NOTES BY PASQUIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1893, 2 March 1888, Page 28

NOTES BY PASQUIN.

There is to be a twanging and a banging of the lute and cymbal, and a flourishing of the pipe and tabor in honour of Miss Amy Sherwin, who arrives in Dunedin oa Saturday with her "English Opera Quartet Company," for so she names it. The performers, as I mentioned last week, but may mention again, are Messrs Stockwell (tenor), Arthur Sherwin (bass), John Lemmone (flautist), and Miss Mina Fischer (soprano). Everybody who is anybody is going totaka a hand in the reception of the Tasmanian Nightingale, which will consequently be peculiarly gorgeous in character. The Dunedin JLiedertafel are going to meet Miss Sherwin at the station, afterwards following her to the hotel and singing beneath her bedroom window until they are thirsty or until the lady's husband, Herr Gorlitz, intervenes with a shotgun. The jprixw donna is to be escorted to her hotel moreover by a gay throng, which will probably include the mayor, and is to be presented with congratulatory addresses and made much of generally. What more can we do than this ? Stay ! One thing more. We can go to her concerts, and we will.

By way of repaying all the kindness she is to meet with in Dunedin, Miss Amy Sherwin has calmly arranged to rob us of our leading musician — Herr Benno Scherek — who came here in the dim ages past with Camilla Urso, married here, settled down here, and has lived here happily ever afterwards. This, indeed, is a pretty how-da-ye-do.

The details of the outrage will be as follows :— Mis 3 Sherwin will duly complete her concert tour in New Zealand, and will then return to Melbourne to commence a season of English opera at the Opera House on May 12. The pieces are to be " Mignon," " Faust," " Zauberflote," " Martha," and Goring Thomas' " Esmeralda," besides the familiar operas of Balfe and Wallace. Some English artists new to the colonies have been engaged for the venture. Miss Sherwin herself is to be^nwia donna, and our own Herr Scherek conductor. This gentleman's engagement begins on April 1, as there is presumably a let of drilling to be done before the opening. Of course there will be the usual benefit to Herr Scherek before he goes, and many tears.

The " Cloches de Corneville " Company, all honour to them, have agreed to give a special performance on Friday evening for the benefit ef Mrs Jeffreys, widow of the platelayer who was killed on the railway line last week. A substantial amount will be realised, because the public are responding readily to the appeal, and a number of seats are already taken.

The run of " Les Cloches " finished last week, the opera having been played for 12 consecutive nights. All the heavy expenses were cleared, and there remains a small margin of profit for the promoters. The company go to Timaru soon, and perhaps will make a little more money. No one grudges them their success, but queries are being suggested as to the exact status of these performers. They play not like other amateurs for some public object, but in support oE a private enterprise. If they make any money it will go presumably iv their own pockets, or into the pockets of some few who may be engineering the affair. It certainly seems on the cards that these talented ladies and gentlemen will one of those days forfeit their claim to the proud title of amateurs.

Mr Frank Cates, who at divers times has been bitten by the desire to give dramatic recitals, will succumb once more to the temptation in Dunedin next week. Not having heard any of Mr Cates' recitals, but having heard of them, I will postpone my remarks till next week, merely stating that the performer aspires to blend the grave and the gay in his programmes, bub affects the heavy business particularly, going in for morsels as solid as " Eugene Aram " and " The Bells." Mr H. Norman, who is in Dunedin for a time, will also bear a hand with the entertainment.

"The Mikado" and "In the Ranks" are having prodigiously long runs in Syduey. The Bulletin thinks that Mr Rignold means to run the latter piece "till death shies its flat iron ab mortality, and his audience go to be stirred up with a long pole in the region where things never come to an end."

Au Auckland music seller announces — " Messiahs, eightpence each." This seems reasonably cheap. Particulars concerning the fate of Mr J. W. Dodge, the well-known theatrical agent, state that his wife (Miss Flora Anstead) was with him in Melbourne at the time of his death. He was suffering from consumption, from which there was no hope of recovery, and despondency on this account, combined with other troubles, seems to have driven him to the fatal deed. He was lodging at Stutt's Hotel, Bourke street, occupying a room by himself, and on Sunday night he procured a revolver and shot himself in the side. He lingered in semi-consciousness till the following night, when he died. Madame Marie Roze has engaged to appear in Melbourne in March of next year.

The father of Signor Majeroui, an accomplished actor in his day, died last month. The death is announced of a musician once well known in Australia, Miska Hauser, a violinist of much talent, who became extremely popular. Miss Jenny Nye, once so well known in New Zealand, is now the landlady of the Park Hotel, Eaglehawk, near Sandhurst. Miss Minnie Palmer is to be back again in Melbourne about the opening of the Exhibition, and this [time will certainly come over to New Zealand. By last advices the clevor little lady was in Boston, playing to crowded houses in a new piece by Leonard Grover, called "My Brother's Sister."

It is rumoured that Mr Irving on his return to England is going to try a dramatised version of " Don Quixote" at the Lyceum.

Irving Bishop, the "mind reader," who got such dreadfully rough handling from Mr Labouchere in London Borne years ago, is announced to visit the colonies shortly under the management of Mr W. B. Leavitt, appearing in Melbourne during exhibition time. Bishop, who is nothing if not modest, describes himself as " the enigma of the 19th century," and " the wonder of the world." Narratives of his phenomenal powers are already being put about iv ordo.r to work up the public interest. Here is one: — "At a receut seance in America Mr Bishop gave a Dr Mackenzie a dagger and told him to strike one man with the hilt of it, and then hide it anywhere in the room. The doctor struck Joe Meyer with the hilt of his knife, while Bishop was blindfolded in a room at the other end of the hall, concealing the knife in the breast pocket of another gentleman at the opposite side of the room. Bishop was then called in and walked around the room several times, when he suddenly halted, placed his hand on the gentleman's shoulder, and drew the knife from under his clothes. He then went en around the room and said : • The man who was

struck with the dagger is & short, stout man, with a bald head and a blue coat. Ab> here I have him," said he, as he halted suddenly and placed his hand on Joe Meyer." An International Music Exhibition is to be opened in May in Bologna in connection with the jubilee celebrations of the university of that city, and will comprise musical instruments, both modern and antique, scarce and otherwise interesting editions of musical works, historical and bibliographical works and scientific instruments and apparatus bearing upon the art. Performances are to be given illustrating the progress of music from Palestrinatoour own times, and the inclusion in the committee of management of vferdi and Boito, the two most distinguished living Italian composers, is sufficient guarantee as to the manner in which the project is likely to be carried out. Miss Genevieve Ward is back in London, and has just assisted at a brilliant matinee at the Haymarket Theatre. The play was by Mr Hamilton Aide, and was called "Incognito," because the principal character is a murderer and blackleg, who finds it necessary to pass under an assumed name. Mr Beerbohm Tree played the villain with a force and finish which no other living actor could hope to rival. Miss Ward was his silver-haired wife, abandoned 20 years before, and long supposed, even by herself, to be a widow. The adventurer becomes a visitor iv a household which includes his wife> his sod, the son of the man he had murdered (now adopted by his wife), and a young widow of beauty and fortune— played by Mrs Treeto whom the villain pays his addresses. His wife recognises him, and threatens to denounce him if he does not abandon his bigamous suit. He parries her attack by appealing to her to spare their son's good name, and by threatening to seize her fortune. (This is Hamilton Aide all over.) , She hesitates, and the villain seems about to triumph, but is run to ground by the son of his victim, and, being in a position from which there is no possibility of extrication, shoots himself. The shooting is done behind a curtain. When the curtain is drawn aside the man is still bolt upright, but dead. After a pause someone touches him gently to see if he is alive, and then he falls with a horrid thud upon the stage. I have never seen death depicted with such grim concentric force upon the stage. Many men have written, and will write, good parts for Mr Tree ; but it is only once in a decade that anyone seems able to write a part to suit Miss Ward, and now she has such a one, which she can add to the small repertoire of her successes. As marking the rapidity of Mr Beerbohm Tree's wonderful rise to the front rank of European actors- the .fact may be recalled that when Genevieve Ward was playing " Forget-me-not " for the second time in London, all kindly people were rejoiced that she "had given that poor devil Tree a chance at last," by casting him for the minor part of the eccentric Roman marquis. And now he is her manager, and considering whether it is worth his while to offer her the not immodest salary she asks — should he decide to put Mr Aide's play into his evening bill.