DRAMATIC NEWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVII, Issue 6505, 2 January 1882, Page 6

DRAMATIC NEWS.

The Pirates, we ere informed, did not go to the West Coast under Mr Cary’s auspices. Xlxoy ate no longer engaged to hiro» ond visited tho Coast on their own account , having first we presume, made some arrangement with their quondam chief for the right to clay the opera. Wo believe the Company is now disbanded. Mr W. Leake writes from Gremouth stating that he has left Beat aud BaoheldorV Minstrels, and is open for engagement as seenid artist. Ho was formerly employed at the Opera House, Mol bourne, and was brother to the late Mias Polly Leake, who recently die.l at Auckland. Mr Leake is at present living at the Post-office Hotel, Qr«ym»ulh. An amusing incident occurred to a member of ttio Christchurch Operatic Association on the jour. 'ey t.t i’i.t,a:u. Mr Davies has Iktoly isi o>o wearing along frock coat, and one of ■the occupant* of the same railway carriage, oo ilio way to Timaru, after evincing a dispo iii iii to be very friendly with "Curly,” thus il.iivorcd himi-ell : “ lou play divinely, sir. 1 hoard you at tho > heat.ro tho other evening, and it must, have taken you many yo .rs to learn the flddlj like that. But how do you pronounce your name—Wilhelm-y or Wilheltn-jay ? ” Tableau! Mdllo. Muriello, Messrs A. J. Campbell, and J. W. Marshall are travelling tho Auckland district under the title " The Munelle Con.ert Company,” with a fair amount of success. Professor Tamburini is but moderately patronised at tho Albert Hall, Auckland. The Montague-Turner Opera Company opened at tho Theatre Royal, Auckland, on Deo. 1, to a full house. Luoia di L'lmmermoor was produced with marked success. The “ Herald,” in concluding its critique of the performance, says:—As a combination of most impressive acting and fico vocalism, we have not had so talented a company for “English” opera since tho Bscott Squires Company which visited this city in 1864.—Signor de Vivo has arrived in Auckland to prepare the way for Herr Wilhelm]'. —On the voyage up to Auckland tho Montague-Turner Opera Company .gave a concert on board the Kotomahana for

the benefit of the Children's Hospital at Auckland,the financial results amounting to £5 Is.— Maaterton was to signalise itself on Boxing Night by the production of a pantomime, written by Mr J. O. Marter, a resident in tho township, tho title being Breams, Fancy and Fan, to which was added the following explanation: "The march of intellect and reason. Te erlio dayes of Maslerton. Xing Rabbit, cat and p'ison, or Harlequin Maori, pigs, potatoes, cooked Ministers, bad laws and unworthy agitators." As there wore about forty characters in the pantomime, its production must have been heavy work for a small town like Masterton. The pantomime was to bo preceded each evening by a short comedy, and the whole of the characters in both pieces were to be .sustained by residents of the town and its vicinity.—Bent and Baohelder's Minstrels are shortly expected to visit the Taranaki district. At latest advices they were doing the inland townships on the West Coast, and, though very unfortunate in tbe matter of

weather, were drawing o tpital houses. —Cary’s Juvenile Opera Troupe were to open at Napier on Monday last. Cary’s Opera Company, were very unfortunate in the weather at Grey mouth, and the season was consequently not a profitable one. The closing performance was given on Dec. 22, when the management took a benefit, and were re* warded for their enterprise by a good house. On Deo. 18 the company gave a sacred concert, which was fairly well patronised.—Mr Leake closed his engagement with Mr De Lias’ Specialty Company on Dec. 23, and on the following night Mr D. £L Harkins took, his place as star. This change was signalised by the production of pti r n a:a^>g ' ml,^p^u ~ XAc? \soConct f which, according to telegraphic advices, proved highly successful. Mr Harkins as Colonel Wootwell W. Wood created a very favourable impression. Cary’s Juvenile Opera Company brought their Wellington season to a close on Deo. 22, and judging from the Press notices, it seems to have been satisfactory alike to the public and the management,—The Invercargill people are sorely having a surfeit of negro minstrelsy. It is not long since Bent and Bachelder’s troupe visited the town, and the Georgias only closed a season at theßoyal on Saturday last, yet Lewis’ Mastodon Minstrels were to open on Monday evening last. They arrived from Melbourne in the Bingarooma on the morning of the day they were to open, and the troupe is said to comprise forty Members. —Herr Wilhelm j opened in Wellington on Monday, and his performances were greeted with deafening applause. Miss Marie Conron and Mr Max Yogrioh also met with flattering marks of appreciation.—Kohler’s Waxworks are now being exhibited in Wellington.—The Williamsons opened in Dunedin on Monday, when Struck Oil was played to an immense bouse. The Princess Theatre was crowded to the doors, money being refused m all parts of the house.—The Zulu War Diorama is being exhibited in Dunedin to capital business.

Wo hare only three days’ news from Sydney, the latest date being Deo. 17. Patience is still running to brilliant houses at the Theatre Eoyal. After the departure of Mrs J. 0. Williamson for New Zealand, Mdlle. Andree Navaro assued the rdle of Lady Jane, but not with the success anticipated. In parti she is exceedingly good, but in others she ex* aggorates the character, and her Trench accent is also against her.—Mr Dampier has made a hit with The Black Flap, at the Gaiety Theatre, and the drama promises to hare a long run.—The Cardens hare proved a total failure at the Opera House, where their season is rapidly drawing to a close.—Mr Grattan Biggs continues to prove a very payable card at the Queen’s. Miss Marian Willis an* nounces her last nights at this house, from which we presume that Mr Eeogh is about to shift his quarters. The attendance at Wilson’s circus shows no decrease, and it is quite problematical how long the circus may remain in Sydney—Mr Arthur Garner was to take a benefit at the Boyal on Deo. 24.—The pantomime at the Boyal was to be Sinhadthe Sailor, in which Messrs Bland Holt, Harry Leston, B. itewart, and 1, L.Hall, the Misses Maggie Oliver, Maggie Stewart, Theresa Horan, and Lena Bdwin, Mr B. M'Lean, Signor Paste, and the Brothers Gonzales were to appear.—During the pantomime at the Boyal Patience is to be played at the Opera House.*—The pantomime at the Queen’s Theatre was to be Blue Beard or the Heathen £%t»es.—Miss Marie Oonron, now with Herr Wilhelmj in Hew Zealand, was announced to appear jat the Melbourne Opera House as Olivette t>t Christmas. There must be a mistake somewhere.

Miss Ward does not appear to be drawing first-class houses at the Theatre Boyal, Adelaide. The lower portions of the building are well patronised, but the circle does not attract so many as could be expected. Miss Ward is, too, only fairly successful in an histrionic sense. Mr Steele is playing the leading male parts, and plays as unevenly as ever—at one time very good, at another quite the reverse, Mr Mus grave is now a member of the company.—The Misses Le Glair have been playing in opera at Portland and Hamilton, "Victoria, with appreciable success.—Dr Lynn is at Oooktown.—Mr Fred Marshall has engaged all the members of his present company for his New Zealand tour,—Mrs B. W, Lawrence has sold her hotel at Ballarat and accepted an engagement with Mr Walter Beynolds at Hobart.—Mr Musgrove, the Melbourne manager, has secured the Australian right of the great Loudon success La Maicotte , which will be produced at the Boyal at the first opportunity.—Mr Cecil Forrester, the mimic vocalist and humorist, has loft Melbourne for Hobart.—Humour has it (says the “ Melbourne Bulletin") that the deed of partnership between Messrs Williamson, Garner and Musgrove, os joint managers of the Theatre* Boyal, Melbourne and Sydney, was signed on Wedneiday. It in, also, said that a very large amount of capital

was subscribed by the partners, ia order to carry on their business in an extensive manner.—Mr Chapman has engaged the Inhibition Building, Melbourne, for a series of grand concert*. FoKßioif Gosaii’. Mrs Soott-Slddons made her reappearance in London on Oot. 26, as Anne Boleyn in a now play bearing the title of Queen and CardimL The piece was a failure, and the “star’s" acting wos criticised unfavourably ia more than one journal. A son of Sir Andrew Lusk, M.P. and

former Major of London, is a member of Forbes Robertson's Company.—Tilly Andrews is suing Maguire, manager of Baldwin's Theatre, Son Francisco, for £2OO for services rendered. Horry Sefton, the " dancing spider," is performing at North Shields.Miss Dolores Drummond (Dolly Green) is starring the English provinces in Single Life. —Mr Hermann Vezin was, at latest date, playing in The Corsican Brothers at Bristol. Mr Kyrle Bellew is a member ot the company.—Mias Alice May is still in the oast of The Bronze Hone at the Alhambra.— Harry Uickards is singing nightly at the Grecian Theatre, and the Oxford Music Hall. — Emilio Melville has been on the stage since she was four years of age. Miss Kate Bamsden, who has recovered from her recent accident, has been offered a re-engagement at the Moscow Theatre for the summer of 1882.—Edwin Booth closed his New York - engagement with Hamlet . —Mr Mapleson'a troupe opened successfully in New York on Oct. 17 with Madame Hauok WartegginXoAejyrretn.—Liszt’s7oth birthday was celebrated by a Liszt concert at the Brighton Aquarium, the only place in England where the anniversary was observed.— M. Planquette, the composer of Lee Cloahet de Corneville, has terminated the first two acts of Rip Bip, a new operetta. It is founded on Bip Van Winkle, and the libretto has been written by Mr H. B. Farnie in collaboration with a Frenoh author. —Signor Bossi was an eye-witness of the assassination of the Czar of Russia. He was the first person to send a despatch announcing tho news, the Frenoh ambassador being the second.—The Meiningen actors, now at Festh, will shortly reach their 1000th performance in foreign theatres, the first having been at Berlin m May 1874. —M. M. Erokmann- Ohatrian’s new piece, Les Bantzau, appears on the stage of the Oomedie Franqaise towards the end of December.-J. K. Emmet will soon produce a new play entitled Fritz among tie Gipsies at Haverley’s Fourteenth street Theatre, New York.—A new Russian pianist, Alltis Kalokowtki, has just made his debit in Germany. —Herr Wkgner has granted Herr Newmann « prolongation of his sole right to perform the Niehelungen Bing in Europe. This extra privilege is intended to allow Herr Newmann to produce it in duo time in Paris.—ildlle de Granville, "the woman with theiron jaw,"isat Woodward's Gardens, San Francisco.—Onzalo is at the Bella Union Theatre, San Francisco.—Mapleson has arranged to produce Wagner's Neibelungen Bing at Her Majesty's Theatre,-London, next May. Wagner himself will superintend tho rehearsals. —Canada has unearthed another child pianist. His name is George Fox, and he is only nine years of age.—Mdile Caroline Salla, who is to play the title rdlei n Ambroits Thomas' Franqoise Bimini, is a daughter of a former secretary of Guizot.—lnducements will be held out to Adelina Patti to get hei and Nicolini to sing at the Cincinnati Musica

Festival next spring. Signor Bossi’s prompter, Luigi Yentura, is said to have completed arrangements for the production in Philadelphia of his new play, Alexandra, —The Hanlon-Lees are all excellent linguists. They all speak German, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. At the Malibran Theatre, in Yenioe, the insufficiency of the tenor, Giaoimo Ferrari, in the opening opera MosS, so irritated the public that they not only hooted him, but also the excellent baritone and the remaining highly efficient members of the company. A wag in the pit, opening his umbrella, as if to screen himself against the inclemency of the vocal storm, was immediately imitated by the entire audience, a very funny sight to every the tho theatre after the third act. The greater part of the fourth act had consequently to be omitted, and the curtain fell ultimately amidst an uproar unfortunately not seldom witnessed in Italian Opera Houses. Mr Gharles Braham, son of the great Braham, sang the other day at Harrogate a setting by himself of the "Charge of the Light Brigade.” Of course he was encored, and he then sang his setting of Tennyson’s “Milkmaid’s” song from "Queen' Marv.” Mr Charles Braham hat been living many years in retirement, but ho originally made bis d&hut at Her Majesty’s in 1856, the year of the destruction of old Oovent Garden Theatre,-and of the dihuts of Johanna Wagner and Piccolomini. “I shall never act anything of Victor Hugo’s again,” said the elder Ooquelin to Mr J. Brander Matthews a short time ago. “ Hugo’s parts,” ho continued, “ are easy for actors who do not know their business; but a man who is in the habit of playing Molibre, of studying out tbe characters he is to act—in a word, of mastering them—-finds he can do nothing with them. The character is all on the surface; there is nothing below. Victor Hugo is a great poet, the greatest lyric poet who ever lived, and he scatters beautiful lines throughout his plays; but the effect of these beautiful lines does not compensate the actors for the want of a living, breathing human being to personate.” The new play for the Florences called Cherry £ipe presents Mr Florence in the character of a broad, boyish, baby-hearted blacksmith, with muscles of iron ana a nature as soft as a child’s, a kind of half-comical, half-pathetic ohawbaoon ; and Mrs Florence in the part of a sinart, talkative, impudent lass, who comes down from London to see the old folks at home, to display her dresses, to chaff (he conceited fop of the play, to set every one to rights, to set the fun roluog and to engage in some very amusing scenes with the aforesaid Abel Droop, the baby-faced blacksmith, who is so much in love that he is scarcely coherent. The dialogue is studded with cockneyisms. Mr Sims Beeves sang first in Aberdeen on Sept. 25,1848, when his colleagues were Mr. H. Lloyd, 1 still hearty in Glasgow; the late Sam Cowell, the too early lost Mr Leigh Murray, Mrs Leigh Murray, and Miss Lee; he appeared for the (announced) last time on Monday, Sept, 26, 1881, accompanied by his son Mr Herbert Beeves, Madame Alvina Yalleria, Miss Marlon M'Eenzie, Mr Henry Pratt, Mr H. Nicholson, and Mr Sydney Naylor. Tbe large Music Hall was crowded with a brilliant audience, some 3000 in number, and the concert gave great satisfaction. Amongst other songs the groat tenor gave Bishop’s “ Pretty Jane,” Hatton’s “Good-bye Sweetheart,” and Braham’s "Death of Nelson.