MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9040, 19 November 1892, Page 4 (Supplement)

MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

McLean's Young Australians commenced a treason at the Opera House on Thursday evening. Max O'Rell is expected on a lecturing tour through New Zealand in January next. Wirth's Circus is at present in Christchurch. They will appear in the various towns through the Canterbury province during this month, and open at Dunedin the first week in December. The Royal Opera Company had a splendid reception at Wellington, the house being crowded each night during the stay of the company. They opened at the Christchurch Theatre Royal on Tuesday, where they will play for a week, and then proceed on to Dunedin. The present season is declared to be the best ever experienced in New Zealand. The -Kennedy Company is to tour the West Coast during the next fow weeks. Mr. Walter Bentley has concluded a very successful season at Christchurch, and opens at Wellington this week in "The Silver King." Mr. Bentley has done well down South. A Dunedin correspondent writes:—The prevalent dull times failed to prejudicially affect Mr. Walter Bentley's eeason, which terminated on Saturday night, when " Rob Roy" was produced under the patronago ot the Caledonian Society, and in the presence of an audience which fairly tested the capacity of the Princess Theatre, as the houses on the two previous nights had also done. The season had been one of uninterrupted and rarely precedented success, the public recognising Mr. Bentley's high talent by attending in very large numbers on each of the sixteen nights on which he occupied the theatre. In the various characters which he has portrayed Mr. Bentley has once more vindicated his right to the title of one of the leading actors of the times. Bookings for the Dunedin Princess Theatre are Williamson's Comic Opera ComS:\ny, December 14 to January 12; Max 'Roll, under Mr. Smythe's auspices, January 13 to 17 ; Holloway Dramatic Company (return season), February 18 to March 4. Mr. Bentley proposes to play a return season in Dunedin from February 11 to February 17. Martin Simonsen is cabling to New Zealand with respect to dates for Emerson and Wood's Alabama minstrels, now performing in Melbourne. Mr. Horace Chester and Miss AdaFitzroy have joined forces in Christchurch, and are appearing in the Art Gallery in Armaghstreet. The Montague-Turner Opera Company are meeting with success on the West Coast. They are at present at Reefton. Messrs. Knight Aston (who came to New Zealand with the late A. T. Dunning's London Opera Company), John Gourley, and Edward Farley ' have joined the Emily Soldene Opera Bouffe Company in Sydney. Miss Emilia Wood, who was a member of Signor Foli's concert company in New Zealand, was accorded a complimentary benefit in Sydney recently, which was attended by over 3000 persons. The Gaiety Company has been followed at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney, by Mr. George Rignold and a dramatic company in " The Silver King." The Gaiety Company has returned to Melbourne. On the 16th of next month Messrs. Brough and Boucicault retire from the Melbourne Bijou Theatre, the lease of which will then expire. It is to be hoped that they will not abandon Melbourne, where they have made themselves so deservedly popular during their six years' management. Many old admirers of lime. Etelka Gerster will hear with various feelings that the prima donna thinks of braving her fate once more on the Berlin boards. She will make her re-entree shortly at Krolls, probably in " Linda di Chamounix." Sir Arthur Sullivan, it is said, has been invited to accept the British Commission for Music at the Chicago Exhibition. Whether he will be able to accept the offer depends entirely upon the state of his health. Sir Arthur discharged a similar function at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, when he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. If Mr. Irving's list of dramas to be produced in the near future is small, the literary quality, of their authors is high. Mr. J. M. Bar Tie is writing a comedy, in which Mr. Irving is to have one of those " character parts" which made his first fame misogynist professor, past his first youth, a student and an " eccentric" all of which sounds extremely promising. Mr. J. W. Millis, the ventriloquist, who will be remembered in Auckland, is appearing at the London Pavilion. The youngest member of this gentleman's troupe of figures is a baby. The little darling wakes up and causes much amusement by its cries. To tho evident amusement of the ladies Millis supplies his bantling with sustenance from a bottle. By the laughter which follows this little exhibition the imitation of the baby's sobs would seem to be very exact. The largest theatre in London is the Britannia, Hoxton, which holds 3500 persons. Terry's, the smallest, holds about 600. Of the music-halls, the Alhambra and the Pavilion rank first, with a capacity respectively of 2700 and 2650 persons. Considerable excitement has been caused in Liverpool by tho production of a play called "A Fool's Paradise," owing to the fact that the plot has a striking resemblance to incidents in the case of Mrs. Maybrick. The capital invested in music-halls in London and the provinces is enormous, amounting in London to £650,650, and in the provinces to £776,200. The music-halls are much more numerous than the theatres, and the accommodation in them is much larger. In the music-halls in London and the suburbs, for instance, the seating capacity amounts to 158,013. The total for the theatres is only 65,859— 1e5s than half. "Ailsa Craig," a well-known amateur actress, but who is better known as the daughter of Ellen Terry, will soon bloom out as a professional. She will shortly appear in a new play that is to be produced at the St. James Theatre, London. In the third act of the " Prodigal Daughter," a new play in England, there i 3 given a most realistic presentment of a racecourse. The course is, as far as possible, an exact reproduction of the one at Liverpool over which the Grand National Steeplechase i 3 run. Twelve horses appear in the race in this act, and one of them, of course the winner, is Voluptuary, who did actually win the GrandNNational in 1884.

Doubts are expressed in musical circles whether the new opera which Verdi has undertaken to write will have "King Lear" for its subject, Verdi having early in his career abandoned the notion of having " Kin? Lear" as an opera libretto, owing to a deficiency of love interest in the plot. The Pall Mall Gazette publishes a series of papers from novelists written in answer to a question why they do not write for the Btage. These papers show that most of the novelists have desired to do so. bub either j felt that they were nob qualified, or had tried and failed. Others write that they could not submit to stage exigencies. Interviewed in Boston recently, Mrs. James Brown Potter modestly said :—" A good deal depends on the personality of an actress after she has mastered the technique of her profession—and I havo done that. Dumas says I play ' Camille' the besb of any actress he has ever seen. He ought to know. He wrote the play."

The love of Germans for vocal music, and their skill and tact in its performance, are due in nc small degree to Frederick the Great. Noticing that his people were not giving that attention to musical studies that he thought this branch of culture deserved, he commanded that music should be taught in all the State schools, and that singing masters should be employed to give lessons two or three times a week to all the scholars. Attendance on the musical instruction was made obligatory, and the consequence was that in a few years a great number of smal singing societies were established all over Prussia, and a taste for music was fostered and developed which has since affected the culture of the entire nation. Rubinstein, when in the Caucasus, was in the habit of playing the piano for hours in the day, or rather night. Five or six hundred people used to assemble between • eleven at night and two in the morning, "listening with rapt attention and in religious silence to the flood of harmony created by the master." The new Countess of Orkney (nee Constance Gilchrist) will precede the Countess ot Warwick by 17 places, Countess Soencer by 35, and Countess Clancarty (poor" Belle Bilton !) by 85. Connie was always to the fore! ; ' " Mr. T. V. Twinning, the Australian theatrical agent who went home with Mrs. Potter, and Mr. Bellew, is now at Calcutta as manager for Mrs. Shaw, the famous whistler. - Musioo-Duamaiicus.