MIMES AND MUMMERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10104, 16 March 1911, Page 2

MIMES AND MUMMERS.

(By THE LIMELIGHT MAN.)

Madame Calve has been singing in India, and is about to extend her tour to China and Japan. * * Richard Strauss has been made a Knight of the Maximilian Order by the Prince Regent of Bavaria. # * Miss Beatrice Holloway has recovered from her recent serious illness and has rejoined the Max Maxwell Dramatic Company. It is estimated that the returns for the eleven weeks' run of " The Whip ' in Sydney exceed those taken for any other dramatic performance ever presented in Australia. * * On March 13 the Williamson production of " Jack and the Beanstalk " pantomime reached its hundredth presentation in Australia. The piece is going to prove a record-breaker for the big firm. * • The Stavordal Quintette Party which toured New Zealand some time ago under the Rickards management has been scoring great successes in a European tour. The party is due to appear in London shortly.

It is rumoured tbat "The Bad Girl of the Family " is to be the cause of a very big lawsuit. The damages to be claimed are stated at £SOOO, Mr George Willoughby claiming the prior rights in Australasia from the author.

The London "Daily News" says that an American millionaire has purchased for £IO,OOO Liszt's organ, which was built in the United States in the course of one of his tours. The organ was used later both by Wagner and Schumann.

The remarkable success of "The Chocolate Soldier" in England, as well as in America, has induced the London manager, Fred C. Whitney, to go to Vienna and make contracts for no fewer than four new comic operas by the most popular Viennese composers of the day.

The Opera Comique in Berlin has become a theatre for operetta. It had practically had no settled policy lor several years. There was no consistent attempt to give opera comique there, and even such works as Verdi's " Ballo in Maschera " were brought in to enlarge the repertory.

Picture patrons complain strongly of the laxity of the local managers in not providing programmes to late-comers, while on Saturday nights the supply is exhausted long before eight o'clock. Seeing that the programmes are mostly filled with advertisements, which should more than pay the cost of production, a few hundred extra programmes would not break the promoters.

The latest shocker in Paris is " Figures de Cire" ("Wax Figures"). A man boasts of his immunity to all sense of fear. He makes a bet that he will spend the night in the chamber of horrors of a waxwork museum. A lire figure emerges from a historic guillotine. It is a wretched woman «** "^at-

niartre, who has sought refuge from a police raid. This apparition causes such emotion that the mail falls dead from, an attack of heart disease.

The life of a conductor of a travelling musical comedy company is not to be envied, especially if the company is not sufficiently prosperous to take along a band. In that case the poor conductor lias to gather together in each place whatever lie can find, filling, in the missing parts with the piano. One of these much-tried souls wrote to a friend the other day:—"Last week at X my hand consisted of two French horns and ten greenhorns."

Karl von Kaskel is the composer of the latest success in the Dresden Opera House, "The Prisoner of the Czar." He was born forty-four years ago in Dresden, and lias already composed six operas. He is the son of the founder or the Dresden Bank, and after a brief study of law devoted himself altogether to music. His operas have so far met with sufficient success to promise a career for him as a mukician.' One of them, "The Beggar Girl of the Font d'Arts," has been sung in more than thirty opera houses.

In "A Waltz Dream," to be presented after "The Dollar Princess" by J. C. Williamson's Company, the English comedian, Mr Langford Kirby, will appear. It was under Oscar Strauss's own conductorship that Mr Kirby' appeared in the original production in London, so he has had the benefit of the compoeer's personal oversight. " I think," says Mr Kirby, "he is quite the best composer of tins school of comic opera. Whether his work is a success or failure, he won't alter a note; in fact, when the p.iay was produced in London he absolutely refused to _' cut' a single note. On the opening night in London ho wielded the baton himself. After that Andrew MacCunn, now conducting for the Royal Comic Opera Company in Sydney, took control. The piece ran for five months in London."

W. S. Percv tells a story of how lie underwent "The Rest dire." Somewhere in the wilds of New Zealand Percy sojourned with a farmer, and his wife—the object being to be away from the madding crowd, to get a wellearned rest. The first day the farmer asked the run-down comedian if he would get the water. This seemed a simple proposition, and Percy joyfully assented. After three days of 'carrying two buckets and a yoke half a mile and back four times a day, Percy concluded that the job was too strenuous —and was about to resign when the rain came in torrents. '' Thank heaven," said the weary one—the tank will be full. With this fervid exclamation the ex-drawer of water went to bed. Before daylight next morning the farmer shook him. " Get up, Billy, and fetch the water." " Great Scott!" said the astonished W.S.P., " isn't the tank full?" "No," replied the farmer, " we forgot to turn the tap off." * * Since lie produced " The Belle of New York" in Australia some years ago, Mr Gerard Coventry has been responsible for many of the most successful of the lyric stage pieces, and the brilliant series of J. C. Williamson pantomimes also had the advantage of his experienced hand at the helm to steer them to popularity and success. During his Australian theatrical career Mr Coventry has helped many a crude stage aspirant up the ladder to a prominent position, and many present-day leading artists owe much of their early training to " the prince of stage producers. ' Such being the case, it is only natural, in view of the fact that Mr Coventry is leaving Australia for good in May, the theatrical profession should wish to give him a hearty sendoff. Accordingly a big combined benefit is being organised to be held at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, on May 9, and members of every company then in Melbourne will take part.

# # # Rangiuia, the Maori songster,- has been delighting Anierica.ii society in Paris, according to a Paris cablegram of Januarv 7, which appeared in the New York '"Herald." The cable was as follows:—Maori songs euiig in native costume are the latest fad of American society in Paris. Twice this week Rangia, a Maori chief, has been the star attraction at entertainments given by Americans. He made a sensation. Rangia is a big, square-should-ered Maori with copper-coloured, skin, black bushy hair and thick red lips. In his native costume, which leaves the legs bare to the knees, he looked the typical savage, although, as a matter of fact, he is highly accomplished and familiar with i?he graces or European civilisation. The chief first appeared: at a reception given by Mrs Frank H. Mason, the wife of the American consul general here, at which the principal members of the American colony were present. Accompanied, by a harp, Rangia sang several of h'is native songs, weird, plaintive, melodies-, that produced a noticeable effect on his audience. Two days afterwards Rangia repeated his success a!; the Lyceum club, an organisation of women.

A striking instance of the realism which marks present-day dramatic productions is furnished in "Via Wireless," the new play whk-h has followed "The Whip" at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney. There are several very remarkable scenes in the new piece, possibly the most interesting being the wireless room on a big ocean liner. There is no make-believe about the plant used in this scene, for it was installed specially by the Australasian Wireless Company, Limited, and is the real thing. Another very novel scena i=s that of a huge foundry showing the casting of a nine-inch gun. The effect of immensity in this picture is cleverly achieved by careful attention to perspective and,other details which mark the difference between a finished scenic artist and a mere dabbler with the brush. The wreck of the steam yacht and the rescue of the survivors and the final break-up of the disabled vessel is a highly-oxicting incident. The play itself also is one well calculated to keep an audience intensely interested throughout. "Via Wireless" will probably be played in New Zealand later on.

It is not generally known that Mr Bert- Gilbert, a, comedian with a perennial tap of deliciously original humour, is an export mountaineer, having climbed Mont Blanc, and achieved the forbidding Mattorhorn itself on one occasion. At any rate, Charles Berkeley says he did. The best of bis mountaineering tales is this one:—A year or two ago m South America, Gilbert was playing a starring engagement in comic opera, and during a short vacation arranged for an ascent of Cotopexi. When several hundred feet up the party, which consisted of several members of the company, including Mr Gilbert, some Mexican friends and the guides, were suddenly overtaken by the malignant and dreaded cirrosco, a blizzard of a particularly violent nature. The further ascent was. hurriedly abandoned, shelter being found in a rickety shack of an inn in a lonely defile on the moun-tain-side. Within were found some halfdozen evil-looking persons. These, learning that some of the party were actors, suggested that they 'should forthwith make el teatro, the suggestion taking something of the nature of a demand. Needs must when a brigand drives; so Mr Gilbert and his uncomfortable compatriots, with the help of two trestle tables and an accompaniment whistled by one of the company by way of orchestra, from end to end perpetrated the operetta of "Box and Cox." "That was the most anxious first night," remarked Mr Gilbert, " that I ever remember." What the Mexicans were doing in Ecuador MiGilbert himself must explain.