THEATRICAL AND MUSICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2368, 20 July 1899, Page 47

THEATRICAL AND MUSICAL NOTES.

Bt Pasqtjtit.

TUESDAY, July 18.

Saturday evening's performance by Fuller's "Waxworks Vaudeville Company was well attended, the Alhambra Theatre being quite full.

Madame Trebelli has Becured the Garrison Hall for Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday next for her concert company.

Mr Ben Fuller, of the AY ax works, who has been visiting Australia, returns from Sydney via Auckland by the Waihora this week with fresh artists and the latest of novelties. In the meantime the Waxworks and Vaudeville Company are in their nineteenth week in Dunedin, a phenomenal run for a show, however good.

At the Trebelli recital at Christchurch on Wednesday evening every seat was sold before the opening of the theatre, and many failed to gain admission.

A scheme for the erection of a good theatre in Gore is "being prosecuted vigorously by -local gentlemen, with a fair prospect of success.

A benefit was tendered f-o the Gonnor Bros, at the Princess Theatre, on Friday night last. The audience, besides being numerous, was "thoroughly appreciative, and did not allow the performers to escape .until they had responded to the frequent demands made for additional items. The singers were Miss Amy Vaughan, Miss Ada M'Lauchlan, Messrs F. Duval, J. Mackay, E. O'Brien, J. P. Connor, W. Woods, A. King, W. Watkins, W. Stevens.

It has transpired that Mr J. 0. Williamson offered to pay the expenses of sending Miss Castles, the clever young Ballarat singer, to Europe for three years to be trained, and undertook to allow her £150 a year pocket money, on condition that at the end of the three years' tuition Miss Castles should enter into an engagement for three years with the Firm at £400 a year and travelling and hotel expenses. This offer was not entertained. Miss Castles, accompanied by her mother, ■will, according to the present arrangement, leave Australia about August 10, and will live in Paris for three years. At the expiration of that time she is to return to Australia and eing. Sydney papers Fpeak in the most favourable terms of M'Adoo's Georgia Minstrels and Alliambra. Cake Walkers. The company comprises many quaintly clever people of both sexe3, who provide a programme containing many refreshing novelties. The troupe includes Miss Grace Turner, Miss Katie Milton, Miss Mabel Jackson, Miss Flora Batson, Miss Edith Barton, and ono or two others of the gentler ccx, Messrs Turner Jones, Gerard Miller, L. Rooks, J. Brewer, D. Barton, C. W. Walker, Geo.- Henry, Jackson Heard, and Hen "Wise, all of them good in their respective roles. Among the novelties is a " buck and wing dance," by Geo. Henry — a man who is facile princeps in that- line, and who is billed as the champion of the world. It is described as a dance well worth seeing. Tlie Heards, in a comical sketch entitled " The Kiug and Queen of Coloured Aristocracy," create a continuous simmer of laughter, and the Black Bartons, Dave and Edith, give some excellent buck and wing dancing. A remarkable contribution to the programme is the performance of Ferry, who, dressed as a frog, has the stage to himself, with a suitable set of scenery, and shows that he is a contortionist of the very first order. " Gauze " is a female impersonator of singular vocal cleverness, which, coupled with a good make-up, causes the audience to bo almost deceived until the performer appears in masculine garb. The cake walk is the penultimate liumbei ; it is a survival of the -old pre-emancipation days in the Southern States.

A London correspondent of Table Talk gays that the rumours of Mrs Langfcry'B intended visit to Australia are again rife. It seems true enough that Mrr Langtry is fitting herself out for a return to professional life, as she has acquired the rights of two or three plays, and an agent is trying to secure a good theatre in London. Madame Sarah Bernhardt has been appearing in Paris as " Hamlet," which role she -vyill also assum during her torthcoming visit to London. The distinguished French tragedienne has for many years been a dnvoled admirer of Shakespeare, and so great ha 3 been her enthusiasm over " Hamlet " that time and again she has declared that before Ehe reached the end of her careei she must perform the part. "Itis my caprice," says she, "to Appear as Hamlet, and I feel I shall live the part." " The Divine Sarah " is said to bo looking younger than ever. Mr Beerbohm Tree has revived "The First Night," a 50-year-old farce known in the original as " Le Pere de la Debutante," taking himself tlie part of the old French actor ivho can play everything, from the hero to the drum. In the rehearsal scene he actually docß play the drum, descending into the orchestra »nd keeping the house in roars of laughter Jur. hia eccentricities and his pertinacity in

offering his daughter's" services to the manager in case a leading" lady sEbuld be wanted. The humours of -" The Fhst Night " (including an author made up to resemble both Shakespeare . and a popular novelist) are rather pantomimic, but the fun is kept up with spirit, a«d thfl antics of the performers are wonderfully laughable.

Under the name of Mdlle Feria, Miss Addie Hamilton, of Melbourne, made her entry to tho English concert platform at the Crystal Palace concert last month. Mdlle Feria, who came over from the Continent with Madame Nevada, is about to make a tour of the provinces with that eminent singer.

Sir Arthur Sullivan has now definitely undertaken to compose for the Leeds Triennial Festival, which is to be held next October, the long-expected successoi to " The Golden Legend." It will be a secular cantata of half-programme length, and the subject is at present a secret, although current rumour credits Sir Arthur with the intention to set a version of " The Vicar of Wakefield."

Herr Joachim, the world-famous violinist, is one of the few youthful prodigies who have justified their promise. As a child of seven his .skill on the violin was the wonder of Europe, and a little later the " boy Paganini,' as he was called, had the honour of playingbefore our Queen. How people drift to the stage is sometimes curious. Not a few of our most admired actresses developed their early taste for the drama in representations at convent schools. Mr George Alexander's mother had never seen the inside of a theatre, while hi 3 father was an intense hater of plays and players. Mr Wilson Barrett was never allowed to see a play, but one night he fought his way into the gallery of the old Princess Theatre, and then and there vowed he would become an actor.

Eleonora Duse, Who is' perhaps the greatest of all living actresses, is also the simplest in hnv methods. Naturally shrinking and modest to a fault, she scorns all artificial aids to effect in dress or jewellery, and seems even to shirk the prominence on the stage which her parts demand.-- It is in this utter absence of " art " that her power lies; for there is nothing to distract attention from the genius "which one moment dissolves her audience in tears and the next wreathes them in smiles.

The new electric lighting arrangements at the Covent Garden Opera House are, at anyrate, so far as the stage is concerned, .now finished. They are considered to be more complete and effective than in any other theatre in England, the more especially in regard to the gradations of colours, co that it is hoped we now have done for ever with the once familiar spectacle of a green light shining on to (and not from) a brilliantly yellow moon, which rises with jerks* up the sky. The moon has ever been the delight of stage carpenter and the despair of the conscientious stage manager. At Covent Garden, however, thanks to the new electric apparatus, which is controlled by one man from a single switchboard, the colours, at anyrate, will be as true as possible to nature.