DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9447, 23 June 1891, Page 6

DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Evangeline ran for thirty-two nights at the Melbourne Opera House. The report is again abroad that Mrs Langtry will visit the Colonies. Mdme. Eernhardt spells her Christian name “ Sarah " and not “Sara,” as many people think. Mr D’Oraay Ogden intends to open St George’s Hall, Melbourne, as a theatre, with Oliver Twist. Messrs Williamson and Garner will shortly stage La Cigale, the opera that has been so successfully received in London.

A cable message from London states that Mr D. Mayer, the entrepreneur, has arranged an Australian tour for M. Paderewski, the pianist, beginning in July,

The receipts of the first Bernhardt performance at the Melbourne Princess’, amounted to JBBI6. This is the highest on record, the Gaiety Burlesque Company being next with JBSBO. The London Haymarket success The Dancing Girl will be produced in Melbourne, on July 25, when Miss Laura Villiers, one of the best provincial actresses in England, will play the title role. The season of comic opera at the Princess’ Theatre, Melbourne, closed on May 29, having extended over a period of thirty-seven weeks. During that time the following operas were produced:— Dorothy, The Mikado, La Mascoite, The Gondoliers, Marjorie (four weeks), Pirates of Penzance, Princess Ida, Teamen of the Guard ; and Old Guard, (eight weeks).

A large and enthusiastic audience in the Town Hall, Melbourne, on May 30, greeted the appearance of Ernest Hutchison after an absence of five years in Europe. Amongst the audience were tho Governor and Sir Charles and Lady Halle. On making his appearance Ernest Hutchison received an ovation. The programme included six solos, representing different schools of composition, and these he played with clear, crisp technique, and an amount of brilliancy which shows that he is a remarkably promising student. The selections were all played from memory. The following items are taken from the Sydney " Bulletin” of June 6:— Mdme. -Bernhardt’s scenery is paper, done in Italy, like Ristori’e scenery. Williamson and Garner worked up the Bernhardt boom without any placards—to the great disgust of the bill-stickers. It is amusing to notice how many professional singers now advertise themselves in the German papers as “from Australia.”

Musgrove has been negotiating with the Carl Bosa Opera Company, of which the principals are Marie Eoze and Amy Sherwin. It is cabled that Nellie Stewart refuses to play in The Nautch Girl at London Savoy, because the alteration of title to The Rajah of Chutney Pore places the name part in the hands of Mrs Butland Barrington. Anything harder to please than a musician it is impossible to imagine.

Someone writes to the “ Sydney Morning Herald” complaining that the Australian gallery is noisier than that of Europe. Perhaps; but for noise, catcalling, interjection, and idiotic yelling it is an Eden compared to the gallery of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Dublin, Edinburgh, or Glasgow. Ask any travelled pro.

Patti and Bernhardt have not loved money for its own sake—it is only their artistic ambition to be paid higher than anyone else, as a mark of pre-eminence ; wherefore, when Patti and Nilsson were in the same company, Patti was content to get guineas as against Nilsson’s pounds. Other people have spent all the money of yonr Bernhardts and Pattis.

As Jennie Lee walked along George street, Sydney, one day, a wretched hoodlum standing on the Post Office steps howled out to her, “Era, missus, give ns half”— alluding to a bag of grapes Jennie was just then carrying. To the amazement of this miserable kid she turned towards him, borrowed her companion’s penknife, severed half the bunch and presented it to the youth, who did his best at an apology ' for bis rudeness. ' It would be possible for Bernhardt to give her performances in French with an English-speaking company, and perhaps some people would like it better, for the Incongruity is by no means so great as may be imagined. Bossi and Salvini, the Italian tragedians, went all over America with English-speaking troupes. Booth spoke English, acting in Berlin, as Hamlet, with the German company, and it came out beautifully: How does Bernhardt stand amid the actresses of all time P Sarah blends such opposites as Rachel and Mdlle. Mars. She cuts up into Modjeska, Ellen Terry, and half-a-dozen others. The Helen Fancit type is lofty, but namby-pamby, for it seems that greatness must be in wickedness, grand passion. All Sarah’s great pieces wind up with a death scene, varied in Camille, Tosea, Fedora, Buy Bias , Theodora, Cleopatra, Frou Frou, Lena (As in a Looking Glass), Adrienne Lecouvreur, and all the rest, with a subtle art that never palls. The School for Scandal has been fruitful m incidents. When the Earl of Derby courted Miss Farren, and she acted Lady Teazle, he used to go round from the dress-circle, and talk with her behind the screen, so that many a time a mischievous upset was planned. Another lady, acting Lady Teazle, slipped from behind the screen' to the green-room, and was not on the spot when Charles Surface turned the screen over. Once, when Mrs G. B. W. Lewis played Lady Teazle, she was found in a faint when the screen came down.