AN ATTRACTIVE EXTRAVAGANZA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 51, 22 February 1876, Page 4

AN ATTRACTIVE EXTRAVAGANZA.

The Paris correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald gives the following description of tbe moat wonderful extravaganza yet produced :— The enormous success of the theatrical adaptation of Horace Verne's amusing extravaganza of the " Journey Round the World in Eighty Days," has stimulated the wits of Messrs. Vanloo, Leverrier, and Mortier, who have got up another extravaganza, to •which tbey have given a name ('' The Journey to the Moon ") imitated from Verne's "Journey Around the Moon," to whioh Offenbach has composed the music; which, just brought out at the . Gaiety Theatre, is the grand event of the moment. Such indeed was the impatience of the public to witness the wonders of tbe new spectacle, tbat over 2,000 demands for tickets in excess of the number of persons in tbe house were made for the first representation, when the humblest places, up to the very roof, were crammed with welldressed people, the boxes being stuffed with as many extra seats as could be made to stand in them. The success of the new piece was certain from the first soe.ne of the first act. And the crowd outside the theatre was as compact as tbe crowd within : for a most admirable illuminated representation of the due of our capricious 8 ttellite, with every mountain in relief, every sea and shadow distinctly pourtrayed, adorned the fogade of the theatre — proclaiming to all passers-by that tbe new spectacle, impatiently expected for a fortnight past, was being witnessed by the lucky mortals who had obtained admission. The manager, proud of a representation of the moon superior to anything yet possessed by the observatory, had modestly requested the Prefect of the Seine to cut down the trees which prevented its being seen at as great a distance aa he wished ; but that functionary has had the unkindness to decline granting this little favor. Tbe authors of tbe new piece have undertaken to quiz the people of the earth by representing the lunarians doing exactly the contrary of what is done down here ; but they have selected for tbeir satire only points capable of affording pretext for the most gorgeous scenery, all of which has been put on tbe stage with an utter disregardlessness of cost. The plot is as follows : — Prince Caprice, son of King Vlau (a slang word, meaning "Slamband" or "Go it"), being satiated with earthly travel over the globe, aspires to something new. While wandering discontentedly, not seeing any new place to go to, the moon suddenly shines out. " I have it," cries the Prince, " I'll go to the moon." The King, bis father, who has always spoiled him, commands the Court engineer, named Microscope, to provide the means of going to the moon, on pain of losing bis head. But Microscope is not to be baffled by such a trifle; and he fortwitb forges a cannon twenty leagues in length, charges it with 200,000 kilogrammes of gunpowder, prepares a huge shell, capable of containing people and provisions, and by these simple means the royal party are launched through space for two months, when they reach the realm of King Cosmos, one of the sovereigns of tbe moon. The people are at first rather surprised by the visit, but tbe two kings soon fraternise, and everything goes well until Prince Caprice falls in love with Princess Fantasia, the lovely daughter of the lunation king. The Lunarians however, koow nothing of love, aud procure tbeir children from au island, where the criminals of the moon are coufiued for life, aud compelled to devote themselves to making love, so as to keep up a due supply of babies, which are sold in tbe child markets of various capitals. The kings, too, are not particularly happy, as the heaviest men of the satellite are ohosen for the kingly office, and compelled to live in a palace of glass, tbat all their subjects may be able to watch them at all times, so as to be sure that their rulers waste no time in idleness or frivolity. Prince Caprice, to bewitch tbe lovely Princess, has induced her to partake with him of an apple from the Tree of Science, and she at once becomes deeply enamored of him The king is enraged at this dereliction from lunar usu»ges, and the Prince, perceiving the necessity of making the whole fall in love, if he is to speed in his wooing, disguises himself as a quack doctor and is borne on a moveable plat for© to the market place, where he sells a wonderful liquid, warranted to cure all diseases, but which is really a cider made from tbe same apples that have bewitched the Princess. The King and all his people drink of the fatal draught, and straightway fall in Jove with one another. But Buch an upßetting of the order of a Stale is intolerable, and the King sentences King Vlau, his son, the Princess, and Microscope, to pass five yearß in an extinct volcano. They try to escape but are paralysed with cold, and being overtaken by a snowstorm, fall into the hands of King Cosmos, who forces them back into the volcauo, which suddenly breaks out into an eruption (seven most splendid transformations), and by means of that violent commotion, the daring adventurers aro again restored to earth. This is, of course the merest outline oi a plot which is full of by-play and incident, and in which tbe spectators' eyes are almost wearied by the incessant succession of wonderfully beautiful and brilliant scenes, whioh keep attention on ihe stretch from the moment when King

Vlau, parodying the well-known summons to take one's place in the railway '• waggons," strikes three times on the ground with hia sceptre, and cries in stentorian tones, "Passengers for the Moon, take your places," to the final drop of the curtain on the closing Bcene; The principal scenes whfch succeed each other in such lavish profusion, are the following: — Tbe interior of the cupola of the Paris Observatory, with its telescopes, globes, quadrants, registers, &c, which M. Leverrier absolutely refused to let the painter see, and which the latter only contrived to copy by the employment of means that are not usually spoken of, (hough are often successful; the casting of the great cannon — a wonderful scene of molten metal, workmen, fires, ham- ( mers, &c; entrance of the party into the cannon, perched on the top of a lofty mountain; the near view of the moon, faint at first, gradually brightening, and presently coming out of the clouds and showing a great city of fantastic architecture, surrounded by splendid gardens and landscapes, lit up by magnificent sunlight; instantaneous vegetation — plants and flowers growing up and blossoming ns you look on; entrance of the great white dromedary, ridden by King Cosmo (lent by the G »r---den Acclimatisaon, and whose' arrival at tbe Gaiete threw the whole population of the quarter into commotion), the palace of glass and the galleries ot mother-of-pearl, guarded by a giant; splendid effects, and the giant an oddity that sends the spectators into roars of laughter; dance of chimeras; lunar landscape with snow; ballet of snow-storm — one of the most splendid and marvellous scenes ever seen on a stage, and that sends the spectators into ecstacies. The famous Bcenes of the volcano — indescribable, but all wonderfully fine. Tbe exiles go down in an ingenious sort of basket that lands them on the floor of the crater; wander through galleries till they come to a vast grotto full of stalactites, and a hole at the farther end where a gleam of the subterraneous fires is visible. Suddenly, the volcano begins to grow, an earthquake shakes tbe grotto, the burning lava pours in, and the exiles rush wildly about seeking an issue, but in vain. One of them climbs on to a mass of petrified lava, the new lava overthrows it with the unlucky mortal perched upon it. After the invasion of the molten lava, comes a shower of cinders, hiding everything on the stage. This shower over, we see the party on the summit of the volcano, surrounded by a landscape of desolation. Suddenly the earth rises, lightup everything with a splendid earth, light that transcends the brightness of moonlight in tbe ratio of its superiority to its satellite; and the earth, drawing nearer and nearer, shows its continents, rivers, seas, mountains, &c, as the party, driven towards it by the eruption, are thus conveyed back to, their native planet. The dresses of the actors are equal to the magnificence of the decorations, aud tbe music gay, sparkling, and charming, completes the elements of a " success" which will doubtless be chronicled among the most brilliant and lucrative of the epoch.