AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XX, Issue 1126, 9 November 1911, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

(From Our Sydney and Melbourne

Correspondents.)

There is an uproariously funny scene in "The Swiss Express,” to be featured in the J. C. Williamson, Clarke and Meynell production at Melbourne princess’s. It takes piace in a sleeping car on the railway, and resembles a farce with a strong dash of the harlequinade thrown in. The acrobatic members of the company play a prominent part in this, and as the car is a "trick” one and collapses, the adven" tures that overtake the honeymoon couple on board, and the ocher passengers, may be imagined.

Preparations are already being made by the J. C. Williamson, Clarke and Meynell management for the forthcoming production in Melbourne of the morality play, “Every woman,” in which Hilda Spong is to star in the name-part. The cast will be made up of English, American, and Australian artists, and as the piece calls for lavish staging and mounting, and the mot-

if and construction of the play itself are striking, the production ought to be a notable one.

Ethel Irving created a profound impression in Adelaide, where her acting came as a-• revelation to playgoers. “The listeners,” said one paper, “hung on her accents with breathless attention, and not one of those who saw her could call to mind anyone else who could have imbued the character with a more impressive spirit of truth and reality.”

“The Chocolate Soldier” has captivated Sydney audiences, the opera, which was staged at Her Majesty’s last Saturday night, 28th, being considered one of the most notable productions of the kind ever placed on the stage in Sydney. Miss Winifred O’Connor achieved a triumph as Nadina, and each of the other artists shared in the success of the opera. The eagerness and enthusiasm of Melbourne playgoers was again manifest in connection with the opening of the booking for the first week of the Melba Grand Opera season at Her Majesty’s Theatre. It was announced that numbered coupons would be given out at an early hour on Monday morning, and that at 8 3'o a.m. the marking off of seats would commence. At 10 30 on Sunday night, however, the firs, arrivals put in an appearance. At daylight, a large crowd was assembled, and at half-past-five o’clock the crowd was so large that a commencement was made with the distribution of coupons.

H. B. Irving in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” amazed Melbourne playgoers and thrilled them as they had never been before. Many of the ladies in the audience screamed when the fiendish Hyde, with the spring of a wild beast, sprang upon- the shoulders of Sir Danvers Carew, and bearing him to the ground, strangled him with his hands that resembled talons of a vulture. Mr Irving’s agility was amazing. As one of the papers remarked, “his alertness would be creditable to a professional acrobat. ’ When he sprang on to the bed like a kangaroo, a murmur of wonderment went right round the house. Mr Irving’s wonderfully quick change from Jekyll to Hyde, or vice versa, staggered the beholders. It was done in a flash, and took but a second. Never have the great actor’s versatility and varied powers been more clearly demonstrated.

It is interesting to note that Miss Mildred Wrighton, a charming singer and entertainer whose delightful songs at the piano are a popular feature of the “Society Snap Shots” entertainment, is a daughter of the well known composer, W. T. Wrighton, who was responsible for such popular songs as “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still,’' “Thy Voice Is Near, ’ “Bright Star Of Eve” and several popular ballads. Miss Wrighton has written and composed several pretty songs which are included in Mr Biascheck’s delightful entertainment and sung by Miss Wrighton.

Many people imagine that Madame Melba has an easy time in connection with the grand opera season, and that her labours are confined to her performances on the stage. They are entirely mistaken. Madame Melba has the reputation at Covent. Garden, London, of being a hard and sincere worker, and those associated with her in the present opera season know the truth of this. Promptly at 10 o’clock each morning she arrives at the theatre, where she daily remains until rehearsals are over, sometimes until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. No amount of trouble is too much for her. She supervises every detail, consulting with the stage directors on all points of the productions. When material for the stage is wanted Madame Melba visits the 'shops and makes the purchases. For the supper scene in “La Traviata” she went to one of the wholesale houses and hired nearly £lOOO worth of silver for the tables, and even went Bo far as to arrange the flowers. The Diva’s enthusiasm carries all before her, and there is not a man about the theatre who would not go to any

length to accomplish the artistic results for which she strives in all the operas. » « • » For two and a-half years, Leslie Gaze, who plays the whimsical Bumerli in “The Chocolate Soldier, ’ now at Sydney Her Majesty’s, ran a musical comedy company of his own.

“It was very nice to see my name on the top of the bills as sole proprietor, ’ he says, “and sometimes there was the more material satisfaction of making money, but there was too much worry in it. Many a night while I was in the midst of a love duet my manager was in the Wings waiting to tell me that something or other had gone wrong, or to give me the dampening news contained in the amount taken th a night.. On one occasion the who.e of the scenery went astray, and we had to borrow some back-cloths and anything else we could fake up in order to give the performance. No, the lot of the ‘sole proprietor’ is not a happy one when touring in the English provinces;’’

There are four acts in “The Swiss Express.” The first takes place at Boulogne-sur-Mer; the second on the Swiss Express; the third on the Alps; the fourth, at the Black Bear Inn, Chamounix, Switzerland. The scenery has been painted by J. F. Hogg from the original models . sent out by the Renads, the present owners of the rights and patents of the production.

a good story is told in America concerning John McCormack, the Irish tenor, who has already proved so popular a star of the Melba Grand Opera Company. Short.y after his debut at the Manhattan Opera House, Arthur an Italian barber, who was a great partisan of Caruso. Hammerstein asked the barber what he thought of McCormack. “He’s a fine singer, but a man who had been waiting to be shaved jumped up, and, in abroad brogue, retorted that the Italian did not know what he was talking about. The Irishman was out for a fight, and, moreover, looked as if he could whip the whole shop, and incidentally smash up everything in the way of fittings. Hammerstein endeavoured to throw oil on troubled waters by mildly suggesting that the two tenors were of different type, McCormack being a lyric and Caruso a dramatic tenor. At this the son of Erin became more volent than ever. . “I don’t care,” roared he, “what kind of tenor Johnny McCormick is. I only know that he can sing like hell!” Hammerstein, thinking discretion the better part of valor, quietly withdrew and allowed the Italian and Irishman to end the argument as best they could.