AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XX, Issue 1118, 14 September 1911, Page 19

AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

(From Our Melbourne and Sydney Correspondents.'

The H. B. Irving season at Her Majesty’s, Melbourne, is attracting all the best of Melbourne playgoers, who sit intent upon the actor’s masterly reading of “Hamlet,” a reading distinguished as it is by a fine scholarly treatment, combined with that charm of personality that lights up the whole interpretation.

An indication of the attention the Melba Grand Opera season is attracting in the musical world was given during last week, when a representative of a leading Paris newspaper called on the J. C. Williamson management in Sydney with a letter from his stating that he had been sent to Australia specially to report the enterprise. The presence in Australia of so many operatic artists of distinction it was added, made the occasion one of world-wide interest.

Signor Angelini, the maestro of the Melba Grand Opera Company, has not yet mastered our colloquial English. Some quaint phrasing results from his attempts. A week after his return from Melbourne he remarked, “I caught a cold when I was in Melbourne,, and it is with me already.”

The members of “The Whip” Company, who finish a continuously popular tour of Australia in West Australia next month, are already planning holiday trips on their way home. Mr and Mrs Blackall (Miss Evelyn Kerry) are anticipating a week in Paris before getting home at Xmas, while Miss Fyfe Alexander, who has not seen her people for six years, meets them at Port Said, and goes with them for a season to Cairo. Mr and Mrs Manning return to the Eastern States, while Mr Atwill contemplates the realisation of a long cherished ambition to tour America.

Mr E. T. Steyne is now in the thick of what he describes as “a pipe cleaner” for the pantomime—rehearsing the New Comic Opera Company for “The Girl in the Train” —a very dainty and delightful comedy ■opera, which is to be produced at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney, early in November.

Mr H. B. Irving is never tired of singing the praises of Australian audiences. He told them how charming he found them on his last night in Sydney. He repeated those remarks in the speech he made on his opening

night in Melbourne, and he has been yelling the sam© thing to interviewers in both cities. “I find them so alert,” he says, “so quick to grasp a point, and so appreciative. They like humor, too, and action and movement.”

A special professional matinee was given at the Criterion Theatre, Sydney. by Mr Joseph Biascheck and Miss Mildred Wrighton, who, under the William Anderson management, are appearing in that city with remarkable success in their delightfully original entertainment, “Society SnapShots.” All the leading members of the theatrical and musical professions attended, and the enthusiasm was extraordinary. These accomplished artistes ar© to visit some of the principal towns in New South Wales and Victoria, and will pay a return visit of four weeks to Melbourne, opening on Saturday, October Ist, before commencing their tour of New Zealand.

East Saturday wag a very memorable night in Sydney. Before eight o’clock it was estimated that nearly eight hundred motors had drawn up at Her Majesty’s Theatre. The auditorium was ablaze with jewels, so that the foreign artists of the Melba Grand Opera Company said that for . splendour of dressing they might have been in one of the great theatres of the Continent. There has never been such excitement in an Australian theatre, such an air of expectancy, or such a remarkable realisation of anticipation concerning the artists who appeared. It was a gala cast, Madame Melba and Mr John McCormack heading the list of artists, as Violetta and Alfredo in “La Traviata.” Out of compliment to Madame Melba, principal artists appeared in small parts. Since the previous Monday evening, seats for the opening night had been booked in the circle and stalls at £1 Is, and the gallery sold at 7s 6d a seat. The audience was really representative of Australia, people being there from all the States. The booking for the whole of the first week was extremely heavy. The strength of the various casts was shown in the fact that fourteen big artists made their debut in six performances, while several other important stars were held in reserve for the second week.