STAGE TALK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1241, 11 September 1875, Page 16

STAGE TALK.

August 20th. To dan or hiss, all have an eou*l claim— The cobbler aad bis Lordship « right the same. —Clturchin. Melbourne may be aaid to have become the resting-place of the modern professional grand tour. Thirty years ago an artiste made his or hsr reputation at home. If a tragedian or comedian passed the ordeal of Old Drury and the Haymarket, he bore the Hall mark, and desired no more. If a singer had graduated through Paris, Milan, Vienni, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London, there was no yearning for other approbation. Antipodean cities were then in their infancy, and had not attained the right to vote iv art ; but in this year of grace no laurel wreath is perfect without an Australasian leaf. Ia past years we have been visited by Alboni, Kate Hayes, Sivori, G. V. Brooke, Barry Sullivan, CharL-s Kean, Charles Mathewa, Palmieri, and latterly by Madame Goddard and Anna Bishop, and a multitude of other musioal and histrionic celebrities ; and tbe clear proof that they have been pleaaed with their reception, and think well of Colonial appreciation, ia the fact that we are now visited by two of the greatest living artistes on the stage — Kistori and De Murska.

Mddle. lima de Murska first appeared in London on the llth May, 1865, in " Lucia," and at once took her position aa an exceptionally gifted singer. A winning blonde— almost girlish in appearance — she is reposed and dignified as a gifted artist should be, and seems in the early summer of her song. I have been told that she had the genuine "soprano sfogato" with a compass oil about two and a half octaves, extending to F in alt. ; but I have little or no knowledge of the mechanical part of song, and can only liken her to a bird who sings for the pure pleasure of singing The hour's now come ; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear. Obey, and be attentive. Listen to that wild national song of Hungary ! It is a spell-bound audience, aa that old Jacobite song in onr English rings through the hall, and floats and hesitates and falls but to rise again ; so wondrously pure and clear. "Lo ! hear the lark at Heaven's gate sings." Surely, of singers she is the crown of crowns. Italian, German, English, French, and Hungarian are equally well rendered. It is impossible to describe the applause she receives. Nothing has been like it since the days of Jenny Lind. As the gifted lady ha<» expressed her desire and determination — she has a strong will of her own, by all accounts — to visit New Zealand, you will have an opportunity of expressing your admiration. Here, it has taken every possible form, from bouquets and encores to tears ; and I am glad to say that in a practical way there has been a shower of gold, in the shape of receipts, which haze averaged £250 a night.

Kistori has been for the last month in Sjiluey, and appears hern on the 28th inst., having taken the Opera House exclusively, ay.d under her own immediate control. All the subordinate parts in the pieces she selects are played by the troupe — numbering eighteen — that accompanies her, and in Sydney she has played " Marie Antoinette," "Medea," "Mary Stuart," and "Elizabeth," to crowded houses, taking from £150 to £400 a night. Th« charges are high, beinij from 15s to ss. This greatest of living tragediennes was born in iS2I. Sho was the daughter of a strolling play°r, and played herself child part 3 from four years of age. At 15 she attracted the attention of a celebrated Italian actress, and soon became the most popular of Italiin performers. Upon her marriage with the young Marquis de Grillo, she retired from the boards for some years. In 1849 she was playing at Rome with Salvini, who has created so marked a success in Lon-

don in Hamlet and Othello. There she divided her time between the theatre and her duties as an attendant upon the wounded iv the hospital. In 1855 she appeared in Paris before a somewhat prejudiced audience. Rachel had long been the French idol, and the play-goiug public were jealous of any encroachment on the art domain of their favourite. But Ristori's genius carried every- | thing before it. Her position was at once made, and it is said that mortification at Ristori's success hastened the end of the gifted Rachel. Ristori was celebrated for her great personal beauty — she is even beautiful now, in her 51th year — which enabled her to play Marie Stuart, for instance, with exceptional advantage ; on the other hand, Rachel's figure was thin ; but this was not always a defect in an artistic point of view, for so splendidly did she arrange the Roman draperies in some of her representations that one of her critioß declared no man ever beheld her on tbe stage but he went home convinced that his wife was too fat ! The iiat of the Parisian public was fully endorsed on Ristori's appearance in London in 1857. In 1861 she was left a widow. In 1862 King William of Prussia presented her with the Medal for Arts and Sciences. All Europe joined in hailing her as the queen of tragedy, and although her capability of representing some of the youthful character* in her role has naturally decreased with years, there are characters in which she can have no rival. Her devotion to her art has always been of the strongest. As an instance, when she was about to personate the unfortunate Marie Antoinette in the play of that name in Paris, she was accustomed to incarcerate heratilf in the Conoiergerie so as to realise with vividness the last days passed there by the unhappy Queen before she left it for the scaffold. Her great performances aart Mariee t Marie Antoinette, Deborah, Judith, _ Camilla, Phoedra, Fuzio, Francesca di Rimini, Lady Macbeth, Marie Stuart, and Medea. It is needless to say that her representations in Sydney have created a profound impression. It is Baid that the terrible earnestness of her aoting once seen can never be forgotten. Another tragedienne of high celebrity in Germany— Madame Jannschek — has arrived in Sydney, and is to follow Ristori here.

Perhaps the greatest dramatic success ever achieved on Colonial boards has fallen to Mr and Mrs Williamson, who just a year ago made their first appearance in a dramatic piece called " Struck Oil, or the Pennsyivanian Dutchman," which proved for them a grand coup de theatre. After holding overwhelming houses for months together without any cessation, and taking the largest returns on the records of the Theatre Royal, they made the tour of the country with tbe same brilliant success. They are young people and young actors — of no special professional reputation — from America, from whence they came ; but here they have sue ceeded in hitting the ball's eye of public favour, and are giving their farewell performances before retiring with somewhere about £8000. Highly as I think of their humour and dramatic ability, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that the texture of their pieces ib of the flimsiest kind, and such suecesß with such materials almost makes one despair of again seeing the legitimate drama permanently housed in Melbourne.

A successful engagement is about to be .terminated by Mr C. Wheatleigh, who brings over Dion Boueicault's " Shaughran," and a credential from Dion that it is in a good actor's hands. The play ran well. It is very Bensational and wholly improbable in its incidents, or it would not be Dion Boucicault's; but that sort of thing seems to catch our play-going people, and there is nothing left for the old theatrical identity of the days of Charles Kean and William Farren but to grumble at it. " The Two Orphans," a translation of a Porte St. Martin drama by MM. Dannery and Connat, has also had a large patronage, and Mr Wheatleigh winds up his engagemement with the grand romantic drama and prologue of "Monte Christo."

A new arrival from England, by the St. 03yth, a couple of months ago — Herr Tolmaque — engaged the Princess, and gave some entertaining performances for a few nights. He claims to be the inventor of the spirit manifestation, as performed by the Davenport Brothers and Foster, who humbugged Melbourne so thoroughly last year with his spirituce mediae* Herr Tolmaque exposes the deceit in the mostunmistakeable manner ; reads writing concealed from him, and produces blood marks on the arm in the blaze of gas light, even more cleverly than Poster did before his victims in a darkened room.

A Marionette troupe have also had a long and successful run at St. George's Hall. Charles Dickens, in his " Pictures of Italy," averred that a show of Italian Marionettes he had seen there was the funniest entertainment he had ever witnessed ; and it is thoroughly impossible to see this troupe as the Christy Minstrels and as clown and pantaloon with any gravity whatever. Grimaldi might have benefited by a lesson from the clown. The crowds of juveniles that throng the house keep it in one peal of young fresh laughter. To see Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf is physic for indigestion, and the Babes in the Wood is warranted to make the surliest genial for an hour afterwards.

The popularity earned by Mr C. Clark's lectures has induced a number of followers, who appear to draw satisfactory audiences. Mr piark's last entertainments have been readings from Charles Dickens, in which he labours under the great disadvantage of having been so ably preceded by the author himself; and a lecture on Oliver Goldsmith, which is not calculated to add to his fame. He is about making the through tour of Victorian towns, and I understand that bis series of lectures have been contracted for at £25 per night. Better this than ministering to a querulous grudging flock at £600 a year! Charles Bright, well known and respected as well for his literary ability as personal worth, has also launched on the lecturing sea. During the last few months he has been discoursing on freethought, &c, at the Athenaeum, and has lately delivered an amusing conversation^ lecture—or rather running commentary — on Victoria and its people, past and present. This was given at the Town Hall (£25 a night rent !) and passed off admirably. A lecturer who can sustain the pleased attention of an audience in a chatty, unstrained, manner for a couple

of hours— and this he did—successfully, may reckon his reputation ensured. From London stage gossip we learn that Blondin, faithful to his promise, returns to his Australian friends by this month's mail, and brings striking novelties for the Melbourne boards; that Julia Matthews had been engaged, owing to the sudden indisposition of the prinaa do ana Pauline Rita, for "Girofle Girofla" at Spiers and Pond's Theatre, the Criterion, and had made a brilliant hit; that Dolly Green— another Dunedin favourite — waa being well appreciated in the Provinces ; and who that has seen her in "Who Killed Cock Robin?" could doubt that she would be? that Johnny or J. L. Hall, was about to realise an actor's ambition, and tread the boards of old Drury; und that his pupil Morris — a Colonial-taught actor, if ever' there was one -had created a marked sensation amongst the London tieatre-going people by the mystery of his protean representations. The literature ot the stage has been valuably added to by the publication of Macieady's reminiscences, a most frank and ingenious autobiography ; for anything like its candour you must go back to the days of Tate Wilkinson. It is the young actor's text-book ; and the burthen of his advice through it is study ! study ! study ! No words more meet with which to end my letter, and so farewell.