ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1910, 8 April 1880, Page 3

ART, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

[English Eilos.J The new extravaganza by Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, entitled “ The Pirates of Penzance ; or, Love and Duty,” was announced to be performed on Tuesday by one of Mr D’Oyly Carte’s travelling companies at the Paignton Theatre, Devon. The representation was, of course, a purely formal one, intended merely to preserve the English copyright, and as the music had only arrived in England the day before, any critics who might have been present could hardly have formed an adequate idea of its worth. However, we are that the new extravagapza, is a skit, first, upon sure melodrama, and secondly, upon the sensational novels published in the columns of the penny dreadfuls. .In Mr Gilbert’s hands, we are told, the pirates are divested of their character for ferocity, and are depicted as the mildest and most inoffensive creatures under the sun. A nurse Ruth receives the dying charge of a man to bring up his son Frederick, and apprentice him to a pilot. The nurse mistakes the word, and, according to Mr Gilbert, instead, apprentices him to a pirate. The apprenticeship is just over, and the youth, who detests his wicked calling, declares his intention of effecting the dispersion of the band directly he is a free man. The nurse, too. discloses her love for him, and proposes marriage, a blessing the young man declines ; n consequence of the disparity of their ages. 3y and by there arrive at the cave the mmerous daughters of a certain Majorgeneral, one of them, Grace, instantly falling n love with the young man after the fashion )f the heroines in work girl literature. The urates, returning, fall in love with the rest of he daughters of the Major-General, and that worthy extricates them from their position by ieolaring he is an orphan : a being whom, we ire told, a pirate respects. In the next act we find the Major-General, overcome with remorse at having been guilty of the fearful -rime of a lie, going nightly to a ruined jhapel to give vent to his grief. The young man, too, is informed by the rejected nurse hat, as he was born on the 29th of February, be can only have a birthday every four years, md that he does not attain his majority until 1940. He is, therefore, told he must return to his pirate life. The pirates now enter to punish the Major-General for having told a lie, and defeat a body of police who have been sent to capture them. They, however, surrender at hearing the magic name of Queen Victoria, and as they declare themselves to be “nearly all” noblemen in disguise, they pair off with the Major-General’s daughters. Frederick pairs off with Grace, and, of course, the Major-General with the nurse. The artists at the Fifth Avenue Theatre declare that the book is full of fun, and that Mr Sullivan’s music is far more pretentious than any he has yet given us in comic opera. How for these predictions will be fulfilled will be seen in about a fortnight’s time, when the criticisms of the American press reach us. It is hoped that the piece will run at the Fifth Avenue till February; but before that we hope to hear it at the London Opera Oomique. Mr George Agustus Sala gave a lecture on December 20th at Ohickering Hall on “ The Shows I Have Seen.” The lecture comprised brief but graphic word pictures of most of the leading pageants which the world has seen between 1838 and 1879, including the coronation of Queen Victoria, the burial of the great Duke of Wellington, of Prince Albert, of Napoleon 111., and the Prince Imperial : the marriages of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught, the coronation of Alexander 11. of Russia, the proclamation of the Turkish constitution, besides four French revolutions —18-13-1870—and the entry of the Italian troops into Rome and Venice. Mr Sala, says the “ Herald,” “ gave his best thoughts and happiest experiences, gathered during the many years of his journalistic career as a special correspondent for a great English daily paper. Mr Sala is the rarest of scene-painters in words, the rarest of storytellers, and the prince of English journalists.” Mr Stephen Massett, who has now begun the eleventh year of his readings, has, I am told, been delighting Sir Bartlo and Lady Frere, and other warriors of the gown and and sword at Capo Town. The “Cape Times” has published an acrostic on his name, and altogether Jeemes Piper of Piperville may esteem himself a very lucky, even as he has always been a very happy, fellow. According to Gerard von Schmitt, physician and traveller, the plant Mikania guaco possesses medicinal properties very efficacious in the treatment of cancer and allied diseases.