A GOOD STORY OF BARRY SULLIVAN.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2570, 3 April 1877, Page 3

A GOOD STORY OF BARRY SULLIVAN.

Years ago, never mind how many, for I speak of the famous Miss JRomer, and of opeia, and both women and music are undated ; years ago, then (writes a correspondent of the Illustrated. Dramatic News), I was a dweller in Cork, and the city was all excitement and delight with the visit of an opera troupe, for the charming Miss Komer was theprima donna, the renowned Englishman, TLießler, was the bass, and the equally renowned Scotchman, Wilson, was. the tenor. . Several operas had been given, and then " Fra Diavolo" came on the managerial tapis. There were Zerlina, Giacorno.Beppo, Lord and Lady Allcash, the dashing Fra himself, but no Lorenzo ! "No Lorenzo," sighed Miss Eomer ; "No Lorenzo—whew i" whistled Wilson, ." No Lorenzo ! " —an octave lower—diapasoned Leffler. Trio—" Opera can't be done!" "Stay," cried the manager-—" There's a young fellow engaged in the company who has a pretty tenor voice, and who might be able to struggle through it. 1' Trio (desperate)— " Can he act ?" " Don't know. He hasn't had a chance yet. lie's only twenty; been with me but three weeks, and has not yet trod my boards or any other." Trio (contristezza)—" Oh.'—Ah I just so! Thanks. Impossible!" " Let's do it without Lorenzo," ponderously suggested the bass. "What! Cut oxit my lover—-my gallant officer ! Never ! *'. cried the prima donna. " Suppose we hear this young man sing, Wilson," said she. "Do said the manager, " there are two things in his favorite is deuced good-looking and he knows music." (Trio animato)—" Bravo, bravo! We'll hear him." The "young man" was summoned, and Wilson asked him to sing a song for them. " Chance is the rough stone which decision carves into the image of a god," says a French philosopher. Our young man seized his chance, and sang with steady nerve and steady voice, the old ballad, " The Eose of Allandale.'' Trio con spirito—" Gcod ! excellent!" and though the impromptu tenor did not exactly carve the Kose of. Allandale into the image of a goddess, he made enough of the "chance" to have the score of the opera immediately put into his hands, and with Wilson, at the piano', he, without a moment's* delay, commenced his study of Loreozo—six lengths of dialogue, a song, and many pages of difficult concerted music; and four nights after the Corkonians applauded a capital Lorenzo. Well, the -'young fellow with a very pretty tenor voice" who struggled through. Lorenzo, was not destined for the lyric stage after all. Inclinations stronger than chance wedded him to the tragic muse—play-going Great Britain assisting at the ceremony. " The stripling lover %s been changed into the great tragedian,, the .".pretty tenor" mellowed into the " big manly voice," and the "young fellow who never trod any boards" transformed into the hero of a thousand theatres—Barry Sullivan. . «