 28.

R. Henry’s Dramatic Company.—December 26 to January 10. R. Brough.—January 12 to January 28.

The Broughs have, consequent on their Sydney success, cancelled their New Zealand dates, and have booked a tour a few months later in the year. The New Zealand campaign will now begin at Christchurch on Boxing' Night. Dunedin, Auckland, and Wellington to follow, after which the company return to Sydney direct. Two Christchurch musicians, who took part in an intertainment given in the Garrison Hall this week, figured on the programme under the noms de concert of Signor Gardini and Leon Ronchetti. These appellations are distinctly good. Mierzwinski, the once famous operatic tenor, is said to be now acting as a porter at a Continental hotel. Mierzwinski’s fame lay in the wonderful power, sweetness, and range of his high chest notes. He was one of the attractions of the Royal Italian Opera Company at Covent Garden in the eighties, his roles being generally Meyerbeer’s heroic characters. In appearance the tenor was tall and prepossessing. James Davis’s new paper, ‘The Phoenix’ (arisen from the ashes of the ‘ Bat ’ and the ‘Hawk’), is responsible for the statement that Mr Brown Potter has at last decided to ask the courts to release him from his actress wife. The “ last straw ” is said to have been an effort made by Mrs Potter to induce their daughter, Miss Fifl Potter, to abandon Mr Potter and cast in her lot with her.

George Robey has been successful in persuading his \rife to desert the Gaiety Theatre (London) for the music halls, and on Easter Monday Ethel Haydon was to have made a first appearance on variety boards at the Palace Theatre.

Mr George Hall, who conducted the orchestra in connection with the ‘Sign of the Cross ’ Company, has taken M. Leon Caron’s place as conductor of “The Firm’s” Royal Comic Opera Company. The Steele-Payne combination of bellringers and part singers arrive at the Bluff by the Wakatipu next w-eek. , Mrs Bland Holt wears a more elaborately<™el™d ® tage dress as Q ucen Elizabeth in The White Heather 1 than any actress who has played a queen’s part in Melbourne, with the exception of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, in her wonderful Theodora costumes. The front of Mrs Bland Holt’s robe is a mass of pearl embroidery, lit up with emeralds, rubies, and other footlight flashes. The necklet to represent diamonds is of round Brazilian pebbles, polished and goldmounted, and the crown has been copied by a clever artificer from the crown in the Era^ oll, Altogether, there are worth of stage jewels sewn into and worn with the costume, without including the cost of material. 6

E. J. Lonnen is touring the English provinces, playing Charles Hawtrey’s original part of Herbert Jocelyn in ‘ Saucy Sally ’ The company are directed by Lawrence Brough. Mr William Archer, the well-known Lonto ? nfcic ’ has been sent to America by W ~ a series of articles in the Ball Mall Magazine ’ on the present state of the drama in the United States. Mr Archer is London’s most accomplished and independent dramatic critic, who has done more than any other man to introduce Ibsen to the English-speaking world, having begun by editing and partly translating Ibsen’s entire works. He is the principal advocate of a theatre to be endowed by the municipality. In a letter to Mr Henry Norman he says that he intends to deal with his subject under four heads—first, the European drama in America; second, the American drama in America; third, centralisation and discentrahsation; and fourth, side shows. He expects to spend at least two months in the otates.

Apropos to the flotation of the London Lyceum into a limited liability company, it is stated that very few of the metropolitan houses are payable concerns. An illustration in point: Over the recent proc'ucT n °L a /5SF tain comic °pera no less a sum than £9,000 was spent before the first performance. The nightly expenses durum the run amounted to between £2OO and £3OO. it the theatre had been crammed to its utmost capacity the receipts could not have exceeded £400; but, as the play -in not / av ° r ' Vltk the public, the takings were substantially less than the outgoings. The P-L r k ®Pt inning for three months in the hope that, if it could be sent to the provinces as a London success, some of the At t t a be C p S r, t ( t of f Pr £ du l ion mi B hfc be back. At the end of the three months the comic £1 nrifT? f ° U c d t0 have allowed up £15,000 from first to last. Facts of this naturally, not tempting to the comP P roßl °ter. Even in connection With melodrama, which is not usually so costly to produce as comic opera, heavy losses rnJ da ooo Urred h 1“ one case a drama cost £6,000 ere its first performance, and ever drew £IOO per night The expenses wer& then—perhaps unwisely—cut down to the lowest possible figure/but they could not

,be got below 200 guineas a night. When I the play was withdrawn after a month’s i T t “ e , loss was found t0 be £9,000. When ™ “ ,d ***'** I n d J SCOV f I7 ' bas recently been made of It hj duet wri tten by Mozart for The Magic Flute,’ but apparently never .performed. It is included in an old copy of the score, which once formed part of the archives of the Theater an der Wein in Vienna, at which Mozart’s opera was originally produced. The manuscript was sold to a Swiss collector, who in looking through it discovered the duet in question, which is sung by' Tamino and Panageno. The authenticity of the piece is ‘said to be unquestionable. It is shortly to bo published by a Berlin firm. What ‘ Rip Van Winkle ’ has been to Mr Joseph Jefferson, ‘The Broken Melody threatens to become to Mr Van Biene, who played the piece for the 1,700 th time to a large audience at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, on March 13. The “undefeated champion wrestling bear” Wallace added to his fame the other night by an unrehearsed performance at Brierley Hill Theatre. About 2 u.m. two policemen passing the theatre heard heavy falls, snarls, and groans, and then a frightful discord on the orchestra piano. This concluded, encore snarls and groans. When the keeper arrived at eight o’clock, it was found that Bruin had got out of his cage, that he had pulled the front of the-piano out, and i that when he had finished fortissimo on the , wires twelve keys only remained intact.

A curious incident occurred recently during the performance of ‘ A Broken Melody ’ at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. While M. Auguste Van Biene was in the theatre Lis old friend Mr Sandow, who is appearing at the Glasgow Empire, went to pay bna a visit in his dressing room, taking with him his great boarhound, which squatted himself comfortably in the corner of the dressing room. Mr Sandow then went round lo the front of the house to hear M. Van Biene play one of his ’cello solos. In due course M. Van Biene’s cue was given, and his valet went to the dressing room to call him, but, to M. Van Biene’s surprise, the animal planted himself across the door and defied him to leave the room. The result was a long stage wait, until the dog’s owner, suddenly realising what had happened, imbed round to release his friend. It appears that, although the boarhound is a most docile creature, it had been trained not to allow anyone to leave the room during his master’s absence.

In Melbourne a new vocal phenomenon has been discovered in Miss Stella Ranger, a girl of fourteen, who sings with the power and expression of a grown woman. She is appearing at the Bijou Theatre.

An exciting incident occurred during a performance at a menagerie in Waterloo market place, Blyth, on March. 18, when a colored lion-tamer named Alicamanza -was attacked by a lioness. In going through one of the items of the programme within a cage occupied by a lioness, the tamer slipped and fell rather heavily to the floor. The lioness immediately sprang upon him, and struck him in the face with one of her paws, inflicting a somewhat serious wound. Alicamanza, however, retained his presence of mind, and dealt the animal a smart blow over the head, which for a moment appeared to stun her; and, seizing this opportunity,

he made good his escape from the cage without receiving further harm.

A POPULAR COMIQUE. The Duke of Beaufort, Lord Londeaborough, Lord Llangattock, Sir R. Webster, and many other grave and.sumptuous grand seigneurs, who are never seen in a variety theatre nowadays, have, nevertheless, readily given their patronage to the benefit of Jolly JohfrNash. Jolly John (writes our London correspondent) will be seventy-two on the 17th May, and on that afternoon “pros” and “pals” alike intend to do him really well. , Few of.Nash’s contemporaries arc likely to be present. The Great Vance (“Jolly Dogs”), Fred French (“Pretty Polly Perkins”), George Leybourne (“ Champagne Charlie”), E. W. Maclmey (“The Whole Hog or None ”), Mrs F. R. Phillips ( a Still Tongue in Your Head”)* Annie Adams (“Hoop La!”), (Harry Liston and Harry Clifton (“Paddle Your Own Canoe ’) are all dead. Emily Soldene (who as Miss Fitz Henry was a popular music hall “ star ” when Nash first began to " Ha! ha 1 ha!”) is still much alive, as her mordant pen (lady journalists always like their pens to bo termed “ mordant ”) abundantly proves, and if she and Harry Rickards could slip over by cable—the one to sing an old favorite canticle from ‘ Genevieve ’ and the other to give us ‘ Captain Jinks of the horse marines ’ ■ I m sure that they would meet with a royal welcome. Mr Nash has been reminding “old timers” through the inevitable interviewer that the music-hall, shows of thirty years ago differed widely from to-day’s. He writes entertainingly: A typical music-hall programme then would open with an overture by an orchestra of about eight instruments; then a lady or gcnlleman w °uld sing a ballad, after which there would be a flute solo, perhaps, by Drew Dean, then a quartet or a glee, then a serio-comic lady (who m those days had a voice). Other items would include a stump speech by the famous Unsworth, the great operatic selection by about twenty chosen singers, a star turn by Billy Randall (‘ The Hole in the Shutter a song and dance by the famous “ Little Bob ” (first of the song and dance performers), a laughing song by myself and a nigger farce to wind up with. Double entendre and doubtful innuendo came in with, the early severities and the demand for both increased rapidly! As to salaries, most of us began at £3 per week (Leybourne and lota of others did), and £6 per week was the figure for a star-turn singer. To-day, of course, incomes are fabulous in comparison, the theatres are finer, and the audiences are of an entirely different class. In those days it was the thing for the men to repair after the theatre to Evans’s Supper Rooms (now the National Sporting Club), where, in addition to a comfortable menu, there was a musical programme. Here I remained for five years as political singer in succession to the celebrated Harry Sydney, and here on various occasions I met many of the nobility and numbers of distinguished people. Two of the most interesting acquaintances I formed at Evans’s were those of Mr Cleveland and Mr Garfield, who subsequently became Presidents of the United States.