GOSSIP PROM LONDON STAGELAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVI, Issue 2277, 6 August 1894, Page 4

GOSSIP PROM LONDON STAGELAND.

From Our Own Correspondent, London, June 16,

The patrons of the Adelphi have never had a hero whom they took to quite so kindly as “Handsome Bill Terriss. His melodramatic stylo is broader and breezier than either Leonard Boyne’s or George Alexander’s, and less gusty and emotional than “ Chawley Warner’s.” One is consequently hardly surprised to learn that the Gattis have lured Mr Ternss back ao-ain for a season, hia paltry remuneration heinf .£IOO a week. Terriss was one of the Bancrofts’ discoveries, and made his first appearance on any stage as Lord Cloudwrays in “ Society.” For 20 years he has been unapproachable as Borneo, playing the part with the late Adelaide Neilson, with Miss Wallis in her prime, with Mary Anderson (best of all living Juliets) and with Ellen Terry. Off the stage the lines are beginning to show in the fine face of Mr Terriss (who has a grown-up family, and has for some time been a grandfather), but made-up as the dashing love-lorn Borneo he still looks not an hour more than 20. Mr Terriss lives very quietly down at Bedford Park, taking lots of exercise on bicycle and horseback, and abjuring society outside the club-house (rudely styled the pub-house) of that eclectic suburban clique. _ . MessagePs new opera comique, rehearsal at the Savoy, is called “ Mirette.” M. Carre (of “ L’Enfant Prodigue ” fame) has - written the libretto, and Fred Weatherly and Harry Greenbank are doing it into English. It is due on the - 31st. ’ In the course of a Court case in connection with the bankruptcy of the Widow O’Brien, alios the Second Mrs Block, if transpired that John F. Sheridan and his wife were drawing .£75 a week between them from the Lyric management. When Messager’s “Mirette” goes on at the Savoy, several old' members of the company, including Rutland Barrington and W. H. Denny, are, *tis said, “ signed and sealed” to W. S. Gilbert, and will appear in his new opera “ The Puritan.” This was the work Sir A- Sullivan had commenced to set when renewed ructions between the Savoyard trio broke out and the composer sent it back.

The success of “Falstaff" has been so great at Covent Garden that Sir Augustus Harris means to give a series of special repetitions at Drury Lane in the course of the next month. To-morrow Madame Melba makes her rentrie at the Opera, and the following Saturday will create the title r6le of Cowen’s 4t Signa ” in London. The return of Mrs Bancroft to the Garrick Theatre has brought Mr Hare a renewal of prosperity, and though both she and Arthur Cecil oyer-act outrageously, the scene between Graves and Lady Franklin excites shouts of laughter nightly. The best piece of acting in this revival of u Money is the Evelyn of Forbes Eobertson, who really manages to make Lord Lytton's prig an acceptable and almost sympathetic, personage. « Shall He Forgive Her is the title ox

Mr Prank Harvey’s melodrama, to bo put on as a stop-gap at tho Adclphi next week Tho first act passes in Queensland; the rest of the play in London. Mr Prod Terry and his wife (Julia Noilson), Mr Herbert Fleming, Mr Chas. Dalton, and Miss Mabel Hardlnge play leading parts. When this ceases to attract a new melodrama by B. C. Stephenson and Haddon Chambers will bo ready. Mr Chambers lias had very bad luck of late. Mr Tree, after deciding to produce the piece of his he has had in hand many months, quarrelled with his part, and even when the author re-wrote it wasn’t satisfied. Ultimately ructions broke out and the piece was shelved. „ TT , . „ After a run of 250 performances Utopia was on Saturday last 1 withdrawn from the Savoy, and a fortnight hence a new regime of Gallic comic opera will be inaugurated there. As "Utopia” was one of the wittiest of the Gilbert and Sullivan senes, and yet failed to attract more than six months, Mr Carte thinks (I believe rightly) the taste for Gilbertian jokes and Sulhvanosque music has temporarily been satiated, and that he ought to provide fresh fare altogether. “ Mirotto ”is an opera of the school of “La Basocho,” the inexplicable failure of which at the Royal English Opera yon may remember hearing of. At the" State Ball on Thursday evening last the waltzes played were nearly all Strauss’, those best liked being tho “ Hoohzeitsreigen,” “ Gehergs Kinder,” “ Front Euch des Lebens,” “ Kunstlerleben,” and " Fiddles Wein.” Tho quadrilles were from “Boccaccio,” “The Beggar Student,” and Viennese popular airs, and the two polkas, Strauss’ “Violetta” and Treher’s “ Schneidig.” Mr J. Forbes Bobertson and Miss Kate Eorke and her husband, Mr Gardiner, are about presently to take “ The Profligate ’ on tour, and should sufficient inducement offer may visit your part of tho world. Mr Anthony Hope is dramatising his excellent sensational story “ Tho Prisoner of Tenda.” It would make a better comic opera than melodrama.