ART AND ARTISTS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 10, 11 March 1893, Page 224

ART AND ARTISTS

PROBABLY no composer is a greater favourite with the majoiity of lovers of light music than Sir

Arthur Sullivan, whose masterpiece, ‘ The Gondoliers,’is to be played through New Zealand by the Juveniles, whose season has commenced with such signal success in Auckland. Sir Arthur's health has long given his friends grave anxiety, and now though out of danger, and even hard at work, he is far from robust. In our picture he looks as strong a subject as a Life Insurance officer could desire, but Sir Arthur has not been taken since his last ill-

ness, and our engraving is taken from a photograph taken in his prime. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding which caused the celebrated pair to break a partnership which delighted the world. It scarcely seems natural to hear of an opera by Sullivan with the libretto by any other man than Gilbert, and we sigh when we think of Gilbert’s exquisite wit being wedded to other music than that of Sullivan. The pair have, we were told some time back, • made it up,’ but as yet there are no signs of an opera from their hands. In the words of a once much-sung comic song we would say—‘ let it be soon.’

The juveniles now touring New Zealand are really exceedingly clever. They act with infinitely more verve and abandon than their elders, and never attempt liberties with the public as some favourites of burlesque and comic opera are apt to do on occasions. If it be true that to laugh is to grow fat, then verily the inhabitants of the capitals who patronise the Liliputians in ‘ Aladdin ’ will wax exceedingly obese.

In the course of a recent lecture to the Playgoers’ Club on ‘ The Drama and the Emotions,’ Mr J. T. Grein made a remarkable statement and expressed an interesting opinion respecting the marriages of actors with actresses. The statement was that in England there was an exceptional number of early and unhappy marriages in the theatrical profession, and the opinion that this was caused by young actors and actresses having for nights in succession to play love scenes together. Some well-known actors and actresses having been asked their opinion, we give that of the Savoy favourite, Miss Jessie Bond, who thinks the circumstance alluded toby Mr Grein tells rather against than in favour of the theory he propounded. ‘lt is not within my knowledge,’ she says, ‘ that more unhappy marriages occur in the ranks of the theatrical than in any other profession, or that meeting on the stage is to a greater extent responsible for marriage in haste and repentance at leisure than meeting elsewhere.

* I am rather disposed to think that actors and actresses see so much of each other’s failings that, coupled with a knowledge of the precarious nature of all theatrical incomes, they, as a rule, exercise greater caution than the majority of people.’ In qualification of this, however, Miss Bond thinks it necessary to add : * I am thinking only of the professional actor and actress to whom the stage is a business, and not of those who adopt it as an amusement, or a means of temporary freedom from parental restraint.’

In this view of the matter the heroine of comic opera is supported by the hero of the melodrama, Mr Warner is of opinion that • in most cases of love-making on the stage it is looked upon as purely a matter of business. Doubtless there are exceptional cases, but the marriage of actors and actresses are mostly happy. I take Mr and Mrs Kendal, playing lovers, and having a long life of manied happiness, Mr and Mrs Edwaid Compton, Mr and Mrs Pateman, Mr and Mrs Macklin, Mr Thorne and his much lamented wife, Mr and Mrs F. Terry, Mr and Mrs Edward Teny. I don’t know whether the last-named pair played lovers on the stage in early life, but they have played them for many years off the stage. And I could mention many similar coses of married happiness on the stage. ’