THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 37

THEATRICAL & MUSICAL NOTES.

-of <«iB« v* iQTitea. AU eonmnaleatiwu to k« tMnurt ■• " r»»««W Ot»s* Wtt»*« Ofiw.

Mies Maggie Moore opened the Christchurch season on Monday evening with " Struck Oil," and was accorded a very henty reception, by a very large audience. ..«.-. v v The Albus were unfortunate in Christchurch. A fairly good house on the first night was followed by such a poor ■ attendance on the second that the money was returned and no performance was given. The press was then deluged with letters expressing shame and disappointment at the lack of encouragement on the part of the musical people of the City of the Plains, begging the management to give another concert, predicting a very different result. This request was acceded to. The resultant concert was, however, anything but a success, the house being a very thin one. A trial of cheap prices was made on Saturday night, but the rough weather militated against the success of this movement, and a disastrous though fortunately short season was thus brought to a close. The amateur performance of " British Born" at Invercargill, resulted in a little over £30 being handed to Mr R. D. Wotton, for whose benefit it was got up. Madame Antoinette Sterling, who will shortly give a series of concerts in New Zealand, has played an important part in the English world of music as an introducer of new compositions to the notice of the public, and few recommendations carry more weight than the facb that she has given a new song its first rendering. Yet, withal, the wonderful hold which this gifted lady has secured upon the British people is due more to her eloquent inberpretations of old songs bhan to her talents as an originator. Many a time has Madame Sterling casb a profound spell over crowds in the largest halla of London by means of songs which to the uninitiated may have seemed simplicity itself ; but the power of rendering all the notes and cadences correctly, while telling in musical Bbrains the story which the writer wishes to convey in a manner calculated to move the whole audience, is really only given to a favoured few among vocalists. Her voice is usually set down as a contralto, although she sings many songs which would be allotted to a singer having a mezzo-soprano range. Ib is now just 20 years since she first captivated the London public by her rendering of songs and ballads at Covent Garden concerts. Bland Holt brings with him to New Zealand a large repertory, including two big Drurylane successes— "The Sailor's Knot" and "The Trumpet Call "—over 200 tons of scenery, and a strong company including several artists who are new bo this colony. Mr "John Gourlay, who contemplates a descent on Maoriland shortly, has gone for a short season at Broken Hill. Mr Gourlay was tendered a most successful benefit prior to leaving Sydney, a specially organised Scotch night being the attraction. "Skipped by the Light of the Moon " was chosen for the finish of the season. The company comprises besides Mr Gourlay Messrs George Walton, Henry Shine, Scot Inglis, A. J. M'Nally, Misses Flora Hastings, Georgie Ltighford, and Evelyn Harte.

Under the title of " The Garden of Eden," an entirely new departure in theatrical enterprise has been presenbed to the Melbourne public at the Rotunda. By an illusion as striking as it is novel each visitor to the exhibition is impressed with the idea that he is moving in the midst of a multitude of people, although reason assures him that he is the only person who has entered the room. In England, on the Continent, and in India "The Garden of Eden" has created an immense sensation, and its promoters are confident that the absolute freshness of the idea will ensure an equal success in the Victorian capital. Fitzgerald Bros. Circus and Menagerie will shortly make an endeavour to scoop the pool in Maoriland. The brothers are Australians, and have gradually worked their way up till at the present day their show, if one can judge by the favourable and exceedingly lengthy notices in the leading Australian papers, rivals if not excels Fillis's Circus and Menagerie. Among the principal performers may be mentioned Maggie Connars, whose bareback-riding feats are really fir.-t-class ; Miss Ettie Emerie, whose conbortion acb is simply amazing ; Mr Joe Morris, bhe sbar acrobab; F. M. Jones, C. Hogan, and Alberb King. Jones aebs as leader of the acrobatic aggregation, and he is another prime f ivouribe ; as likewise is the indiarubber man, Professor Bartolo, whose body seems bo have been made wibhoub osseous conformation, so singularly does he contrive to contort it and so outrageously defy the laws of nature. The clowns are funnier than the average jesters. Some of the leaping feats are extraordinary, and the riding of the boy jockey team alone is a very great attraction. Though these youngsters are only mere mibes they appear to be devoid of fear and go over their leaps with a "yo-oicks" bhat would do credib to a Midlandshire fox-hunter. The jumping pony Tommy does a wonderful and unique feat, when in one circuit of the ring he leaps, apparently much to his own enjoyment, three pony mates in "swings " placed at intervals round the circumscribed racecourse. This and the jumping of the pied roan mare Curiosity, who sails over her trick-mate Ben as if his 15£hds were only as many inches, aro feats which must be seen to be appreciated, as must the grand steeplechase finale, perhaps bhe most spirited and rousing event of its kind ever witnessed in Sydney. Mr Snazelle's efforts to introduce the Continental Sunday in Melbourne have been successful so far as regards the crowds attending and paying the smallest silver coin in the realm to secure a seat. So says the Leader. The same paper, however, doubts the advantage of going to hear the devout Snazelle singing " Nazareth " and his acolyte administering to the io3thetio tastes of the audience by a display of photos of nude figures, " which of course are really beautiful " and nob the least suggestive, except in the highest principles of aife.

The Sydney Bullebin says that Julie Knight, the handsome Auckland contralto who scored so well ab the Dunedin Exhibition concerts, is now Mrs Duncan T. Lawes, of Adelaide, S.A.

Melba, it is cabled, has been engaged for 22 nights in SouUi America in 1894. She is to receive 12,000fr (about £4-80) per night. She has also been re-engaged to appear in London in At the Melbourne Exhibition building promenade concerts, the "garden scene" from Gounod's "Faust" is now represented in character, with Miss Lalla Miranda as Marguerite, Mr H Stockwell as Faust, Miss Clara Mongredien as Martha, Miss Ida Osborne as Siebsl, and Mr Snazelle as Mephistopheles. The missing word competition has struck George Darrell. He is trying it on at Adelaide. ISo many guesses per humble shilling. Gallery | shilling, one guess ; stall ehillings, three guesses ; and £20 the prize. Professor Adalbert Francik, who is an Associate of the Prague and Leipzig Conservai o ; res, and who was formerly violinist to the cultured Queen of Roumania (•• Carmen Sylva"), arrived here by the Rotomahana, and will commence his New Zealand tour in Dunedia. By the Australian and European papers it would seem that wherever Herr Francik puts in an appearance with his violin he creates enthusiasm, and his concerts should therefore be well patronised by lovers of music in Dunedin. It is a noteworthy tribute to his talent that the j Austrian statesman Lord Taaffe presented tt c ! virtuoso with a violin, and being unable to i attend the violinist's farewell concert, wrote to him expressing his regret. Daring the fire scene in the performance of "Mli»s" at the Wellington Opera-housa on! Saturday night some scenery caught fire. The curtain was dropped, as it was the end of the act, and the audience knew nothing about it. Mr Holloway and Miss Maggie Moore got 1 severely burned in tearing down the flaming canvas, but a hose was got to play before serious harm was done. The following letter addressed to the Misses Albu tells its own tale, and shows how the lovers of music are constrained sometimes to utter their pitiful complaints :— "Timaru, May 31, 1893.— The Misses Albu.— My dear Mesdames, — When I read of your advent, two nice girls fresh from Home, I said to myself, now we shall hear something new, if not original ; at anyrate a change from the antiquated old stuff which has been foisted upon us ad, nauseam for the last 50 years. But, alas, no ; when I saw your programme this morning my heart sank into my boots, for there they were, all the old stagers, again heaped up and running over. Why, oh, why will you do it, when there is so much good new music to choose from, and which we are longing ta hear ? • Sing, sweet bird.' Well, for the past 30 year 3 this wretched jumping songstress has trilled at almost every Timaru concert. 'My pretty Jane ' I grew tired of 30 years ago, when I used to hear Sims Reeves (16 times I went to hear him ; four times he never sang at all, and 10 times he trotted out his *P.J.). 'Maying' is nice, but we all sing that since Amy Bherwin was here. Why not give us * Good night, beloved,' which we can't sing ourselves? 'The minstrel bay!' Have we not heard it thumped out to our very bones, with a running accompaniment of one, two, three, for long years ? • Norma.' Oh, barrel organs, avaunt. • She wore a wreath of roses.' That young widow interests me no longer. One can't love a widow, however interesting, for 40 years. She should have had a marble monument erected years ago. 1 Auld Robin Gray,' confound him ! I wish he had never been such an old fool a 8 to marry that young girl. But they will do it, and of course then tlure is trouble. ... I hope you will listen to what I have said, and remain « One of the Public." 7 Mrs James Brown Potter will, it is said, soon retire from the stage to become the wife of a wealthy widower of New York. A concert programme of 1870 shows A. S. Sullivan, now Sir Arthur, as pianist. He dropped the S because the initials made A.S.S. Madame Wagner, who is shortly expected at Berlin with her son Siegfried, has recently been informed of the discovery of a brief bub important solo which Wagner struck out of "Lohengrin" shortly before its first performance. Ib was allotted to the now mute character of little Gottfried, who shortly before the close of the opera is transformed from the figure of the swan to his own natural shape. He then, ib appears, should have addressed to the bird a tender "farewell. The solo was, however, short, and Wagner despaired of finding a competent artist who would undertake so small a character. He accordingly suppressed it, but wrote a copy of it in the album of his first wife's friend, Frau Lydia Sbeche, who now lives in the outskirts of Leipsic. The musicians at the Paris Opera struck recently and declined to play "Die Walkure." They alleged weariness as an excuse, bub ib is assumed a " patriotic " aversion to German opera made them tired. It is said that the late Count Pezzini, of Ala, Piedmont, bequr athed his box in the opera house in that place to the Capuchin Monastery, with the understanding that three monks should attend every performance to see that no improper work is given. The monks go to the show in their coarse robes. Thu3 far they have sat out " Traviata " and "Don Juan" without objections. Verdi received for "Falstaff" £6400 down, and 40 per cent, of the publishing and performing royalty rights. This pays even better than farming, which is the veteran composer's I favourite avosation. Boibo for the " Falstaff : ' libretto received £400 down. He should seek an interview with Mr W. S. Gilbert, and thereby increase his income. I looked in the other day (writes a critic in a Home Paper) at the Egyptian Hall to wibness Messrs Maskelyne and Cooke's latest importation, M. Alban and Mademoiselle Stella, whose exhibition of thought-reading is ccrnaicly more marvellous than anything I have pre- ; viously heard of. Not a word is uttered by the medium, who is among the audience, while the subject is on the platform. M. Alban, however, disclaims the possession of any abnormal power, and declares that his mysteries are worked upon a scientific principle discovered by himself, and developed by an enormous amount of practice. According to the official statistics, the receipts at most of the Paris theatres fell off to a serious extent last year. At the Opera there was a slight increase, but M. Bertrand incurred a very heavy deficit. In spibe of the huge subvention of £32,000 and the house rent and gas free, they manage these things better in London. From the Sydney Bulletin : — SnazeUe turns out to bs a lieutenant of volunteers in Hingland. In point of fact, it was Snazolle, and not Bill Adams, who won tho battle of Waterloo. Madaine Fanny Simonsen believes bhab, if Vi Varley were taken in hand properly now, her voice would be as good as Melba's. If she isn't, well— find the missing words. There is one dofect iv the drama "His Natural Life," as Riven ab Sydney Royal— not one of the- warders is liish !

f Walter Bentley, which his name is William 1 Begg, was once a Dunedin (M.L ) water rates dun. They used to call him " Water-pipe Begg " in those days —a double-barrelled irony reflecting bobh on his long and lean exterior and his begging — or, rather, dunning — avocation.. Gourlay, Walton, aud Slrne literally coined money ab Hudson's Bijou, Adelaide, with " Skipped by the Lighb ot the Moon." Madame Antoinette Sterling doesn'b impress one at first, but, on acquaintance, her deep conbralbo fascinabes. She is a born acbress, although nob a beauty, stoubish and ungainly, yeb always ab ease. Her success is mainly attribubable to the intense feeling she puts into her songs. Johnny Sheridan— O'Brien— ha3 met with bad reverses in America, and s'ars England as the Shaughraun. Fitzgerald's Circus, up to date, has been crowded to its utmost capacity almost every nighb, and on Saturday, when the Austrian Archduke shed Irs smile upon the entertainment, business was even better than usual. The circus deserves all its popularity. Ib is a show that keeps going all the binie, and there is no weak point in it. The acrobat who turns a somersault over 20 horses, the flying trapeze gentleman, and Battolo, a boneles3 contortionist, who, in his utter want of any fixed shape, stsems bo be a cross bebween bhe jellyfish and Bryan O'Loghlen's reasons for nob prosecuting Matthew Davies, all fill a great void in the public soul. So, also, does the parliamentary disagreement between the two rival clowns, Haynes and Crick, in which the combatants have to be dragged .asunder by horse-power, and the sbeeplechase is an evenb which appeals to the most holy feelings of tbis horsey land. The circus is strong everywhere, but in the horse element it is probably about the strongest of all. TEE COLLET DOBSON COMPANY AT PBINCESS THEA.TKE. "THE VILLAGE VAGABOND." It was a very high complimenb to the Collet Dobson Company that there should have been such a large audience in the Princess Theatre on Saturday night, when they opened a return season in Dunedin. The weather was so bempesbuous bhat ib would not have been surprising to have found a beggarly array of empty boxes, but so far from that being the case the company had the gratification of appearing before a house of very respectable dimensions, the dress circle being nearly half full, and the downstairs seats being well patronised. Ib is abuudanbly evident that the system adopted by the management of charging " million " prices is greatly appreciated by the public. The experience of the company during their recent season in Dunedin showed that that was so, and judging from the hearty greeting they received on Saturday night, from an audience which, all things considered, was extraordinarily large, it seem 3 scarcely likely that they will have occasion to complain of the patronage accorded to them during the season which they have now inaugurated. The piece performed on Saturday was a sensational drama, billed under the title of " The Village Vagabond." It comprises four acts, and the authorship was attributed on the programmes to one A. H. Magnet. No phy with such a title had previously been produced in Dunedin, but instances are recorded of the same piece under different titles being performed by different companies, and the production under notice bears remarkable traces of similarity with a drama which was introduced to the notice of patrons of bhe Princess Theatre by Mr Alfred Dampier about nine months ago. From the first there was a familiar smack about "The Village Vagabond," and the development of the plot can have left no doubt upon the minds of any persons who saw Henry Pebbibt's drama " The Black Mag," produced by Mr Dampier, that bhe piece in which the Collet Dobson Company appeared was simply anobher version of it. In each play there is a purseproud, flint-hearted farmer, who has a son whom he loves and a step-son whom he hates— the former being a ne'er-do-well and the labber being a man of innate good qualities, which prompt him to do, without fee or reward, all sorts of odd jobs for the villagers. In each play there is an heiress, who is intended by the farmer, her uncle and guardian, for his son's wife, but who instead becomes engaged to the step-son. In each play the worbhle33 son forges his father's name to a bill, which falls into the hands of a Hebrew extortioner, and then, to prevent exposure, rob 3 and finally murders his father. In each play, the crime is fastened on the step-son, who is sentenced to penal servitude on the island of Portland, and in each play bhe Jew also turns up in the prison gang, having been convicted of swindling. In each play the pair of prisoners escape by the same boat ; in each play the same agencies are employed to secure the escape ; and in each play the innocent step-son is saved from death from a warder's bullet owing to a waif, whom lie had befriended, rushing in front in time to receive the charge. In each play, of course, retribution comes at last and a vista of happiness is opened up for the released stepson and his betrothed, whose constancy has been unwavering, and a prolonged term of imprisonmenb is in prospecb for the ne'er-do-well. It will thus be seen bhat throughout the whole ttory there are pointß of striking resemblance between the two plays. Ib is a remarkable example of '' the long arm of coincidence" if it should turn out that "The Village Vagabond" is not simply a revised aud somewhat abridged edition of" The Black Flag." Be that as it may, the piece produced by tho Collet Dobson Company has no conspicuous merits to commend ib. There is nob a single character in ib which is well drawn, and the dialogue all through, is weak. In thrilling "situations" even ib is deficient. Only one of the four acts is worked up to a really strong climax, and ab the conclusion of that, the third act, the audience signified their approval by an enthusiastic call of all the performers. The part of Charles Bazelgetle, who is ab once the •' vagabond " and the hero of the drama, was assumed by Mr ColleL Dobson, of whom the least that can be said is thab he fully aubwtred ' the demands made upon him iv his impersonation. Mr J. P. O'Neill was casb as Isaac Abrahams, a Whitechapel Jew of no reputabion, and bhis character afforded him an opportunity for some amusing low comedy acting. Mr Newton Griffiths was fairly fibbed as bho overbearing fabher ; Mr Walber Clifford gave a colourless representation of Walber Bazelgeble, the wicked young man of the play ; and Mr Cremer appeared in what was meant to be the comedy part of Adolphus Fitzjoues, bhe character, as a matber of facb, being an intensely silly and nob a humorous one. Miss Diana Blouslein was enbrusted with tho part of the heroine, Kthel Wesblaud, of which she might have made more than she did. She hf.s au unfortunate halit of cutting «p her sentences into littlo bits, and her method generally ia siagcy and forced. Miss Fanny Wiseman &cored all her points effectively as the waif Tim, and Miss Annie Wvniaid made a buxom hotelkeeper, t Measis Moss and Ingle3on were also included in the c\st. " THE LADY OF LYONS." A change of programme was made on Tuesnight, the Collet Dobson Company appearing

before a capital house in Bulwer Lytton's play "The Lady of Lyons." Mr Collet Dob3on succeeded in giving a very creditable impersonation of the hero — who yeb is not a hero — Claude Melnotte. The piece was well sbaged, and was received wibh every mark of approval, enthusiastic calls being made at the close of the third and fourth acts, and again on the termination of the play. ' • The Lady of Lyons " was repeated on Wednesday night.