DRAMATIC AND MUSICAL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 12, 25 March 1893, Page 272

DRAMATIC AND MUSICAL.

A PRETTY little maiden of thirteen is Miss MayMowbray, the skirt dancer of the Pollard.Liliputian Opera Company, on and off’the stage. ‘I love dancing,’ she told an representative the other day, as she stood in Mrs Pollard’s sittingroom with the tip of her forefinger resting lightly upon her lips. ‘ When the music starts I forget all nervousness, and in the mazy intricacies of the dance enjoy myself. Yes, I do,' with a nod of her curly head and a convincing smile at the Graphic man. Miss Mowbray has been with the Liliputian Company for six months now, having joined them in Melbourne. She was previously with Madame Duvalli, and scored in the Victorian capital a decided success with her graceful shell dance. That she is a good musician goes without saying, for all her actions in the execution of the shell dance bespeak a sympathetic and appreciative sou). Her scholastic and musical studies are not at all neglected, as Mr Pollard makes it a point to superintend these as lie does also those of all the little ladies under his charge.

If Mr E. R. Russell’s prophecy in the January number

of the Nineteenth Century is to be credited, all future Lears will follow Mr Irving’s lead in at least one very important matter —they will indicate Lear’s growing insanity from the very beginning. It was formerly held that, to give variety, and to obtain the immense crescendo needed in so long a play, it was necessary in the first act to represent the king as a perfectly sane, vigorous old gentleman ; but Mr Russell points out the difficulty of reconciling with perfect sanity such an act as the partition of his kingdom, and directs special attention to Kent’s immediate comment : • Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad.’

A valuable collection of manuscripts of Richard Wagner, made by a certain Herr Oestertein, of Vienna, was lately in danger of being sold to America, to the destruction of German research concerning the maestro in question. This peril has now been averted by a certain Dr. Gotze, who has, in the name of the German Wagner Society, bought the whole collection as it stood in June 1 last, for 85,000 marks, 10,000 being paid down as a deposit at once. The remainder Ims to be paid by April 1, 1895, and 5000 marks more if the society please to buy the additions which may be made in the meantime.

In the pantomime • Dick Whittington ’ at the Olympic Theatre, London,anovel effect is now introduced in the Highgate Hill scene in the form of an electrical star screen, faithfully representing the well-known cluster in the constella-

tion of Hercules. On the screen are four hundred EdisonSwan incandescent lamps, run in twenty separate circuits, all being joined] to massive'copper terminal bars at the top of the screen, while each'circuit is fitted with a safety cutout. A NEW DEPARTURE IN THE MUSIC TRADE. We are living in.'an age of cheapness, but the record has certainly been beaten by that enterprising pioneer of music, W. H. Broome, of 15, Holhorn, London, England. We have just received ajcopy of one of his popular series, and for the price, which, by the way, is only 3d., he offers most extraordinary value. The paper and printing.are excellent, in fact, it is absolutely impossible to distinguish between it and a4s piece. Not content with retailing it at this ridiculous figure,;Mr Broome offersjo send a piece of music gratis and post-free to any applicant in order to prove the excellence of his goods, and we should advise our readers to take him at his word.