STAGE GOSSIP.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2377, 29 October 1880, Page 4

STAGE GOSSIP.

Mr Siraonsen starts for New Zealand with his new English and Italian Opera Company in about two months, after playing in Melbourne. The company will be half Italian and half English, so as to appear on alternate nights. The two best tenors in Australia —Paladini for Italian, and Branchi for English —have been engaged as principals. All the leading people will be good, and the chorus small, but first-class. The company start from the Bluff, and work their way northwards. Miss Jennie Boyer, the celebrated ballad-singer, who only arrived from America per Australia last trip, ’* cleared out ” in the same steamer she came by. We hear that she was dissatisfied with her business arrangements. Miss Myra Kemble is studyng under Mr William Hoskins. A worthy master and an apt pupil. Manager Grizzola made a tempting offer to Miss Genevieve Ward, for a tour of America and Australia, in conjunction with Salvini, hut the lady refused it, saying that she had no idea of leaving England. Mr Frederick Marshall, the inimitable comedian, is said to have formally signified his intention of severing his connection with the London Comedy Company, in consequence of his haring accepted an engagement with the managers of the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. He leaves at the end of No* vember.

Miss Leaf is under engagement to Mr It. W. Carey to play a short season of opera-bouffe in Melbourne, and then joins Lyster’s company there. Miller the athlete, lifts above his head with one hand a dumb-bell weighing 16Ilb, or 11 stone and a-half. The man with whom he wrestles is a Frenchman named Tictor, who, though, light and no match for the champion, is yet a very scientific lutleur, and gives Miller a good deal of trouble to put his shoulders on the ground. Edmond Yates, chatting with W. S. Gilbert, said, “ How came you to select the word * Pinafore?’ It is such a neat lucky name.” “Pinafore,” the author explained, “ was suggested entirely by the rhyme. ‘ Three cheers more,’ sung when the ‘gallent captain comes on board, must have something to rhyme to it, ‘ Semaphore’ was the first idea, but this subsequently set aside for ‘Pinafore.’ ” J. K. Emmett says that his incarceration in the inebriate asylum was the result of a wicked plot got up by his enemies.