FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

Evening Star, Issue 11692, 25 September 1902, Page 8

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES

[Bt Cau Bot.l

TMoso popular entertainers the Black Family returned from a very successful tour dcrirn South on Saturday. Miae Nellie, we notice, made quite a sensation with her wonderful tarick violin, playing. They left to-day to deCight our kinsmen in the North. Mr J. A. Macdonald went in advance.

There was a large attendance at the Sydney . street Schoolroom, Wellington, lost Thursday night, when Mr Robert Parker gave his sixth lecture - concert, which closed the present series. Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann we.e the headings of the lecture, which was a highly interesting and instructive biography of the two great composers. Air Beerhohm Tree has decided to produce ‘ The Eternal City ’ at Her Majesty’s London, on September 27. Apart from the magnificent scenic sets, the production will be interesting in view of the fact that incidental music by Signor Mascagni will be used. There are twenty-one speaking parts in this version of Mr Hull Caine’s novel. Mr Tree will at the same time send the ‘‘Eternal City” on tour in the provinces. Since the announcement of the forthcoming season of English opera to be given by the Moody-Mannera Opera Company at Covent Garden, Mr Maimers has been besieged with letters asking if the opera that has won the £250 prize (which he offered recently) is to be given during the season. This is not the case, for, as originally announced, the judges of the competition will not decide on the winning opera nntil May, 1905. Among tho operas which may be performed during the kntnmn season by the above company is one by Signor Pizzi, the name of which is not given. Signor Pizzi ( has composed several operas— 4 Lina,’ in one act; ‘ Guglielmo Ratcliff,’ in four acts; ‘ Gahriella,’ in one act; and ‘ Rosafba,’ in

one act; also ‘ The Bric-a-Brac Will,’ a comic opera played in London a few years ago. Madame Esty, Mrs Moody, and Miss Crichton (the mezzo-soprano- of the Musgrove Company) are included in the company.

Paderewski has been delivering himself of some interesting remarks upon scale playing. The great pianist says : —“ Scales are an important—yes. vital—part in securing a perfect technique. Great effort must be made to produce a beautiful, large singing tone from the piano by pressing the keys to the very bottom and getting a perfect legato. As an instructor I place great stress on special exercises for obtaining this effect. These consist in long continued repetitions of the scales, both ordinary and chromatic, very slowly and very legato, lifting the fingers as little a? possible, end accentuating each third or fourth note to get a perfect evenness. Home pianists, and some of them of wide fame as technical performers, insist upon raising the fingers as ranch as possible by running the scale and then bringing them down on the keys. Mv method is directly the opposite of this. While the fingers must be brought down with great firmness, so that the keys are pressed to the very bottom, this pressure mav be, applied through a very limited arc of the circle. This naturally develops the interior muscles of the hand; those that contract the finger rather than those that extend or lift it. Or, to put it another wav, the prehensile muscles develop unusual strength, and are applied with intense firmness, while the tendons on the back of the hand merely serve to lift the fingers a short distance.”

The Melbourne papers announce the death of Mr Thomas H. Guennett, the well-known organist and teacher of music in that city. He was a pupil of the late Sir Charles Halle, and for many years was musical critic for the ‘ Argus ’ and ‘ Australasian.’ He was the son of an English Congregational minister, who was also an amateur organ builder. A son? of Mr Guennett resided In Dunedin for a short time, but at present lives in Christchurch Sir Henry Irving (as one of tho London papers hints) has been in communication with Mr George Mnsgrove on the important propo'*! that Mr Mnsgrove should become his London manager, and that the Shaftesbury Theatre should be the home of Sir Henry’s future London operations. The overtures originated with Sir Henry Irving. If Mr Mnsgrove. who now has companies running in England, America, and Australia, should see his way to enter rn this new enterprise, he will spend £25,000 on the Shaftesbury—which is quite a new building —in order" to make it the most luxurious theatre in London. The London correspondent of the ‘ Australasian ’ remarks : “ When Mr Mnsgrove came to England first, London managers did all they reasonably could to make his venture one of extreme difficulty. Now they are ready to extol him as the keenest and roost enterprising of them all.” In the Australian States the air is full of Sandow. In the streets, iu the trains, and in the • cars the all-absorbing topic of conversation is the mighty Sandow. In Adelaide, where this prophet of physical culture inaugurated bis Australian season, Mr Rickards’s Tivoli Theatre was not large enoneh to hold the audiences. The huge Opera-house, Melbourne, is nightly crowded to the doors. Sandow will appear iu Dunedin at the Agricultural Hall ,on Tuesday, December 30, and will be supported by a very powerful combination, including Air and Airs Sidney Drew, known in the theatrical world as the American Kendals.

When tho Lottos opened m Australia it was predicted ere long that some intrepid cyclist would start careering round the roof. It has come, as will be seen from tho following par, clipped from the ‘ Stage ’ ; —“ After many postponements, Diavolo (John Wolfe), the American bicyclist, appeared at the Royal Aquarium on August 4, and accomplished the daring cycling feat known as ‘ Looping the Loop ’ —one of the most sensational performances ever introduced at the Aquarium. It consists in traversing an oval-shaped track, so constructed that for a few yards the cyclist rides his 801b machine head downwards without falling to the ground, over 30ft below. This is made possible by the force derived from the rescent of a narrow platform sloping from the roof at an angle of 45deg to the bottom of the loop. The speed attained drives the machine and its rider up the side and round tho top of the loop to the other side, and so on to the stage, the distance travelled being 265 ft in the space of seven seconds.” This perilous performance was successfully accomplished in the afternoon, but next night Diavolo’ was very near losing the number of his mess. He- started well, came at a flying pace down the steep incline, and entered the loop well in the middle, but just as he was emerging his front wheel turned outwards, and he fell from his machine, and slid along the ground on his head and shoulders. In consequence of his being well padded, and having a head-guard on, bis injuries were not as serious as they might have been, but he had to be conveyed to the nearest hospital, suffering from slight concussion of the brain. But he was not | seriously hurt, for the intrepid man has since continued his performances without interruption. Diavolo is twenty-six years of age, is sft llin in height, and weighs about 1701b.

Tears welled into the eyes of the beautiful, talented, popular, widely-known young actress when the reporter asked her to ted the story of her loss. “It was absolutely the finest thing in the way of an automobile that money could buy,” explained her manager, thus adroitly giving tone to the incident. “I bad just returned from rehearsal,” she began, “ and left it standing at the kerb a minute while I stepped in here. When I returned it was gone,” Her voice broke. “ Its associations made it more valuable to me than anything else I possess. It was a gift, you know, from Lord Charing Cross after my first appearance in ‘ The Third Mrs Roberts ’ in London last year. Seventy flawless pearls!” she sobbed. “ And the central diamond of the pendant was valued at a thousand pounds, and ” “ I’ll ring for her maid,” broke in the manager. “ Lord Charing Gross clasped it around my neck with his own hands,” she continued, making no further effort to control her grief. Five minutes later the newspaper man was getting from, her manager the true story of the sensational theft, supplemented by an explanation of the beautiful, talented, popular, widely-known young actress’s slightlyconfusing statements.—Morris Adams in ‘ Pock.’

One little function that is sure to please Madame Melba on her arrival in Melbourne ■will be the presentation to her by her old fellow-students at the Presbyterian College for Women of a handsome medallion clasp, with a suitable inscription engraved thereon. It may be interesting to know how ‘ Sherlock Holmes ’ came to be written for the 1 stage. “Curiously enough,” says a writer 1 in the ‘Strand Magazine,* “it was not at I the suggestion of Sir Conan Doyle, Mr Wil- I liam Gillette, or Mr Charles Frohmaii. who | is Mr Gillette’s manager, but through the I inventive, genius of an American reporter. I This enterprising individual wrote a para- I graph to the effect that Conan Doyle had stated that should anyone dramatise Sherlock Holmes it would' be William Gillette. The doctor had said nothing of the kind, and at that time had not even met .Mr Gillette, or had any correspondence with him; Mr Charles Frohman came across the paragraph, • which was printed in an obscure newspaper published in the Western. States of America, while he was in London H.e cut it out, and showed it to Mr Gillette. The result is that the play has far exceeded qgtpectations, and may apparently be classed as one of the most successful dramas produced during recent years, either in America or England. There was a mild sensation at the Sydney Lyceum on tho evening of the 3rd inst. Towards the end of the third act a bottle in ' the property room, containing spirits of varnish, was accidentally upset by one of the employees. The fumes were ignited by a gas ffame, and soon the room was in flames. The smoke quickly made its way across the stage into the auditorium. The terrifying suggestion of “ fire ” was soon voiced by the timid, and a number of people made a rush for the escapes. The fears of the audience were soon dispelled by tho presence of mind of tho players in continuing their parts and the lively strains of tho orchestra. Above the auditorium is a movable roof, and this was operated so as to allow the smoke to escape. In a comparatively short space of time the atmosphere cleared, and (hose who had rushed from the theatre returned to their places. Before the firemen arrived the flames had been extinguished by ■ Mr Bland Holt and his employees by using a hydrant fixed under the" stage.” The damage was restricted to the property room. While assisting at the fire Mr Holt was unfortunately singed about the lace and bands.

Miss Irene Vanbrugh tells a good anecdote aaent the original production of Pinero’s ‘ The Gay Lord Quex.’ “ One night,” she says, “in act 11., when I was going to manicure Lord Quex in the garden, I couldn’t open the manicure bag. It was an awful moment, because the whole play was at a standstill, and the more I tugged the tighter (he bag remained shut. At last I said to Lord Quex: ‘ 1 can’t open the bag .—l’ll see if 1 can get a gardener.’ We were in a garden, so the remark sounded natural enough. The gardener was easily found in the prompt corner, and with a 1 wrench from the property-master’s strong bands the bag was forced open and the play continued.” The censor of plays lias been at work again in England, permission having been refused to the public production of Maurice Maeterlinck’s new play, ‘Monna Vanna,’ It has therefore been produced privately hy a London Maeterlinck Society. Madame Georgette Lablanc appeared as Monna, and M. Darmont, who was out here with Madame Bernhardt, played the lover. Bearing in mind tho strength of some of the problem plays which have been allowed by the censor to pass for English production, ‘Monna Vanna’ docs not seem so highly objectionable, as problem plays go. The main plot may be gathered from a critic’s no tied of Madame Lablanc’s “ superb ” delineation of the heroine. She showed tho very heart of the woman through all the scenes of storm and stress; the exaltation of her love for conntiy and people, which make her a willing sacrifice to the man who can bring them succor; the trembling joy with which she discovers in the ruthless conqueror only a reverent lover, whose story of a love cherished since childhood wakens her to a new joy in life; her proud return to her maddened husband ; her frenzied horror when he refuses to believe in the possibility of this man’s honor and her purity; aud then, at last, the realisation that her husband’s disbelief haa killed the cold affection she had felt for him, and awakened into flaming, life the new love for the other and nobler man ; and, lastly,’ the trick by which she secures the custody of her lover, so that, inrteatj of the torture which is to be the revenge for the supposed outrage, she may escape with him to live and love at their fullest. Sir Charles Wyndham, tho new actor knight, was intended by his father, a London doctor, for the ministry, and was sent to a Moravian academy in Germany, where he joined a follow student in founding a Wesleyan mission chapel. On returning he threw up theology for medicine. He studied hard in Dubl.n, and “passed all his ex, m nations with flying colors.!! In 1863 he sailed for America, and joined the Federal Army Medical department. Becoming acquainted with John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Lincoln, he was introduced to the American stage, and made his first appearance as a character who had to declare, “ I am drunk with love and enthusiasm.” Having uttered the first three words, he was seized with stage fright, and said no more. The criticism of tho ‘ New York Herald’ was curt and unkind : “A Mr lAyndham represented a young man from South America. Ho had better go there himself.”