THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1500, 14 August 1880, Page 20

THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

By Puck.

The Royal at Christchuroh was reopened by the Arethusa Company on Wednesday week with Buckßtone's " Leap Tear." There was not a full house, the reoeipts not being quite up to £40. Concerning the alterations and improvements effected by Mr J. S. Willis and his assistants, the Presß remarks :— " Not the least noticable change is in the dome, which, under Mr Willis' artistic pencil, haß assumed a very ornamental shape. It has been painted to represent the sky, with large masses of cumulus clouds. The border is of arabesque pattern, interwoven with cupids and flowers. The lower portion is a warm salmon tint, with arabesque medallions ; the centres represent the Arts and Muses. The proscenium, though not quite finished, bids fair to be very handsome. It has inner and outer ribs, with raised gold work supported by four handsome Corinthian oolumns, finished with golden capitals, which add considerably to the height. The tinted portion is a pale salmon colour, and green and white relieved with gold, and the whole effect is very chaste and elegant. The bulge front of the dress circle is ornamented with carton piesse of different patterns, intermixed with wreaths of flowers in crimson, white, green, and gold. Notwithstanding the powerful contrast of colour, the whole has been handled in such a tasteful and maeterly manner that the eye finds rei pose. Lingard's New Zealand diorama is in Christchurch. It does not come further South. The Government have lent the proprietors some fine photographs of New Zealand scenery. Mr Hoskins has been giving evenings with Shakespeare at Wanganui. , ' , Mdle Murielle has organised another company with which she intends to make the acquaintance of a Dunedin audience very shortly. The additions are Miss Jenny Nye and Mr Ernest Price. The latter has taken a leading part in Inveroargill musical circles for a number of years. It ia stated that a theatrical manager has bought Edward Kelly's grey mare. This animal has been publicly exhibited on the Melbourne stage. Professor Pepper is lecturing in the country districts of Victoria. He will shortly resume his course of educational science lectures at the State f ohools. On dit that Lydia Howarde has been engaged to proceed to India at a salary of £35 a week. A child of Mr Otto Berliner, the well known Melbourne ex detective, is showing great telent in music. Ketten tried the genius on Tuesday, the 13th, and predicted a brilliant career for young Berliner. John Bennett, of Sydney, has engaged Henry Zetten for two nights, (2Bth and 29th July) at the Masonic Hall at £75 per night, the highest amount ever paid to any musipian in Australia. The American Blonds have disbanded. Lof tvs returns to the land of the stars and stripes. Esmond tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide at Sydney on the 2nd ulfc. The assurance reaches me through half-a-dozen channels that Adelaide Neilaon will positively come over by the next 'Frisco boat. Dampier had a bumper benefit at Brisbane on July 25th, and George Darrell one at the Queen's. Sydney, on the 24bh. The Viotoria Theatre at Sydney was burned down shortly after 11 o'clock on the night of July 22nd, and immediately after the conolusion of the performance of " The Emigrant" and " Josh the Yankee." The house being uninsured, the loss falls oh Mr John Bennett, the lessee, District Judge Josephson, and Messrs Moses, of London, the joint owners. The whole of the scenery, properties, library, wardrobe, and theatrical effeots in the building were destroyed. The Victoria was the oldest temple of Thespis in Australia, if not in the whole of the colonies, the only one that at all approaches it in age being the Theatre Royal, Hobart Town. It was not, however, the first theatre in Sydney, for so long ago as 1796 a temple of Thespis was erected in our city, and opened on 16th January of that year, under the management of Mr Sparrow. The plays produced on the ocoasion were " Tiae Revenge," a tragedy, by Dr Young, and as an afterpiece "The Holel." Coming back to the Victoria, it is interesting to know that the first stone of the building was laid on the 7th September, 1836. Eighteen months afterwards the theatre was opened as the Royal Victoria Theatre, the date being Monday, 26th March, 1838. The first play performed was (to quote the words of the preliminary advertisement) " Shakepeare's Tragedy, in Five Acts, entitled 'Othello.'" The proprietor of the theatre was Mr J. Wyatt, and it was immediately leased to Messrs T. Simes and J. Lazar (father of the present lessee of the Theatre Royal, Castlereagh street). The former gentleman soon dropped out of the management, leaving Mr Lazar as sole manager. This position he occupied atthe end of 1838. The theatre was subsequently placed under the management of Meserß Joseph Simmons and Gordon Griflitbs, who inaugurated the star system. Under their management, Frank Nesbitt and Mr and Mrs Stark appeared. A Mr Wyatt was the next leeßee,i;and afterwards the lease was acquired by Mr (now district judge) Josephson, and Messrs Abraham Moses and Son and Moses Joseph who bought the property for the sum of £25,000, and entrusted the direction of the theatre to Mr Andrew Torning. He initiated a successful season by introducing to the public the celebrated cantatrice [Catherine Hayes, who was assisted by MM. Ooulon and Lavenu. The concerts contributed by these famous artists had never before seen rivalry j and the estimation in whioh they were held may be judged when it is remembered that on the occasion of her benefit Miss Hayes gave £1100 to the Rand wick Asylum, and so founded the wing to this day bearing her name. Mies Hayes and her Company were engaged to perform only on certain evenings in the week, and theoff nights were filled in by dramatic productions, in which Miss Laura Keene and Mr Edwin Booth, who have both attained celebrity among our American cousins, appeared. Subsequent "star" performers at this houso were Jaoobs, the magioian, G. V. Brooke, Anna Bishop, Lola Montez, Sarah Flower, Professor Anderson, the sisters Gougenbeim, M■- dame Celeste, the Mai sh family, the Squires Escott combination, Barry Sullivan, John Drew, W. O'Neill, John Collins, Julia Mathews, George Fawcetfc, Annie Pealey, and a host of lesser ooes. Sam Howard was a joint lessee in 1857. In 1872, a few months before the old Prince of Wales Theatre was burned, Mr John Bennett assumed the lesseeship of the Victoria, nud until afew weeks baok ho retained it with a success which has proved as benefioial to {himself as it has proved pleasant to his patrons. Recently Messrs Greville, Hennings, and Coppin, of Melbouro, took the theatre, and during their brief term tho catastrophe— threatened, it ia said, on two oocasions previously — occurred. Mr Herbort Reeves, son of Mr Sims Reeve?, made his first appeavanoo iv public at Mr Ganz'a fourth oroheßtral concert; at St. Jameß' Hall,

A very large audience attended, anxious to learn whether the qualifications of the greatest English tenor of our age had been transmitted to his son. Strikingly like his father in figure and features, he also presented|points of resemblance in many parts of his voice, but in his first solo, from Donizetti's " Maria di Rohan," it goon became evident that his voice was deficient in power, This faot became still more obvious in " Refrain thy voice from weeping," from Mr Arthur Sullivan's oratorio " The Light of the World" (conduoted by the composer), and although his final solo, Schubert's "Aye Maria," wai Bung with so much taste and expression that an encore wsb demanded, it became certain tbat Mr Herbert Reeves can never be a tenore diforza, although he.may be accepted as a highly cultivated tenorino. Descended of a world renowned father, and [a mother who, as Miss Emma Lucombe, was an ornament to the English operatic Btage, he was greeted with hearty and liberal applause, and, so far as art is ooncerned, showed himself worthy of tSe name he bears. Ada Ward waß performing at Portsmouth when the mail left. ' Mrs Scott Siddons and her daughter have returned to England. The " Upper Crust" goes on a tour into the Provinces. The 200 th representation of "The Merchant I of Venice" at the Lyceum was attained on May 31st and oontinue* to draw full houses. The Harts are giving their pleaßant Two Hours' in Auckland. The gift business seems to be becoming an adjunct of all variety of shows. At the Albert Hall, Auckland, Mr T. Williams' troupe wound up their entertainment with a distribution of edibles. - Miss Clara Stephenson, at the head of a comedy and burlesque company, is playing in Oamaru, and will visit Dunedin shortly. The Italian Opera season in Melbourne had a brilliant finale. The management put forward " Don Giovanni " with a fine oast, as follows : The Don, Mr Verdi j Ottario, Mr Beaumont; Leperello, Mr Farley ; Masetto, Mr Hurrell Donna Anna, Signora Bolina ; Donna Elvira, Signora Cox ; Zerlina, Madame Hersee ; and the opera was played for- four nights.. Mr Verdi surprised himself aud hid friends by the success with which he interpreted the Don's music, whilst Madame Hersee made a charming Zerlina. Mr Riocardi has joined the company, and played the small part of the Commendatore with great oredit to himself. After a week's spell the Opera House was reopened on the 7th inst. with ' Pinafore. The cast ' including Madame Hersee,, as Josephine, Mr Beaumont as Ralph Raokstraw, Mr Verdi as Captain Corcoran, Mr Riooardi in his old part of the Admiral, and Mr Farley as Dipk ' Deadeye, They ought to be well worth hearing. " New Babylon," after an unusually suooeßßful run, was withdrawn on July 31st. During the last four nights of Bland Holt's company's appearance at the Peoples' theatre they played "The Outcast;." . ' , Madame Simonsen gave her' second concert in Melbourne on August Ist, when she was assisted by her two daughters, 'her husband, Madame Tasca, Signor Branohi, and Mr T. Bergin. ' At the Royal, Melbourne, B. N. Jones is playing in " Sentenoed to Death," by Conquest and Pettit, authors of " Queen's Evidenoe." Mr Wybert Reeve reappeared at the Bijou on Augnet 7th in a new play by Bronson Howard, entitled " Hurrioanes." Mrs Marcus Clark's engagement was not a Buooess. and her many friends regret that oircumstances compelled her abandonment of the privaoy she had maintained for so many years. Ohiarini's Circus is performing at Brisbane. A Sydney telegram of August 2nd, says: — "Mr Corbyn, the dramatic agent recently arrived from India, has committed suicide at the Oxford Hotel. He had been out all Thursday night, and went to his room on Friday morning, asking not to be disturbed. The door being locked on Saturday morning, and no answer returned to a knooking thereat, it was burat open, and Corbjn found quite dead, from loss of blood from a great gash in his left arm, made with a razor. The body was oold, and Corbyn had evidently been dead nnny hours," Fairclough opened in "Ochello" at the Theatre Royal, Adelaide, on July 31st, to a good house. Mrs Lewis's Children's "Pinafore" Company go on a tour tbi3 month. Advices from India state that Wilson, of oircus fame, has fallen on troublesome times. The weather has been very muoh too much for him. Mr and Mrs R. J. Roberts are giving their " Merry Moments " entertainment at Sfc George's, Melbourne. The Maiion Willis Company is still in possession of the Royal, Ballarat. Among the articles recently acquired for the national muses m of music at Paris are an old Flemish instrument, the " Baohe," with eight strings, and the baton with which Verdi conduoted the first performance of " Aida." Madame Cavalazzi, one of the best danseuses of the day, has returned to the atage of Her Majesty's. The monument to Robert Schumann has just been inaugurated at Bonn in the presenoe of Madame Clara Schumann. Brahms directed the music from a conductor's desk improvised on the monument, and the number "Sohlaf nun und rube " from " Paradise and the Peri," reorchestrated by Brahms, was the leading feature of the programme. Goldmark is writing a new opera on "The Stranger." At the end of < May Mr Walter Bentley wml giving Shakesperian representations in RothsajF He appeared successively in " The Merohant of Venice," "Othello," "Lady of Lyons," and " Maobeth." The Queen has granted a charter for the establishment of a Royal Academy of Musio in Scotland. £30,000 has been subscribed in Glasgow, and about £10,000 in Edinburgh, towards the endowment of the Academy. In an elaborate criticism of a performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, the Glasgow Herald recently gave several illustrations from the score in musio type. Offenbaoh's " Madame Favart " reaohed its 400 th night on Whit Monday. M. Leon Oaron, the well known violonisf; of Melbourne, is the composer of the price oantata for the Victorian Exhibition. Madame Carlotta Patti has addressed to several French newspapers a lettev, of which the following is a translation :— " I learn from private letters that tho French papers have published certain facts whioh it is alleged took place during my artistic tour in the United States, under the unhappy (malheureuse) direotion of Mr Chizhola, and that these facts relate to my person and to that of my husband, M. de Munok. The great distance at whioh I now am from France does not permit me to give ilia he to these infamies in the strongest and most formal manner. I shall be obliged if you will publish these lines, aud accept my salutations —(Signed) Cablotta Patti." Emily Melville is at the head of ar» operabouffe campany, which ia playing " The Pirates of: Penzance" in San Franuisoo to good houses. Some illnaturod critics declare that one of the choruses is an exact transoription of the famous ohoruß of " Martha,"