STAGE GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3102, 27 August 1913, Page 60

STAGE GOSSIP.

Ihe Quinlan Opera Company will proceed to Canada after the present Australian tour, j Mr Lewis Waller says that he is so busy performing heroic deeds on the stage that ho never has any time to do anything : romantic or valorous in real life! ! An esteemed correspondent in Palmerston North advises that the recently-formed Amateur Operatic Society is an active re- | hearsal of “Dorothy” for early production, j Iho actual number of people who con- ■ stituted the Quinlan Opera Company when ! it arrived in Melbourne was 180. This ini eluded baggage men, wardrobe staff, and transport men. Mr Thomas Quinlan described in one I graphic sentence the hasty departure of his opera company from Johannesburg when the ; devastating strike riots broke out: “I felt j like Napoleon retreating from Moscow; but | I bad my army with me.” ; Miss {Jwenneth Evans, of Auckland, has ' joined the Smart Set, now in Wellington. ! Miss Evans takes the place of Miss Emily i Kroll, who has left the combination and j proceeded to England. The Smart Set will j pay us a visit probably next month. I There are 6000 picture houses in the , United Kingdom. Two thousand are privately owned and 4000 are owned by syndicates. The capital employed is upwards of £10,000,000. Work is found for 130,000. Then there is upwards of £2,400,000 invested in film and other essential businesses. It has now been decided that the Royal Comic Opera Company will tour the Dominion in plaoo of the New Comics. The tour will open in Auckland on September 8, and the operas to bo produced are: “The Quaker Girl," “The Sunshine Girl,” “The Dancing Mistress,” and “The 80110 of New Tork." The company which George Stephenson and Alfred Linley will tour through the smaller towns of the Dominion playing pantomime will have in its repertory “Little 80-Peep,” “Mother Hubbard,” and “The Man in the Moon.” The company will comprise 40 people, and will leave Sydney in I October. i Lewis Waller has the distinction of having been commanded seven times to appear : before the late King Edward and the preI sent King and Queen. The performances : included “A Marriage of Convenience,” I “Monsieur Beaucaire,” “Robin Hood,” “The j Duke’s Motto,” “Henry V,” “A Butterfly on the Wheel.” The principals of the Quinlan Opera Company include a champion woman rifle shot. This is Miss Alice Browse, soprano, who is an ardent follower of rifle-shooting. At the age of 20 she won the Ladies’ Championship for the West of England. She is a daughter of General A. des Voeux, brother of the present baronet. Harry Corson Clarke, formerly with Mr Fred Niblo’s company, and Mrs Clarke (Margaret Dale Owen), have cancelled their | South African tour, and are organising a I company of American and Australian artists (to play some of the latest successful comedies. They will shortly open a season at the Majestic Theatre, Melbourne, j The Era announces the death of Mr F. ;W. Millis, ventriloquist, aged 55 years. I Some years ago he was overtaken by the I tragedy of blindness. He was born in Adei laide, and, when well established on the ! vaudeville stage, he formed a company—H. I Millis-Cuff Combination—and toured Ans- ; tialia. Mr Millis died in St. Bartholomew’s , Hospital after an operation. His remains ! were interred in Lambeth Cemetery, Toot-

mg. During the final week of the Quinlan opera season in Capetown, so great was the desire to hear the phenomenal young prima donna, Felice Lyne, in “La Bohonie” and “The Barber of Seville’’ that for both occasions the whole theatre was reserved, from stalls to gallery. The young star, who will make her first appearance in Australia with the Quinlan Opera Company, is accompanied by her mother, secretary, courier, and French maid. Mr Hugh Buckler. Miss Violet Paget, and their company opened at the Bijou Theatre, Melbourne, on August 16 with “The Man on the Box,” an adaptation of a < well-known American novel, by Harold M Grath. Mr Buckler intends to follow it up with such productions as “Fanny’s hirst P] a y> "Bobby Burnit,” and “The Great Adventure ” The company supporting the principals includes Gerald Kay Sou per, Reynolds Denniston, Kenneth Brampton, and the Misses Lillian Lloyd, Temple Piggott, and Dorothy and Valentine Sidney. Mr William Devereux. tho English playwright, who has accompanied Mr Lewis Waller to Australia to supervise the production of “A Fair Highwayman,” states (hat the play is laid in 1715. This was the greatest gambling period in English social history. Out of this gambling, in a great measure, came the big insurance businesses of to-day. It may be news to Mr Devereux to learn that even highwaymen w-ould bo insured against capture in the days in which lie sets his play. It Is on record that at Lloyd’s coffee house—now the great Lloyd’s—such risks wore 'actually taken. A company has been floated in Melbourne to exploit a new development in moving picture work called open-air pictures. One

of its apparent advantages is that pictures can be given in broad daylight just as successively as in darkness, and this difference at once opens up wide possibilities in the application of the new principle both to business and to entertainment. Part of the success of the invention is a special screen on to which the figures are projected from behind, instead of in front, as in the ordinary method. The effect in characters moving about a stage is as novel as realistic. “ London Assurance," Dion Boucicaulfs celebrated comedy, selected by the King and Queen for the occasion, was played at a London matinee on June 27 at St. James’s Theatre, on behalf of King George’s Pension Pund for Actors and Actresses, which as a result has benefited to the extent of £1330. The star cast brought forward Sir Herbert Tree as a gorgeous old buffer in the purple and fine linen of Sir Harcourt Courtly; then, according to the Standard, Mr Godfrey Tearle was an admirable son io the old buck, and Mr H. B. Irving (just back from South Africa) a delightful Dazzle. Miss Lottie Pickford is the sister of the world-famous " Little Mary ” (Dorothy Nicholson). Like her sister, she is a popular picture-player, and was at one time a member of Kalem's Stock Company. Now she has joined the Pilot ranks. Many strenuous roles have fallen to Miss Pickford during her career as a picture actress. Once during a chase across the roof of a building she tripped and fell through an open skylight into a room below. Luckily she landed on a couch, otherwise the fall might have proved very serious. Another time the actress was carried away by the current of a mill-pool, and almost drowned. Miss Pickford is a strong swimmer, but the swift water was beyond her strength, and had it not been It seems that Mr Harry Lauder (who is coming to Australia next year, under the J. and N. TaiL management) has determined to join the ranks of theatrical managers. But not yet awhile. There arc London engagements to be fulfilled first, al-so a long American tour, as well as that to Australia. Nevertheless, in January. 1915, it is stated, one may expect to see the favourite Scotch comedian installed in his own West End theatre. There he proposes to appear in a one-act drama, and a little comedy, I>etween which he will give several of his most popular character songs. This will not b? his first appearance as an actor, for quiferecently he did excellent work in “A Scrape of the Pen’’ at the London Comedy. Some of the members of the Quinlan Opera Company in Melbourne have interesting relics of the sanguinary strike riois which raged in Johannesburg during the company’s recent season there. These include cartridges, bullets, broken rifles, and revolvers, and other "bloodthirsty” souvenirs of an occasion that was fraught with imminent danger to the members of the company, whose performances had to be abandoned. Mr Quinlan relates that while he was in his room at the hotel watching the battle in the street a bullet struck the sill of his window. “And did you bring the sill with you as a memento?” asked a listener. "No,” replied Mr Quinlan, “I sat down and spent the time wishing we could get away by airship. 1 didn’t want to lose any of the members of my company.”

Madame Nordica, the famous American prinia donua. is said to enjoy the distinction of being the greatest woman wage-earner in the- world. On one evasion she received £7OO for a concert of an hour’s duration at Washington. Madame Kordica works for 28 weeks in each year, and during that period, from October till April, she gives an average of three concerts a week. Eighty concerts in 28 weeks is a tremendous strain on her voice, and the general physical endurance of the singer. Madame Nordica travels in luxurious style to fortify herself against the hardships of life en tour. In America, from beginning to <nd of her seven months’ trip, she lives in her own private car, which has been specially arranged for her. and is a veritable little palace on wheels. The car contains a fairly large music room, where madanie can practise daily, a salon, three bedrooms, and bathroom, kitchen, and servants’ quarters Miss Rosina Buckmann is mentioned in terms of high praise in the London Telegraph for a recent interpretation of tb© role of Mimi in “La Boheme,” at the London School of Opera. There, at the present time, all the available students are hard at work extending their individual repertories, and they have been giving a series of performances in their theatre at Cosmopolis. from which the public can judge the range as well as the merits of the tuition they are receiving. On a recent Saturday night, for instance, they went through the first act of “La Boheme ’ and the second act of “Samson et Dalila.” “As at the former performance a fortnight ago, the newspaper announces, “the chief personal success was scored by Miss Kosina Buckmann. whose bright, fresh voice and engaging manner enabled her to make an effective and ingratiating Mimi.”

Chatting with an interviewer regarding her art, Adeline Genee, the world's greatest dancer, said: “To be absolutely what it is meant to l)c, dancing must !>c combined with acting. That is particularly evident, I think, in ' Coppelia.’ I was 15 years old before 1 discovered that I could express sentiment and feeling in juy dancing. I practised for hours daily in front of a fulllength set of mirrors, so that I could see every gesture and phase of expression, as well as my movements and their effect. The Italian school of dancers do not realise that pantomime is necessarily an accompaniment of dancing. They simple train themselves from the waist downwards, as it were, and fire upper part of the body remains unexpressive. *>My training in that respect was very thorough and strict. Mv aunt used even to carefully observe whether my little finger was in the right place or not. She is very wonderful, for although she is 70 years of age now; she can waltz as lightly as a feather.”

Harold Bauer, tbe brilliant pianist who lias arranged to tour Australia next year, is probably tbe only great artist who has become a pianist by accident. It was Ins own early intention to be a violinist, and lie clung to his chosen instrument often at the expense of material comfort. When be left London for Paris in 1P92 his ambition to be a violinist was great within him. but he could secure no engagement, and was eventually forced to earn bis living by giving lessons. At this time it must be understood that bo was quite an accomplished pianist, though be regarded this talent with peculiar indifference. Paderewski and of the famous Lamoureux Orchestra. Paris, thought otlierw’se, and they insisted on bis being n pianist, and keeping the violin as bis second string, so to sneak. As it proved, their judgment was bettor than his, and after he had toured 'Russia. _ as accompanist to Mdlle. Xikita. bis reputation as a pianist was made. To-day ho. is regarded as one of tbe greatest exponents of the instrument In the world. Fred Xiblo tells a funny story of how a cute practical joke was worked off on him actually while !;< ra • appear.'tig on the stare. “■\Ve were playing in ‘The F.-rtune Hunter’ in an American town when ■ Everybody, ’ a, morality sketch something like 'Kverywoman.’ was showing at another theatre. It so happened that our stage door looked across the street to tbe stage door of the other

’ house. One of the act ore in ‘Everybody’ j wanted to see ‘The Fortune Hunter,’ and ■ he guessed it would be all right if he came ! across in his make-up and stood in the ! wings and watched our performance. He I was playing ‘Work’ in the sketch. He stood ! and watched us with apparent interest durj ing the piece, till it came to the up-to-date ; drug store set. Here I have a little scene by myself, and while I was in the middle of it ‘Work’ walked on to the stage, and. handing me a piece of paper, said ; ‘Say, doc., will you make up this prescription? I’ll call back for it.’ He then made his exit 1 by the stage door.”