DOI Heft:
December 21, 1861
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16868#0263
December 21, 1861.]
251
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT.
a.b Punch,
I Have to
thank Miss Pyne
Mb,. Balfe, and
Mb. Habbison for a
very pleasant even-
ing with The Puri-
tan’s Laughter. The
night when I at-
tended was the first
one of the Cattle
Show, but I cannot
saythe audience pre-
sented any symp-
toms of a marked
bucolic character.
There were neither
beefy faces nor thick
top boots in the pit,
nor did the audience
in general betray a
rural origin by ap-
plauding in wrong
places and so put-
ting the actors out.
The rustic mind,
I fancy, receives
much more enjoy-
ment from the song-
sters ot the supper-room than the singers of the Opera, and the
Wondrous Leotard is far more likely to attract it than the melodies
of Balfe and the scenery of Calcott.
“ Not being (thank goodness!) a musical critic, and in consequence
obliged to keep my cars upon the stretch to catch all failings and
defects, I enjoyed the opera much, and need not hesitate to say so. for j
I ’ve no character for critical acerbity to lose. Without quite endors-1
ing the opinion of one writer, that the name of Balfe stands first of all j
English composers, whether of the past or of the present time, I |
always take a pleasure in listening to his music, and his latest work is !
even more than usually pleasant to me. If I am wrong in ranking it
as his best composition (not even excepting the ever-green Bohemian
Girl), I would ascribe my error to the care of Mr. Mellon in getting
up the opera, and the generally efficient way in which it is performed.
They who recollect how English Opera was treated in the days of Mb.
Bunn, should go to Covent Garden and hear Mb. Mellon’s orchestra,
and notice with what taste the accompaniments are played. Another
thing, too, they may notice is, that now-a-days some pains are taken
with librettos, and that the ballads Mb. Balfe has now to set to music
are not such Bedlamitish bosh as they were in the old time, wheu
‘ hollow hearts ’ were nightly said to ‘ wear a mask,’ though how on
earth they did so nobody could guess. Despite inanely stupid words,
and though the street-organs have done their worst to make me hate
it, I still retain a lingering love for the Bohemienne aforesaid; but for
the freshness of its melodies, the Laughter of the Puritan is quite
worthy to be named with it, and they have the further charm of not
being quite so whistleable, so that our butcher-boys, one hopes, will
not so easily get hold of them. Clever critics may object that the
melodies, though pretty, are all cast in the same mould, and may exer-
cise their memories by humming a chance phrase and recalling a twin-
brother in some other Balfeian work ; but for myself, I am quite satis-
fied with simply listening to the music in my unenlightened way, and
not attempting to determine whether Mr. Balfe repeats himself (as
most writers have done), or in what precise degree he falls short of the
composers of the continental schools.
“ But whatever be the doubt as to the merits of the opera, there
surely can be none as to the manner of its production. The band is so
well drilled that one might almost shut one’s eyes and think that Apollo
was conducting it; and the singers one and all do their best to win success,
and deservedly secure it. Miss Pyne’s delicious voice is heard to full
advantage in a part exactly suited to her, and her extremely graceful
gestures are a study which our choristers would do well to try and
imitate, instead of singing as they mostly do with arms stuck to
their sides like the dolis in a Noah’s-ark. Mb. Habbison moreover,
as the rakish Bari of Rochester, played a rollicking drunken part in a
manner that surprised, not less than it pleased me. His song in praise
of punch all punch-lovers should hear. The minor key redeems it from
all shade of vulgarity; and indeed his acting, no less than his singing,
is so free from any coarseness, while yet so droll and funny, that many
a ‘comic’ actor might well receive a lesson from it. As for Mr.
Santley, the prettiest air in all the opera is put into his mouth, and
he sings it with such taste (as he does all his other music) that, much
as I hate, detest, and execrate encores, I really was not sorry when the
pitites re-demanded it. Besides having the merit of a plot which is
original and yet easily intelligible (a merit which most operas of late
have been without), the new work has the novelty of a lover who sings
bass ; and one might well incline to wish the precedent were followed,
if one were always certain of a voice like Mr. Santley’s in parts
wherein a ‘ tender tenor’ usually is heard.
“ What is going on at the Strand and the St. James’s and Olympic
and elsewhere, I may have occasion to speak of in my next. Doubtless
all these theatres have been profiting by the Cattle Show, but I question
if their takings equalled those at the Adelphi. Here, as I am told, the
old familiar Colleen Bawn notification of ‘ House Crammed ’ has been
displayed throughout the week, in consequence of the revival (though
it seems a ‘ bull ’ to call it so) of that immortal drama. Mr. and
Mrs. Boucicault have had a hard week’s work in playing the Colleen
and Octoroon together, but one really can’t much pity them when one
recollects the pay they have been earning. One would almost undertake
the labours of Hercules upon such good terms.
“ By the way, I must just add that in her history of the week, the
Clio of the stage ought certainly to note that, in obedient compliance
with the wishes of the public, expressed through ‘hourly’ waggon-
loads of letters to the author, the last act of the Octoroon has partly
been re-written, and the drama is now brought to a felicitous conclu-
sion. Poor Mb. Boucicault ! It must have cost him a sad struggle
so to mutilate his offspring, and to please a fickle public, destroy the
moral aim and teaching oi the play. I drop a tear as I remember his
letter to the Times, and think what pangs he must have suffered in
altering his work. Yet, much as I applaud his wish to give our playgoers
a lesson in morality, I must say I rejoice that he has bowed to their
opinion that they ’a rather be without it. Suicide is always an ui pleasant
and immoral act to contemplate; and I shall go and see the Octoi oon with
vastly greater willingness, now that a marriage peal is substituted for a
cup of poison, and by a few strokes of the goose-quill the fair heroine
is saved from the task of nightly suffering a very painful death.
“ One who Pays.”
PHOTOGRAPHIC CARICATURES AT ROME.
In a letter from Rome it is stated that—
“ Tlie official journal of yesterday contains an edict from the Cardinal Vicar
announcing that no one will be allowed to exercise the art of photography without
authorisation from the Rev. Master of the Sacred Palace, from the Cardinal Vicar,
and from the police, under penalty of 50 dollars fine. Amateur Photographers are
liable to the same regulation.”
A maternal government imposes this restriction on the personal
liberty of its subjects, because some of them abuse the photographic
art. Provision for the punishment of offenders in that kind, one would
think, would suffice to meet the case; and their correction has been
tolerably well provided for by the arrangements thus specified
“ The producers and distributors of indecent photographic plates are to lose their
instruments, to be fined 100 dollars, and to be sent to the galleys for a year; the
same penalty to be inflicted on the models who may have served for such produc-
tions."
Serve them right. But what cause has the Roman public to thank
the papal Government for giving it the benefit of an improvement on
Lord Campbell’s Act ? We further read that—
“It is stated that this edict . . . was absolutely called for by the recent
clandestine publication of some very scandalous photographic representations in
which the heads of the Pope, Cardinal Antonelli, the Queen of Naples, and
other persons of high rank, were placed on the bodies of other individuals in such a
skilful manner as to deceive any spectator, and with such a disregard not only to
delicacy, but also to decency, as fully justifies the measures adopted by the Cardinal
Vicar.”
Would his Eminence have interfered with the licentious photo-
graphers if they had placed the heads of Garibaldi, Victor-Emmanukl.
the Emperor of the Erench, Lord Palmerston, John Bull, ana
Mr. Punch, in the same vile relations as those in which theyput the
upper storeys of Antonelli, the Queen <if Naples, and his Holiness,
or m any relations however vile P And if the head of the Pope were
put on the body of a figure in pontificals blessing a Neapolitan brigand,
that of the Queen of Naples on the shoulders oi Moll Flagon, and
Antonelli’s on those of Fra Liavolo, would not the Cardinal Vicar
consider the photographs so composed as exhibiting a grievous dis-
regard to decency as well as to delicacy ? It is no doubt sacrilege as
well as high treason at Rome anyhow to take off the head of the
Church. Wliat a wonder the Sun lends himself to such an enormity
Cannot Pius excommunicate Phoebus ?
A Queer Sort of Cow.
A “ Gardener” in the Times wanting a place, advertises that he
would “ Not object to a cow it single-handed.” Who would? Who
would object to a cow with two hands, for the matter of that ? In-
deed two hands would be belter than one for a cow to have,—and such
a cow, instead of being at all objectionable, would be far preferable to
' any other; if her hands euabled her owner to dispense with a milkman.
251
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
OUR DRAMATIC CORRESPONDENT.
a.b Punch,
I Have to
thank Miss Pyne
Mb,. Balfe, and
Mb. Habbison for a
very pleasant even-
ing with The Puri-
tan’s Laughter. The
night when I at-
tended was the first
one of the Cattle
Show, but I cannot
saythe audience pre-
sented any symp-
toms of a marked
bucolic character.
There were neither
beefy faces nor thick
top boots in the pit,
nor did the audience
in general betray a
rural origin by ap-
plauding in wrong
places and so put-
ting the actors out.
The rustic mind,
I fancy, receives
much more enjoy-
ment from the song-
sters ot the supper-room than the singers of the Opera, and the
Wondrous Leotard is far more likely to attract it than the melodies
of Balfe and the scenery of Calcott.
“ Not being (thank goodness!) a musical critic, and in consequence
obliged to keep my cars upon the stretch to catch all failings and
defects, I enjoyed the opera much, and need not hesitate to say so. for j
I ’ve no character for critical acerbity to lose. Without quite endors-1
ing the opinion of one writer, that the name of Balfe stands first of all j
English composers, whether of the past or of the present time, I |
always take a pleasure in listening to his music, and his latest work is !
even more than usually pleasant to me. If I am wrong in ranking it
as his best composition (not even excepting the ever-green Bohemian
Girl), I would ascribe my error to the care of Mr. Mellon in getting
up the opera, and the generally efficient way in which it is performed.
They who recollect how English Opera was treated in the days of Mb.
Bunn, should go to Covent Garden and hear Mb. Mellon’s orchestra,
and notice with what taste the accompaniments are played. Another
thing, too, they may notice is, that now-a-days some pains are taken
with librettos, and that the ballads Mb. Balfe has now to set to music
are not such Bedlamitish bosh as they were in the old time, wheu
‘ hollow hearts ’ were nightly said to ‘ wear a mask,’ though how on
earth they did so nobody could guess. Despite inanely stupid words,
and though the street-organs have done their worst to make me hate
it, I still retain a lingering love for the Bohemienne aforesaid; but for
the freshness of its melodies, the Laughter of the Puritan is quite
worthy to be named with it, and they have the further charm of not
being quite so whistleable, so that our butcher-boys, one hopes, will
not so easily get hold of them. Clever critics may object that the
melodies, though pretty, are all cast in the same mould, and may exer-
cise their memories by humming a chance phrase and recalling a twin-
brother in some other Balfeian work ; but for myself, I am quite satis-
fied with simply listening to the music in my unenlightened way, and
not attempting to determine whether Mr. Balfe repeats himself (as
most writers have done), or in what precise degree he falls short of the
composers of the continental schools.
“ But whatever be the doubt as to the merits of the opera, there
surely can be none as to the manner of its production. The band is so
well drilled that one might almost shut one’s eyes and think that Apollo
was conducting it; and the singers one and all do their best to win success,
and deservedly secure it. Miss Pyne’s delicious voice is heard to full
advantage in a part exactly suited to her, and her extremely graceful
gestures are a study which our choristers would do well to try and
imitate, instead of singing as they mostly do with arms stuck to
their sides like the dolis in a Noah’s-ark. Mb. Habbison moreover,
as the rakish Bari of Rochester, played a rollicking drunken part in a
manner that surprised, not less than it pleased me. His song in praise
of punch all punch-lovers should hear. The minor key redeems it from
all shade of vulgarity; and indeed his acting, no less than his singing,
is so free from any coarseness, while yet so droll and funny, that many
a ‘comic’ actor might well receive a lesson from it. As for Mr.
Santley, the prettiest air in all the opera is put into his mouth, and
he sings it with such taste (as he does all his other music) that, much
as I hate, detest, and execrate encores, I really was not sorry when the
pitites re-demanded it. Besides having the merit of a plot which is
original and yet easily intelligible (a merit which most operas of late
have been without), the new work has the novelty of a lover who sings
bass ; and one might well incline to wish the precedent were followed,
if one were always certain of a voice like Mr. Santley’s in parts
wherein a ‘ tender tenor’ usually is heard.
“ What is going on at the Strand and the St. James’s and Olympic
and elsewhere, I may have occasion to speak of in my next. Doubtless
all these theatres have been profiting by the Cattle Show, but I question
if their takings equalled those at the Adelphi. Here, as I am told, the
old familiar Colleen Bawn notification of ‘ House Crammed ’ has been
displayed throughout the week, in consequence of the revival (though
it seems a ‘ bull ’ to call it so) of that immortal drama. Mr. and
Mrs. Boucicault have had a hard week’s work in playing the Colleen
and Octoroon together, but one really can’t much pity them when one
recollects the pay they have been earning. One would almost undertake
the labours of Hercules upon such good terms.
“ By the way, I must just add that in her history of the week, the
Clio of the stage ought certainly to note that, in obedient compliance
with the wishes of the public, expressed through ‘hourly’ waggon-
loads of letters to the author, the last act of the Octoroon has partly
been re-written, and the drama is now brought to a felicitous conclu-
sion. Poor Mb. Boucicault ! It must have cost him a sad struggle
so to mutilate his offspring, and to please a fickle public, destroy the
moral aim and teaching oi the play. I drop a tear as I remember his
letter to the Times, and think what pangs he must have suffered in
altering his work. Yet, much as I applaud his wish to give our playgoers
a lesson in morality, I must say I rejoice that he has bowed to their
opinion that they ’a rather be without it. Suicide is always an ui pleasant
and immoral act to contemplate; and I shall go and see the Octoi oon with
vastly greater willingness, now that a marriage peal is substituted for a
cup of poison, and by a few strokes of the goose-quill the fair heroine
is saved from the task of nightly suffering a very painful death.
“ One who Pays.”
PHOTOGRAPHIC CARICATURES AT ROME.
In a letter from Rome it is stated that—
“ Tlie official journal of yesterday contains an edict from the Cardinal Vicar
announcing that no one will be allowed to exercise the art of photography without
authorisation from the Rev. Master of the Sacred Palace, from the Cardinal Vicar,
and from the police, under penalty of 50 dollars fine. Amateur Photographers are
liable to the same regulation.”
A maternal government imposes this restriction on the personal
liberty of its subjects, because some of them abuse the photographic
art. Provision for the punishment of offenders in that kind, one would
think, would suffice to meet the case; and their correction has been
tolerably well provided for by the arrangements thus specified
“ The producers and distributors of indecent photographic plates are to lose their
instruments, to be fined 100 dollars, and to be sent to the galleys for a year; the
same penalty to be inflicted on the models who may have served for such produc-
tions."
Serve them right. But what cause has the Roman public to thank
the papal Government for giving it the benefit of an improvement on
Lord Campbell’s Act ? We further read that—
“It is stated that this edict . . . was absolutely called for by the recent
clandestine publication of some very scandalous photographic representations in
which the heads of the Pope, Cardinal Antonelli, the Queen of Naples, and
other persons of high rank, were placed on the bodies of other individuals in such a
skilful manner as to deceive any spectator, and with such a disregard not only to
delicacy, but also to decency, as fully justifies the measures adopted by the Cardinal
Vicar.”
Would his Eminence have interfered with the licentious photo-
graphers if they had placed the heads of Garibaldi, Victor-Emmanukl.
the Emperor of the Erench, Lord Palmerston, John Bull, ana
Mr. Punch, in the same vile relations as those in which theyput the
upper storeys of Antonelli, the Queen <if Naples, and his Holiness,
or m any relations however vile P And if the head of the Pope were
put on the body of a figure in pontificals blessing a Neapolitan brigand,
that of the Queen of Naples on the shoulders oi Moll Flagon, and
Antonelli’s on those of Fra Liavolo, would not the Cardinal Vicar
consider the photographs so composed as exhibiting a grievous dis-
regard to decency as well as to delicacy ? It is no doubt sacrilege as
well as high treason at Rome anyhow to take off the head of the
Church. Wliat a wonder the Sun lends himself to such an enormity
Cannot Pius excommunicate Phoebus ?
A Queer Sort of Cow.
A “ Gardener” in the Times wanting a place, advertises that he
would “ Not object to a cow it single-handed.” Who would? Who
would object to a cow with two hands, for the matter of that ? In-
deed two hands would be belter than one for a cow to have,—and such
a cow, instead of being at all objectionable, would be far preferable to
' any other; if her hands euabled her owner to dispense with a milkman.