Our Paris Letter.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2130, 1 November 1875, Page 2

Our Paris Letter.

Pabis, September 4,

Theatres.

Gymnasts.— " Foufrou, comedy in fire acts, by Messrs Meilhac and Halevy. This famous piece has been revived to introduce Mile. Delaporte to her old friends after a long absence in Russia. The part of Foufrou was originally written for her, but was destined to become celebrated in the hands of poor Mile. Desclee. It was of the latter the audience ffl thought when studying Mile. Delaporte. Desclee— and we shall never look upon her like again—possessed extraordinary talent,, of an exquisite natural manner. She spoke upou the stage as one converses in a salon; she substituted the woman for the actress, and appeared to live the life of her personage. She proved that one can be tragical in nibbling a handkerchief, in twisting a letter between the fingers, in crossing the ,hands "upon the knees, in shaking the head, or raising the shoulders In witnessing Aimee Desclee act, you felt that she had profoundly suffered—and therein lay her strength and her genius. She had at once the despair of. the artiste conquered, and the deceptions of the woman misunderstood. Wounded— as we know from her biography—in her amour-propre and in her love, she had no other consolation and no other dream than he hope and the avidity to interpret on the stage her own troubles and her own sighs. The revival of the comedy seemed to have had suspended over it a funeral veil, and hence why Mile. Delaporte, apart from her great talents, has suffered by the perilous comparison. Foufrou died with the Desclee; Then ! Foufrou, as her elder sisters in the j '■' Famille Benoiton," belongs to the literature of actuality. The three first acts represent society in 1369 — a condition of manners happily evaporated. Then it was the fashion to defy Bismarck and the deluge, so that these acts smack of. archaeology. Whether the French have grown better sinco six years observers can conclude as they judge, bit it is very clear the nation now think s differently. Then it was the fashion to laugh when the Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein joked about the sabre of her father; now audiences applaud when the Fille deHoland brandishes instead of rails at her father's sword. There is in.Foufrou sufficient brilliancy to make the fortune of ten authors. The personages in the piece have one unique and"terrible defect; none between them fulfil their social functions or do what they ought to do. Foufrou is the type of the spoiled Parisienne, capricious, fantastic; more charming even by her faults than by her good-qualities ; viewing life only as a plaything, a game of romps; marrying at hazard; taking a lover out of spite, and perceiving the , error she has committed and the wrong ' inflicted on others" only at the moment of death. She was a creation of the Second Empire, the nervous young girl who went and came, radiant, intoxicated with pleasure, despairing and. mocking, believing that existence was only created for wearing new robes, promenading in the Bois, dancing, applauding operettes; she knew all that she ought not to know, and ignored the rest. She is brilliant in ■ her unconscious levity. There is a peculiar miivetd of special in-

nocence in Foufrou, which partakes neither of the artless nor womanly ; Mile. Delaporte does not give us this, the real personage with the seed of vice ready to germinate, but a delicious young lady fresh from the Convent of the Sacre-Cosur. The drama commences at the third act, where Foufrou, jealousof her sister Louise, bids her adieu; "you have taken njy house, my husband, my child ; well then, keep all." She elopes for Venice with a M. de Valreas; soon the adulterous lovers begin to sigh for that Paris which they cannot visit, and profound ennui has succeeded to the folly of their first day, aggravated by the fact, that Venetian society is closed to them. The two last acts are sensational: a deceived husband who takes vengeance, and an erring woman who repents; these events are as common place as life, and like life too, are eternal. Foufrou cruelly expiates her fault, and her death of course brought tears to all eyes. As an evidence of altered times, Bregard the father of Foufrou, whose debaucheries appeared almost amiable in 1869, are viewed as odious in 1875. The Bregard must be held responsible for the Foufrou. Vabieties.—« La Guigne," vaudeville in three acta, by Messrs Labiche, Leterrier, and Vauloo. This play of threeauthor power, has had only a succes d'estims. GedeonFrazier is a mortal " born to bad luck," hence the name of the piece. Call no man happy till he be dead, said tbe ancients; Gedeon might revise it, by. fixing the commencement of human bliss at marriage, rather than the grave. He was born not only on a Friday, but on the "thirteenth" of a month, a double ill-luck, and if he enters a restaurant, he is certain to upset glasses or trample,on the toes of customers. Ruined in fortune, Gideon employs his last thousand francs on a farfweli supper to his fast male and female companions; pending the fete, news is brought to him, that his uncle is dead, and he becomes the heir to a thumping legacy of one million, but on condition that he will marry Amenaide Robinet, the daughter of a notary. After 3upper dancing succeeds*; but the^ quadrille wants a lady via-a-tis, and Gedeon induces a young girl, who had been momentarily left in the restaurant by her papa, to join; rowing she would ne er consent, she consents, and when her father arrives he finds his daughter excited from champagne, and learning the preliminaries of the can-can. A duel ensues. Gedeon desires not to wound the father, but the latter manages to receive a scratch on the thumb, while Gede*on, to appease him, succeeds in being pricked in the breast. The parent considers the event as the proudest day in his life, and calling Gedeon, affectionately, mon blesse, invites him to his house; there he learns the lonely girl in the restaurant was Ame«naide, and his antagonist, her father. But Gedeon fancies her mother was his discarded mistress, and pronounces the marriage to be impossible. He declines to state the reason why, except in confi- • dence to one of the late seconds; an invalid, and devoid of all moral sense. This Solon ruled, that the mother being already married, he could not marry her, and the daughter ought not to suffer for her mamma's faults. Ultimately Gideon finds he has been mistaken, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. The piece when lacking in comedy falls back on buffoonery; -there is gaiety here and there, with bits of wit of the best kind. It' is well interpreted by all the artistes, save Coquelin Junior,-for whom it was written. Palais Boyal. —" La Sensitive," comedy in three acts, by Messrs Labiche and Delacaur. This play might be called the "Nervous Man," and apparently has been founded on 1 Stendhal's 'Amour. It was first brought out in 1860, and each revival is a success. M. Bougnol is a very susceptible young man; emotions next to kill him; the slightest unexpected incident causes him to blush and stammer; he grows pale at a loud knocking at the door, and the upsetting of a kettle on a fire produces the overture of a fainting fit. On one occasion he has been induced to recite eight verses of poetry; some wag rings the door bell and calls out " fire," and the reader decamps in the middle of the third verse. _ But these sorrows are nothing in comparison to his wedding-day; he is on the threshold of the nuptial chamber, when the clock in the room sounds midnight on.a kind of Chinese gong; this sends his pulse up to one hundred; after a squirreHike reflection, he plucks up courage, when squibs and Catherinewheels in his honor, explode and fizz under his window; palpitation of the heart ensues, and a brass band commencing to serenade him, would cause him sudden death, only, he seizes his hat and flies. Next day he is tracked by his mother-in-law, and only brought to listen [ to reason by her threatening him with a ! divorce suit. Hyacinthe, was of course incomparable as Bougnol. Judge of the misery ©f laughing for two hours in a crowded house, and a temperature of 110 degrees! . Chatelet.—" Le Sonnuer de Saint Paul," drama in five acts, by M. Bouchardy.' This old dramatist is a model of complication and mystery; with him the blind see,, the dumb speak, the vagrants are sons of Kings, and the nobility are beggars-, if ears ago when the play was produced, Theophile Gautier devoted nine columns of a journal to analysing the first act alone. Bouchardy himself, when asked for a resume, offered to write a new play instead. Able dramatists always stamp their plays by giving them a namej which is a kind of key to the piece ; now in the present case there is no connection with bell ringing at Saint Paul's or anywhere else. John, a Scotchman, is shot in the first act by Lord Bedford, for political reasons; the man is blinded instead of being killed, but he discovers a German doctor, who of course at the right moment will cure him. Believed to be dead, his widow marries Lord Bedford. John has for aim to regain his wife; secure his daughter, who is not his daughter, and denounce the lord. No small amouut of work to be accomplished by a blind man. Restored to sight, he appears at a masked ball given by Lord Bedford in honour of Charles II.; it was here John exposed his griefs, and had ample justice done to them. Oddly enough the play is curious to see, not" only for being well brought out, but for the intense interest taken in the plot by the applauding gods. Music. As certain as the 21st of June is fixed by the almanac as the first day qf Summer, despite hail, rain, or snow, so the first of September is marked as the re-opening day of tho theatrical season. Each Opera Mouse makes its bow with a piece that boasts of its two or three

hundredth representation. There is nothing novel in Mme. Angot; the Bouffes leads with the " Jolie Parfumeus," the Renaissance, with " Girofle-Girofla." Mines. Judic, Theo, and Granier, are as ever charming—if the public be not satiated with three divas always such, to ?ay nothing of The*re*sa, who is at last becoming a singer of merit at the Gaite*, in "La Chatte Blanche," interlarded with English pantomime. The Opera Comique awaits the close of the vintage and the termination of the enthusiasm of the sporting season before producing novelties, and the National Opera itself has been converted into a ki»d of nursery and exercise ground for rising stars to appear in the interpretation of the works of great masters, before Krauss, Carv-alho and Faure retake their places. M. Pasdeloup has become celebrated for his Sunday concerts in the Circus where symphonies are interpreted for the masses. .As the city has how two neM circuses, Sunday afternoon *concorfcs : under able musicians, will take place from the commencement of October. They are certain to succeed, as true music draws and pays in Paris. Those who admire the choicest of first-class music, scientifically and delicately executed, will be anxious to learn where Daubo intends to pitch his tent, as his late theatre is let. His concerts are followed not only by the fashionable but the real musical world, Their only fault is being too dear. In the Garden of the Tuilerics, a monster concert has lately been given for the sufferers of Toulouse, by ail the Orpheonic Societies in the capital and J;he suburbs.. Several first class morcecrnx from Gounod, Adam, Buzin, Thomas, &c, were executed, and marvellously well, .considering that the 2,000 performers had almost no rehearsals.