MUSIC AND DRAMA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue VII, 16 August 1902, Page 408

MUSIC AND DRAMA.

“The Messenger Boy,” which the Pollards put on for a fairly long run in Wellington, did very good business all things considered.

Mr < hae’es Carter, who. as already announced, leaves the Pollard Opera Company at- the conclusion of the Auckland season, will give several concerts in New Zealand before proceeding to the Old Country to study. These should prove attractive to the public and highly remunerative to Mr Carter, who has a host of friends, and well-deserved admirers all over the colony.

We are extremely gratified to be able to announce to our readers that Jean Gerardy, the famous violoncellist, or, as he is justly named by the .Melbourne “Argus’” critic, “Absolutely and beyond contradiction the greatest living ’cellist,” is returning to Auckland on Monday next from Sydney, and commences a short, series of three concerts at the Choral Hall, Auckland, on Wednesday, 20th inst., and thereafter this distinguished artist visits in turn New Plymouth, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Wellington and the South Island. Not only will great interest centre in Gerardy’s famous performances, but there will be additional factors, which should ensure a successful season, viz., the first appearance of Miss Electa Gifford, a highly-cultured soprano, who was prima donna at the Royal Grand Opera, Amsterdam, last year, filling leading roles with great success. Iler range is phenomenal, as she can easily take G in alto. G. Galston, the pianist, is spoken of in most glowing terms by the Amsterdam press. Mr. John 11. Tait, the manager, arrived by the. Waihora on Monday. The box plan for the season opens on Saturday at Wildman, Lyell & Arey's.

Quite beside the fact that she does come out under generous terms from Manager .Musgrove, when all is said, Mei ba makes a big financial sacrifice to visit her native land. Her recent triumphal rentree at Covent Garden in “Rigoletto” shows that, if she felt that way. she might have filled in the time she will spend out here in engagements at.a far higher rate than she will ever get in Australia. The

trip means three months of idleness on the water. Furthermore, she will lose all private engagement fees, there being few, if any, in Australia who would or could disgorge her ordinary fee for attending a musical “at home”; yet a big proportion- of her income comes from that source, as is proved by her agents lately announcing that she is already engaged for sixteen big musical “at homes” in London at 600 guineas a time. In each case the host is a millionaire, local or imported, and members of the Royal family will be present—and the

advertisement resulting from being reported ,on in such company is one which even Melba would not sneeze at. Nellie Melba is not coming out here to make herself richer, says the “Bulletin.” In Melbourne, at any rate, she will spend a lot of money.

Cinqnevalli is, with all his strength, a model of grace and symmetry. There is no balloon-like muscular development: the limbs are smooth and graceful as a woman's. His is the strength of the panther—lithe, quick, sure-—rather than of the

bull. The cannon-ball act, in which Cinqnevalli makes a heavy hall of iron play around his arms and torso, as ,’ightljr as will-o’-the-wisp around a marsh, is a marvel of agility as well as of strength. The cannonball runs from arm to arm. around the chest and the back, propelled by the muscles, with swift certainty—

never :i mistake, never too much or too little effort. Since reaching Syd-

from a knee-trouble, necessitating the care of a doctor and a masseur, but he doesn't let this interfere with his act. nor with journeyings to the homes of Italian compatriots, who provide in his honour “mneearoni suppers.” He can never resist the temptation of “mnccaroni cooked by

Italians,” says “Cinque,” “and nobody else knows how to cook it.” The" critics cannot agree about “Iris," Pinero's latest play of the woman with a past. Most of tlq- Sydney papers damn it with faint praite, and all seem to agree that, good or bad, artistic or inartistic, play-goers have had about enough of the “lady with a past.” The “Bulletin,” always “agin” everyone else, admires “Iris.” It says:—The new Pinero play’ of “Iris,” staged at Sydney Royal on Saturday, is a great.work. As a tragedy- it even “lays over” “Mrs Tanqueray.” If it had struck Australia in a less stony’ day- and impecunious generation it would be a. notable financial su< ee«i for even Pinero

never constructed a story on more artistic lines. The whole Brough co. shows up well in “Iris.” Miss Temple and Leslie Victor and some other highly- deserving people may- be mentioned at greater length next week. Many tears were shed over “Iris” on Saturday night, and with anything like good management there should be a bitter pulpit controversy over it, and it should be severely' spoken of by the church. There is a moral in it somewhere; still, the solicitor gets away with the money, and Iris, if she went quite straight in the first place, would only inherit a log cabin in British Columbia; and the wages of sin are an elegantly furnished flat; and it is indirectly- the lady’s better nature which leads to her becoming an outcast; and it is indirectly Maldonado's desire to undo the evil he has done which leads him fo. become an embittered furniture-breaker and to drive the heroine into the street.

This very- latest stage dog story is from Norway, and is related by a correspondent of the “Pall Mall Gazette”: For the last two or three months a grey Laplander dog has been observed on the steps of the National Theatre in Christiana. He was chased away- day- after 'day, but always appeared again the' next morning, and begged for admission to rehearsal. Finally, the actors thinking it a pity that such enthusiasm should be denied a chance, arranged to send the dog to Copenhagen to complete Its artistic education. But “Graata-ss” (grey naw) managed to slip ashore from the steamer, and was at his usual post the next morning. After this it was determined to give him a part, and he duly appeared the other evening as the lapdog in. the fourth act of Heiberg’s “Tinker Politician.”