Pollard's Opera Company.

Hastings Standard, Issue 137, 3 October 1896, Page 4

Pollard's Opera Company.

The members of this popular combination arrived yesterday from Auckland, and are enjoying a welldeserved rest previous to commencing their season here on Monday. The opening attraction is a work with which most playgoers are familiar, viz., " Rip Yan Winkle." On Tuesday night, Bticalossi's charming opera, " The Black Cloaks," better known under the French title of " Les Manteaux Noirs," will be staged for the first time in Hastings. That it will form a valuable addition to the company's already extensive repertoire is certain, for it is an opera abounding in bright and tuneful choruses, pretty solos, and striking situations, just enough of the humorous being introduced to warrant its being classed as comic. The plot, as in all such compositions, needs but little explanation, (iirola, the belle of Yalados, is the daughter of a proscribed nobleman, who, on her father's banishment, is adopted by old Farmer Nicholaf. On her attaining womanhood her guardian betrothes her to a mercenary and clownish miller, Dromez, who, despite her charming person, proves to be more in love with her dowry. Gorola, however, is already in love, but curiously enough she does not known

to whom, save that it is to some haod-soi-no gallant whom ; ; he mot in the dark and whoso face she has never seen. This proves ultimately to ha Don Luis <le Rosamonte, an officer attached to the royal court. On the day fixed for Girola's marriage to the obnoxious miller Her Majesty the Queen of Castile, accompanied by her court and Palomez, the Royal astronomer, have occasion to visit the village for the purpose of witnessing an ec-lipse of the moon, and the farmer's house is fixed upon as the royal quarters for the time being, and the wedding festivities are in consequence postponed. The marriage, however, takes place, but, although she is unaware of it, Girola is wedded not to her aversion Dromez, but to her real lover, who appears on the scene in the nick of time, and easily bribes the money - grabbing miller to allow him to become his substituate. From this out the complications thicken, and in the second act where the scene is changed to the interior of the old mill, the air is veritably dense with mystery. The time is at the dead of night, and poor Girola, who has been escorted home by Dromez, is in dire trouble until her real husband appears and informs her of what has happened. He, however, does not reveal his name. A very pretty piece of love-making ensues, interrupted by the sudden appearance of the King's Consort, who has been smitten with Girola's beauty. Each is frightened of detection, and the miller reaps a perfect harvest of bribes from the different parties. In the third act the unravelling commences, and everything as it should be ends happily. The scenery and dressing will be on the usual scale of magnificence for which Mr Pollard is famed, and another genuine artistic success may be expected.