A JUGGLER’S LIFE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14976, 23 April 1909, Page 8

A JUGGLER’S LIFE.

AFTER THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS. A CHAT WITH CINQUEVALLI. It is perhaps one of the. eccentricities of genius, or a disposition to avoid “shop talk,” that leads the average “ queen of song ” or ‘'prince of jugglers” to dwell on some- , thing quite foreign to the profession when approached on that subject. An interviewer wno sought out Mr Paul \ Cinquevalli last evening was therefore not dismayed to find the great juggler enthusiastic over the possibilities of a potato farm which he said he was on, the point of acquiring in Buffalo. Coming nearer to Cinquevalli, as he is known to the world at present, it transpired that he has been thirtyseven years on the “battlefield,” as he styles it, presumably from the dose connection of his profession with shot and shell. Cinquevalli has altogether * ** e^ ar kable personality. , He bears the burden of something like fifty years,, and does so with as little apparent effort as he does his most astonishing feats. He is a Pole, and he comrc Kneed his profession while quite making his first big “hit” in •r'fii is in 1879. Ho is therefore beginning to realise that there comes a time when an artist, however much he may be attached to his profession, looks forward to a well-earned retirement. However, he has contracts to fulfil up till 1914, and under most of them is the option of a further engagement, so that, although Cinquevalli expreses th® opinion that this is his “ very last visit to New Zealand, he is very far from his cherished retirement from the boards. At present Cinquevalli is oppressed by the fact that wherever he goes he is compelled to do his iron hall and billiard cue “turns;” for by these it seems he has principally achieved fame. Possibly it is the fact that he is the only artist to attempt, them that creates the demand, but at any rate, they are still on his programme. Whenever lie has substituted cleverer items for them there ha.s appeared the objectionable “but” in his notices, and his friends have challenged liim with a falling away, bo ho keeps them in his repertoire, although he says ho does things ten times more difficult every jught. But the audiences do not know what are the difficult things. Only a juggler is privileged to know them. As Cinquevalli says, he has been training himself for a lifetime to see what the o ro .~a.iy onlooker can never see, and whop, li3 does a very clever piece of work the audience asks at large, “ What did he do then?” Something much slower and easier is at once seen by the audience, which applauds vigorously.

To keep at the head of the juggling profession Cinquovalli has to practise incessantly, giving two hours to his work every morning, and he is never more than twenty-four hours away hom his “ nroperty.” He is unable to take a week’s rest, even, for if he did lie would be considerably set back, and would require to work hard to regain what he had lost.