Music and Drama

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue IV, 27 January 1900, Page 175

Music and Drama

Sensational melodrama, with realistic scenery and appointments, reigns supreme in the Auckland Opera House where Bland Holt rightly draws tears and smiles alternately from full houses “How London Lives,” which replaced “White Heather” on Wednesday of last week and ran till Saturday, was a drama with the same motif, virtue v. villainy, which formsthe vertebrae of Mr Holt’s pieces. On Monday last it made way for "New Babylon,’ a piece singularly rich in its stage effects and of absorbing interest. It is packed with sensational incident, and startling situations and gives scope for a good deal of strong acting. Moreover, it is well cast on the present occasion, all the leading roles finding finished interpreters in the company. For clever scenic effect nothing that Bland Holt has put on the stage can exceed the shipwreck scene in “New Babylon.” It is wonderfully realistic. Other excellent stage pictures are the cattle show, into which live bullocks, horses and sheep are introduced, and the Covent Garden fete. The Pollards are said to be well satisfied with the success attending their production of “The Geisha" in Wellington. There is a probability that the company will make a tour of Australia in the near future. Miss Nellie Stewart's father, who has been away from Australia for the last twenty years, is now treasurer for Mr J. C. Williamson at the Theatre Royal, Sydney. The Gaiety Company, notwithstanding Bland Holt in Auckland, does not lack patronage. Mr Howard Chambers is down for two songs nightly at the Palace, Sydney, and seems to enjoy a certain popularity. The company. Harry Rickard’s Variety, has now gone over to the Criterion, and will remain there till the opening of the Tivoli on Easter Saturday, April 11th

After closing his season in Auckland on the 29th inst., Mr Rowley will take his waxworks show to the Thames, and later he intends to visit the Paris Exhibition. A special matinee is announced for Saturday. Mr M. Marcus, the well-known theatrical agent, has been permanently engaged by Mr Harry Rickards, and’ will probably act as resident manager of the Adelaide Bijou. Mr Walter Bentley, who has recently been playing "David Garrick" in the Criterion, Sydney, with great success, is meditating the formation of a company of his own. A drama called “The Absent Minded Beggar” was produced at the London Princess Theatre in November last, and the entire proceeds from the first performance given to the War Soldiers' Fund. The honour of opening the new Municipal Opera House, Wanganui, on the Sth of next month, will rest with Bland Holt. The theatre is certainly one to be proud of. being capable of seating 1023 persons, but the question is how can Wanganui hope to fill or even half fill it? Mr Edwin Geacli is reported to have cabled to Mr Winston Churchill on behalf of a Melbourne syndicate offerering the intrepid war correspondent £2OO a week for a lecturing tour in the Australasian colonies. Mr Churchill, 'however, replied that he was unable to visit the colonies. The Broughs brought their Christchurch season to a close on Wednesday last, the ever green “Niobe" being t'he final piece staged. The Company has had splendid audiences in the City of t'he Plains, where its high-class repertoire and finished acting have elicited loud encomiums. A London writer says of Sullivan's music to “The Absent-minded Beggar”:—T'he setting is worthy of the poem and the subject, than which there can be no higher praise, and it will be surprising if the edition of 75,000 copies is not speedily snapped up. Messrs Enoch and Son. the famous music publishers of Great Marlborough Street W.. have borne the

whole cost of preparing and bringing out this edition, and the proceeds will, without deduction of any kind, be handed over for the relief of the wives and children of the men serving in South Africa. The priee is a shilling a copy, and the addition means an addition of £3750 to the "Daily Mail” Fund. There is no discount to the trade, and no professional copies. The song was written for a special object, the music was composed for a special object, and to that special object every penny of t'he proceeds will goMr Alfred Dampier was fortunate in his choice of a play when he staged "Briton and Boer." a dramatisation of Rider Haggard's "Jess,” for anything touching on the subject of the war cannot fail to take at the present moment. Miss Rosie Rees of Gisborne, was one of the chosen three of the pupils who had their voices tried before Mr J. C. Williamson with a view to their future engagement in one of his companies. “Sherlock Holmes" has been dramatised over in America, and is said to be a performance literally of lights and darkness. Mr Gillette was always a dramatist of peculiar originality, but the effects in this play of his and Dr. Doyle’s it is said catch people by the throat and keep them breathless. The great scene is one of a diabolically ingenious atempt upon Holmes' life. Entrapped in a desolate old house, and hemmed in by a band of bloodthirsty villains, the detective is put to it to save hts own and the heroine’s lives. His plan has the simplicity of genius. By smashing the solitary lamp, he plunges the great room into pitch darkness. One glimmer of light only can be seen; the red glow of his cigar. At this the ruffians make a dash. It is seen disappearing; they rush for it; a melee ensues; a light is struck; and it is seen that under the cover of the darkness Holmes has fixed his glowing cigar in a cranny in the wall, and, while his assailants have been mauling one another in the confusion, has gained the door and locked it on them. Further

capital is made of novel effects in lighting, at the beginning and close of every act. Instead of the customary ascending and descending curtain, crude reminder that it is all merely a play, the lights die down to darkness, and gradually rise again to disclose either a scene which grows upon the vision by degrees, or the theatre with the curtain once more down. The great London pantomime at Drury Lane in which Nellie Stewart plays’ principal boy. has three great spectacles, which bring the whole pantomime to a close, the Inventions of the Century; the finale to the first part, the Apotheosis of Music, and the scene of the Markets. They are mentioned in the order of their importance. The first shows the four great master developments of our age —• Locomotion. Transmission —the posts ami telegraphs, for instance; the Application of Electricity and Photography: nt the end there is a gorgeous series of tableau', illustrating the forces and methods which have made the Empire great. The second is not an attempt fantastically to reproduce in costume the shapes of musical instruments, but presents a pageant of music of ail ages and .ill climes, from the pastoral pipes of early days to the Wagnerian combinations to-day; in fanciful designs the groups, processions and ballets indicate the music asociated with the development of musical instruments, appropriate to the time of their invention, and to the countries where they are in vogue. The last mentioned great show scene presents the three great food markets, meat, fish and vegetables and flowers, with costumes and effects symbolising the good things on sale in them. There is also a juvenile Transvaal campaign, soldiers. Maxims, horses and ail. In this wonderful pantomime there will also be a ballet of wines.