SYDNEY STAGE GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 62

SYDNEY STAGE GOSSIP.

By Scene Shifter.

Sydney, June 10. There were two changes of programme at the Sydney theatres on Saturday evening. At the Criterion Theatre Mr Charles Holloway presented for the first time upon any stage Mr Frank Harvey's five-act play, "The Milestones of Life." This author, chiefly identified with sensational pieces, provides in "The Milestones of Life" a purely domestic play. It contains several excellent character parts, which are adequately interpreted by Mr Holloway's fine ■company.

At the Palace Theatre the farcical comedy of "Tom, Dick, and Harry " was successfully revived. A pretty one-act curtain-raiser termed "A Highland Legacy " is also in th bill. This latter piece is a very pretty trifle from the jpen of Mr Brandon Thomas. It is a piece that from its strong Doric characteristics will be greatly appreciated in Dunedin.

At the Royal the evergreen "II Trovatore " •was revived by Musgrove's Opera Company. The company visit your colony shortly. What a grand musical banquet awaits Maoriland opera lovers.

"Florodora" achieved its 174 th consecutive performance in Australia at Her Majesty's on Saturday. The scented-titled musical comedy has hit Federated; Australia with a big bang. At the Lyceum '"The Night Birda of London. "

J continues its successful career, and tho Tivoli \ and Empire Theatres present their customary 1 variety bills. At Rickards's house the reigning stars are Frank Latona and Austin Rudd. The Faußt Sisterß and Albert Whelan are in the I bill. The Leonards and the Pine Sisters go j this week. They will soon be forgotten. It i seems that it was hardly worth their while to j come all the way from London to tell tiieir , story.

Fuller's Company at the Empire does good business. Several new people, including Joe Walhalla and Bob Faust, have been introduced into the show, and this enterprising- little variety company promises to become a fixture among our theatrical institutions.

Snazelle is now at the Queen's Hall and is doing well with "Our Navy." Mrs J. -C. Williamson having gone to England on a visit, her beautiful home at Elizabeth Bay is being looked after by Mrs Jack Sweeney.

Mr Frank Vernon, a clever actor, round N.Z. with George Darrell, is at present "resting" in Sydney.

Gossip has it that Mr Harry Plimmer had a "burst up" with Mr M'Kee Rankin in Melbourne. Anyhow Harry P. is now "resting" in Melbourne. Several of Brough's old folk join Nancy's Company for the South African tour.

L-tizerne, "the conjurer," who visited N.Z. undei the management of Maoriland's Harry Rickards, jiilr Percy Dix, is in Sydney at present. He speaks in glowing terms of N.Z. audiences.

Mr Harry Cogill is lying fallow in Sydney for the present. He has 'no regular plans at present, so he says, and will probably not start cut again for some time, at any rate until he secures a- new piece or two.

Mr "Jo" Brown, well known in Maoriland as a champion advance agent, is ahead of- Williamson's No. 2 "Florodora" Co., which tours tha Victorian towns- and Westra.lia. The repertoire aleo includes "The Belle of New York" and "The Geisha."

I The popular Alec Anderson, in all the glory ; of effulgent boiled shirt and low-n-ecked theatre ' coat, is a -iemiliar spectacle at present in front ,of the Palace Theatre. He will pilot Hawtrey's ! excellent company of comedians through New

'Zealand. I I hear from Westralia that George Rignold did not meet with the financial support that he deserved. "The Three Mxisketeers" was the only piece that drew at all. Shakespeare in the shape of "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and "Othello " did not fejch tho citizens of the Cinderella colony. I Wirth's Circus finished their Sydney season on Saturday evening. Their attractions were exactly the same as N.Z. sampled during their recent tour of the island colony. The circus opens at Newcastle to-night, thence to the northern towns of N.S.W. and Queensland. Tyrone Power and his wife, Miss Edith Cra-ue, ere staying in Sydney. Nothing definite has been decided yet regarding their new tour on their "little alone."

* Fred Daw Eon, the well-known advance agent, formerly of M'Adoo's and numerous other companies, is in Sydney at present. Fred seems to have a faculty for meeting with accidents. Sometimes he walks out of f3cond storey windows and cracks his skull, at others he breaks an arm or two. Lately, by way of variety, he fractured his thigh. But he always turns up all right, and when he's ahead you can be sure of a packed first night.

A well-known Manchester music hall proprietor who charged twopence, fourpence, and sixpence admission, and whose audience were not "all violets," on being told one night that he had not a good house, replied. "Yess, it's Halle's night." "But surely that does not affect your audience?" said the friend. "Oh, yes, it does. My people are all there picking pockets." — [This is one of the late Chailes Godfrey's stories. — Pasquin.]

The Williamson Dramatic Company have disbanded for the present. They were kept together on the hopes that' while at home Mr Williamson would be able to secure a couple of dramatic stars, but the people wanted wouldn't come, so J. C. cabled out to disband th© show. Cecil Ward, who has been leading-man of late, joins the Brougha, and Linda Raymond will take a well-earned holiday.

Prom Tasmania I hear that the WilliamsonWoods Dramatic Co. are doing good biz. Both Alfred and Maud are popular favourites in Van Dieman's Land, and if anyone can "fetch 'em" they can.

The Mu3grove Grand Operji Co. have "La Traviata" (Verdi), "The Meny Wives of Windsor ' (Nicolai), and "Rienzi" (Wagner) in rehearsal.

Mr Roland Staveley (Ernest Sincock) has finished his engagement with Williamson's Co. He has now joined George Rignold's Co.

The production of Wagner's opera, "The "Flying Dutchman," by Musgrove's Opera Co., reminds me that there are several dramatic versions of the legend in existence which could be produced by colonial managers. One of the best is T. P. Taylor's "Vanderdecken," or "The Flying Dutchman," an exciting drama in foui acts, which lays the scene, as it should be, in and around the Cape of Good Hope. The first act alone i 3 laid in Holland, and in Wagner's opera th locale was in Norway, which to the public mind, used to the legend that the Dutchman always haunted the Cape, is a .trifle confusing. Another version was prepared by the late W. G. Wills (author of "A Eoyal Divorce") for Sir Henry Irving many years ago. But the piece was a semi-failure a' the Lyceum. On the colonial stage the most notable production was by Dampier somewhere in the "eighties." This version, if I mistake not, was by Garnet Walch. Taylor's version was first performed at the City of London Theatre, November 24, 1846.

Ambroise Thomas, whose opera of "Mignon" is included in the Musgrove repertoire, wrote a grand opera on the subject of "Hamlet. ' Hamlet is made a tenor, the King is the chief baritone, and Ophelia is the soprano. The most daring innovation to the Shakespeareloving mind is the introduction of a ballet just b&fore Ophelia comes on and sings her mad solo. "Mignou," like "Maritana," belongs to the ballad school of o^era^ but its inclusion in

the Musgrove. repertoire is quite as justified as the work? of Wallace and Balfe.

"Carmen" is played in Musgrove's Co. by "a contralto, Madame Jansen. Previous exponents of the fickle gipsy on the N.Z. stage have been sopranos — viz., Rose Hersee, Annis Montague, and Elsa May. But Bizet originally wrote the music for the alto voice, so the Jansen version is quite correct. It seems strange to the stage historian to recollect that Bizet's now popular work was previous to its original production in Paris piophesied as a failure by the artists engaged. Never was professional opinion so completely routed, as from the jump the opera caught on. Similar professional opinions were held regrding tbe so-called weakness of "Lights o' London," "She Stoops to Conquer," and other wellknown pieces previous to public production. The late Carl Rosa regarded '"Carmen" as a model o£ what grand opera should be.