Page 4 Advertisements Column 1

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2323, 14 September 1881, Page 4

It ia now within a few months of twenty years ago that Mdlle lima di Murska, then a young Croatian girl of six or Beven and twenty, and a promising pupil of Madame Marchesi, made a tentative debut in Paris, at ' a concert given for a German charity. Quitting Paris at once, she appeared at the Pergola of Florence, and Bubnequently at Barcelona, Hamburg, and Pesth, until, in 1864, she was considered sufficiently a star to dcibuter at the then Koyal Opera of Berlin She, however, received a better offer for Vienna, and there, in August, 1864, she played for the first time her celebrated character of JDinorah. In the following year Mr J. H. Mapleson, on the strong recommendation of Madame Marchesi, offered her an engagement for Her Majesty's Theatre, where, during the first year or two of her CBreer here, she created a furore which bade fair to attain the proportions of a Jenny Lind craze. Mr Mapleaon has especial reason to recollect the successes the Croatian prima donna gained, for she attracted to his theatre more remunerative audiences than, with few exceptions, he has ever had before or since. For some years Mdlle I'ma di Muraka alternated between VienDa, London, and Paris, until about nine years ago, when she began a long tour in the other hemisphere. Those who know Mdlle. lima di Murska only by hearing and seeirjg her at Her Majesty's Theatre last Saturday night should xd fairness bear her previous career in mind. In appearance Mdlle. lima di Murska seemed to have altered little. We saw the same frail figure, the same (or similar) golden tresses.theßameextraordinary " make up," which many of us recollect fourteen or fifteen years ago. If now, at the age of forty-five or thereabouts, and after twenty yearß* hard work on the stage, the once beautiful voice of Mdlle. lima di Murska is not quite eo fresh as it once was, the defect can readily be atoned for by her experience and by those delicate minutits of operatic by-play in which this once distinguished artist contrasts so favorably with the half-trained butterfly debutantes of the present day. The vagaries of Mdlle. lima di Murska have long ago provided food for amusement. Tradition says she once played Dinorah in Hessian boots and a crinolino ; and this would not have been more absurd than when, on Saturday, at the heels of a nearly strangled kid, painfully induced acrosH the bridge by means of a string tied round its neck, the half-witted village girl stepped on the stage clad in the prettiest of Watteau costumes, with bare arms and lowneckecl dress, with jawels on her fingers, blue silk stockings on her legs, and dark blue satin dancing shoes on her feet. These are umocg the incongruities of operatic stage life. Signor Bunico made an excellent Oorentino, a part once identified here with the name of Signor Gardoni ; while Signer Galaaai was the Hoel. On Tuesday " JLa Favorita," and on Thursday " Aida," were announced for repetition.