MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

MUSICAL AND DRAMATIC.

' Twic iiUocYand Choral Society announce their second concert of the season for next ( Tuesday evening, April 24. Mendelssohn's "■Elijah" is the piece to be performed, with the following soloists Mrs. Carter, Misses Bleazard, Reeve, and Thorpe, Mr. A. H. Gee, Mr. A. L. Edwards, and Master Rent. Favourable accounts are given from Rome of M. Cottrau's new opera, " La Lega Lombarda." The scene opens in the beautiful bub quarrelsome city of Verona, so familiarised to us by the prologue to " Romeo and Julietbub the occurrences immortalised by Shakespere did not exhaust the capacity of the rival factions for tragic encounters, and it is oneot these that forms the subject of " La Lega Lombarda." So far as can be judged from the piano score M. Cottrau has been fully successful in his undertaking to set this story. Keep-' ing supreme bis feeling for purely musical beauty, he has yet displayed his fertility of invention and sense of dramatic occasion. In another respect he is a disciple of the reaction. A certain Herr August Lud wig, of Vienna, has undertaken to complete Schubert's unfinished symphony in B minor. Ib seems that there is quite a craze in Paris at the present moment for old French songs, their quiet melodies and often ingenuous words tending to cause a furore.. Madame Ansel, an ress from theCom&die Francaiso, has suddenly taken Paris by storm by reason of her admirable rendering of these ditties. She has fortune on her side, too, in that her husband has searched the old French musical and other libraries ; that which he finds lie carefully guards, so that no one but, his wife may sing the discovered ditties. Nearly one million persons visited "Constantinople," the spectacular panorama in London, during the first three weeks of its existence. George Grossmith says that in all the ten years at the Savoy he only received one billet-doux, and the postscript was, " Next Sunday is my Sunday out." A religious paper says that the author of the popular hymn, " A Light in the Window for Thee," has died in a Kansas gaol, a depraved and wretched tramp. Mr. Toole having offered a prize to members of his company for the best title of Mr. Lumley's new farce, the author " wrote sarcastic-like" asking if he might be allowed to compete. Mr. John Gourley is appearing in the revival of "Paul Jones" at the Princess' Theatre, Melbourne. Miss Nellie Stewart was unable to appear on the opening night, and her part was taken by Miss Young. Messrs. Ryley, Lauri, and Courtneidge are also iu the cast. Coquelin is one of the richest actors in France. He is said to have a fortune of 4,000,000 francs. Besides his stocks and bonds, Coquelin has 1,000,000 francs invested in famous pictures in his magnificent home facing the Arc de Triumph, in Paris. The forthcoming London performance of "As You Like It," the characters being entirely played by ladies, is likely (says the Bulletin's correspondent) to be a financial if not an artistic success, as the stalls are selling readily at a guinea each. Of course, curiosity will be the main factor in filling the house. Fancy the feelings of the manager who has to deal with ten or twelve ladies, each of whom thinks she should have been cast for Rosalind or Orlando ! The longest run ever recorded in Melbourne was the one hundred nights of " Tambour Major " Uncle Tom's Cabin" comes second with eighty nights. There is one Downes singing in London just now, who announces himself as " the coloured Australian tenor." Charles Harding tackled him the other night after having dined well, with " Who are you to call yourself an Australian tenor? You are neither an Australian nor a tenor." " Keep your hair on, old man," replied the coloured party. "I have as good a right as some people to call myself an Australian. Why, I was out there nearly three weeks." Mr. A. Carli (says the Nice and Swiss Times), the well-known guitarist, baritone, and composer for the guitar, after making a tour in France, Great Britain, and Ireland with an especial entertainment called " An Hour with the Guitar," being an account of the guitar and kindred instruments, illustrated with songs in Spanish, Italian, French, German, English, Scotch, and Irish, proposes making a tour in New Zealand. The particulars of Madame Patey's death show that it was almost tragic in its surroundings. She was singing one of Handel's arias, and after endeavouring to silence the demands of the audience for a repetition, sang " The Banks of Allan Water." When she reached the last line, "There a corpse lay she," Madame Patey was observed to be in pain, and she swooned. She died in a tew hours of paralysis of the brain.' Sarah Bernhardt's new play "Izeyl" is based upou the attempt of a frail woman to lure Buddha back to the world. She fails and becomes converted. Gautama's brother Scyndia falls in love with her and attempts violence. She sticks a dagger in his throat, covers the body with roses, and when the Princess comes she avows the act. She is sentenced to torture, her eyes are torn out, her bones broken with the bastinado, and finally she is left in the " cold foYest," the place of public execution, to be devoured by vultures. She dies, and when she is buried she reappears in a huge lotus dower. All this Sarah Bernhardt acts, but how deponeth sayeth not, except that she is reported to reach a height of dramatic power she has never reached before. The Chicago Times says This will be Marie Tempest's farewell in The Fencing Master," for she is booked to head a company now being engaged for a tour of the world. It will be called the Marie Tempest Company, and will play light opera, French vaudeville, and musical comedies. Fred C. Whitney, her present manager, owns the new organisation, and J. Charles Davis, whose World-wide experience will stand him in good stead, will direct the tour. They will begin in New York next August, and, after playing Chicago and some other large cities in this country, they will sail from San Francisco for Australia, but will break the jump at Honolulu, New Zealand, and Tasmania. They will play all the big cities in Australia, Java, the coast towns of China and India, thence going to the Cape Colony in Africa, and later make the grand tour of Europe. The tour is scheduled to last one and one-half years. The trip is well planned, and the theatres in Australia, China, and India are already booked, and as the management of the tour is in the hands of men thoroughly acquainted with the country it certainly stands a very good show of success. The Australian cities are large and prosperous, and the European and American residents of the large cities in India, China, and Japan numerous. South Africa is English from Cape Town to the southern tropic in both government and language, so ib will been seen thab until the organisation reaches Continental Europe it will not be confronted by any bub English-speaking •alienees. In one of chose artless conversations with newspaper interviewers, says the Canterbury Times, which eminent -prime donne who visit the United States occasionally allow themselves, Mdme. Melba has explained that it is not so difficult to sing and act as most people think. "People sometimes ask me," she says, " how I can put the fire and feeling into my acting, and all the time remember to sing with the orchestra. Hut you see the conductor follows you, and the orchestra follows the conductor. They play with you ; you do not sing with them"— doctrine which will interest opera lovers of the new school. On more personal matters Mdme. Melba was delightfully frank. Her favourite recreation, for example, is dancing, for she goes to balls and enjoys every minute of them. Then there are walking and riding, and Mdme. Melba, indeed, stated that her chief reason for staying in London at the Savoy was to be near the park, so that she might have a walk evJry morning before breakfast. Upon further cross-examination the prima donna admitted that breakfasttime with her was the lunch time of ordinay folks. As to her hobbies, they were autographs (she begged one of every interesting person she has met) and chains. She is known by her chains, for she always wears them, and they are of divers patterns, from the English chain of gold, with pearls set in the links, and a ball of gold (one side sparkling with diamonds and the other snowing the dial of a watch), to the Roman chain of silver set with turquoise. ; .M usioo-Dkamaticus.