AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XX, Issue 1120, 28 September 1911, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

(From Our Sydney and Melbourne Correspondents )

Melbourne Opera lovers are not losing any time or taking risks with regard to their chances of obtaining seats for the Melba Grand Opera season. Applications are poui ing in, though no announcement has been made regarding the opening date or the booking arrangements. So keen is the interest being taken m this event, however, that the applications for seats cover not only the first night productions but many other performances. One enthusiast has booked seats for every night of the season and enclosed his cheque ‘to

make sure of getting them,” as he puts it. Another patron asked for seats for the entire season to the number of eighty. There is every indication that the Melba season of Grand Opera in Melbourne will put up something startling in the way of Australian theatrical records.

After what might he called his “straight” performance in “Hamlet,” Sydney audiences were amazed at Mr. H. B. Irving’s remarkable character acting in two roles in “The Lyon’s Mail-” All Sydney talked about it and after seeing it, went to see it again. “He revealed himself in a new light,” said a Sydney paper, “that of an actor of great personal resource and extraordinary versatility. It

seemed hardly credible that the man who one moment personated the generous, sensitive, high-minded Lesurques, should be able, almost in the next instant, to identify himself wholly with the saturnine Dubose, callous and coldly cruel —a human wolf. No one save an actor of the highest ability and intellectual discernment could hope to successfully undertake these two personalities—widely apart as they are. To say that Mr. Irving succeeds is but to mildly express the measure of his remarkable and memorable performance.

After a record season at The King’s Theatre, Melbourne, Walter Baker and Frances Ross, ably supported by other representatives of the William Anderson Dramatic Company, will open a summer campaign of New Zealand at Auckland on October 23rd, under the direction of Mr. G. D. Porteous.

During her season in Sydney in the part of Glory Quayle in “ The Christian” Miss Eugenie Duggan aroused great enthusiasm by her splendid interpretation of the difficult role, the press and public being unanimous in their praise of her fine work.

“Struck Oil” retained its universal popularity over all other domestic dramas, and with Miss Maggie Moore, “the ever green,” as Lizzie, and Mr. H. R. Roberts as John Stofel its fortunes will always endure. On Saturday night these two favourites were accorded a magnificent reception at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, from a huge audience, and at the conclusion of a splendid performance a burst of enthusiastic applause and the presentation of some beautiful flowers proclaimed this last revival a triumphant success.

“Why do you do the things you do do?” is the catchy title of a new chorus song which Mr. Joseph Biascheck has just written and composed, and which will be sung in all the principal pantomimes in the United Kingdom this year. It will be seen that for topical illusion the song will lend itself admirably to a free treatment by the comedian at ’Xmas time, and the beauty of the song is that the chorus can be immediately committed to memory without any effort, and the refrain is. a most haunting one. Mr. Joseph Biascheck and Miss Mildred Wrighton, who have just concluded a season of over four weeks in Sydney with their delightful entertainment, “Society Snapshots,” to packed and enthusiastic audiences, could easily have continued their performance for a couple of months longer to splendid business, but, unfortunately, it was found impossible to secure a hall or theatre.

Edmund Burke, as Mephistopheles in “ Faust,” evidently took his cue for the reading of the part from “Hamlet” when he says he will smile and be a villain. The big Irish basso of the Melba Grand Opera Company does not assume the traditional sardonic expression. He seems to glory in the business on hand. Schopenhauer remarked that the devil to be able to tempt anyone should be attractive. Mr. Burke smiles through his part, and wins all to his way by

presenting evil in its most alluring guise. He does not look Unhappy or uncomfortable about it himself- Mr. Burke’s original reading of the part and his magnificent singing have made a deep impression on Sydney playgoers.

American papers print humorous columns of descriptive matter regarding the flying visit to New York made by Mr. J. C. Williamson on his way through to England. Long lost relatives and old friends popped up everywhere and each one “unfolded a little tale.” The New York “Telegraph” puts it in this way:—“ It was all the way from a five dollar note to a little cheque for a hundred, and the game went on right merrily until Mr. Williamson made a dash for the Steamer and escaped. Once securely locked in his stateroom, he initiated a tabulation of his bank roll, and found that his visit to Broadway had cost him in loans of the kind described a sum just short of two thousand dollars. He didn’t miss the money so much but the experience was monotonous and towards the last had a tendency to rub the gloss off friendship.

The fact of the version of Hall Caine’s popular novel, “The Christian,” now being played so successfully in Sydney, being written by Mr Roy Redgrave, attaches particular interest to a play which never fails to make a big appeal to Australian playgoers, and the present season in Sydney is being attended with such enormous success that were it possible for the season to be further extended the piece could easily run for several weeks longer.

A departure from the traditional third act —usually an interior —was made in “La Traviata” when the opera was produced by the Melba Grand Opera Company on September 2. The scene was altered to a garden one, its painting being entrusted to Mr John Gordon. The fine breadth of the stage picture was in this artist’s best manner. Another departure from tradition was the death of Violetta. Mme. Melba elected to die in a big arm chair instead of falling on the floor, as is usual. By her treatment of the final moments of Violetta’s life, dignity was given to the scene such as has been curiously absent from the fall of previous prime donne.