Punch (82.1882)

52

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHAPJVARI.

[Fbbbuaby 4, 1882.

TENORS, TELEPHONES, AND T’OPERA.

E haye had ‘ ‘ the three
F’s,” we have got “ the
two G’s ” — Gladstone
and Gambetta — (absit
omen.') — and now we
have “the three H’s”
—Hebbert Gladstone,
Hekbekt Bismakck, and
Hekbekt Reeves. The
last appeared as a real
chip of the old block—
first-rate block too, still,
and such a real head of
hair—at the first of Mr.
Sims Reeves’s series of
Concerts at St. James’s
Hall. The great tenor
was unable to sing all the
music set down for him,
but what he did sing,
viz.—“ My Pretty Jane”
and “ The Bay of Bis-
cay ”—was given in his
own inimitahle style; and
the latter was, both dramatically and vocally, as effective as ever.
Madame Makie Roze was enthusiastically encored in her duet with
Mr. Nicholson as a mocking-bird per-
ched on his own fiute, and hopping
from note to note in the most
delightfully impudent and irritating
manner. Shut your eyes, and there
was the Mocking-Bird; open them,
and there was Mr. Nicholson.

What a pity he couldn’t appear in
full plumage, with a false head like
Mr. ’Akky Jackson in the Drury
Lane Pantomime, and tootle on the
fiootle through his beak! Perhaps
after this he wiil adopt the suggestion,
and the duet might be called “ The
Roze and the Mocking-Bird.”

Mr. Bakitone Foote gave the
popular “ Jolly Miller ” in first-rate
style; but why can’t he get the
words hy heart instead of having to
refer to them every other minute to
refresh his apparently very treacherous memory ?
song, as given in this way, is this :—

Mr. B. F. (sings lustily)—

There was a jolly Miller once
Lived. on the river——

(Suddenly forgets where on earth the Miller lived, and refers to book—oh,

yes, that ’s it) --Dee;

He worked and sang from morn till-

(Lct me see—up to what hour did the Gentleman—oh, yes, by referring to

the printed book 1 remember it was) -night,

No lark more blithe than he.

(Looking round boldly and cheerily at the audience)

And this the burden of his song
For ever used to be,

“ I care for nobody, no, not I-

(Let me see—is it “ And nobody cares ” ?—ah !—of course—where is it ?

Ah, yes, that ’s it—“ L care for nobody, no, notl—In ”—-sings defantly)—
If nobody cares for me.”

In the intervals of the Concert we contrived to get to the Bristol
Hotel and avail ourselves of the United Telephone Company’s invi-
tation to ear-witness the performance of The Mascotte through the
telephone. We heard one of_ Miss Camekon’s songs, and a chorus,
perfectly; the only defeet being that there seemed to he the gruff
voice of a grumpy person trying to join very jerkily in the music
which came in at our left ear, and didn’t go out at the other. Whether
the fault was with ourselves, or with the machine, or with some-
body in Mr. Hendekson’s company, we were at a loss to determine.
Could the gruff person’s attempt have been the voice of that eminent
vocalist, Mr. Lionel Bkough ? It might have been so, as we heard
his dulcet tones most distinctly atthecommencementof the dialogue,
when, by the way, everybody dropped the telephones with a sigh, and
resumed the conversation which had been interrupted by the necessity
for silence during the per-telephonic performance of the music.

Blake’s carbon transmitters are fixed at the back of the Prosce-
nium on the right and the left, yet we didn’t hear a single sound
when the Act-Drop was down and the carpenters must have been
setting the next Scene. Of course, unless Mr. Alex. Henderson’s

Sings Reeves in his Farewell, or
Ta’ Ta’ Concerts.

The effect of the

Stage Manager has given the very strictest orders as to silence during
tbis interval, it was quite on the cards, though not included in the
programme of the telephonic entertainment, that a few energetic ex-
pressions from the Stage Manager or the master carpenter, or from
the prompter, when somebody or something wasn’t quite ready might
have reached us ; but we might have been present at the burial of Sir
John Moore, when “ not a sound was heard,” so mute was every-
thing and everybody until the Orchestra began to tune up. Alto-
gether we can safely affirm it to be the first and only time we have
experienced the sensation of a real “ singing in one’s ears” with
genuine pleasure.

At Her Majesty's.—To announce a popular Opera like Carmen is
sufficient to attract a big house ; to let it be known that the public
will hear a really good all-round performance of it from Mr. Carl
Rosa’s Company ought to be enough to double the attendance on the
occasion of its second representation. Shortcomings there must
be in satisfactorily carrying out such a difficult enterprise as this,
and we sincerely trust that Mr. RosUs efforts will not go unre-
warded, and that at no very distant time, as there are theatres
springing up in all directions,
one of them at least may be de-
voted for nine months in the year
to Operas in English.

The notion that Operas must
necessarily be in Italian, that
their performance must be re-
stricted to singers with foreign
names, and that the enjoyment
of them must be confined to the
extremely-well-to-do-class, is,
we trust, fast dying out; and to
judge from the crowded appear-
ance of the cheaper part of Her
Majesty’s, and, above all from
the judicious applause bestowed
on the performance, it is certain
that we have in London a public
as capable of appreciating a good
operatic entertainment, as dis-

criminating, and as demonstra- CooH d or Carmen herseif with
tive as any m Lurope. ° ’ a fan_

MissLiLiAN LA KuEplayed the ;< jjere >g (ha) Rue for you.”—Hamlet.
Gipsy Girl for, we believe,_the first v

time in London, and achieved a marked success. She throws herself
into the part with thorough abandon, and is not afraid of bringing
out its flashes of comedy, nor of giving full play to its melodramatic
intensity. Yet in her anxiety not to lose a point she throws into
the Gipsy Girl somewhat too much the chic of an Opera-bouffe
; heroine, whose second nature is a habit of perpetually posing in
some attitude which she thinks would suit her best in a likeness
taken of her in costume by Grevtn, or by _the Downey photographer.
A touch of this chic occasionally is quite in character, but it should
not be the pervading tone. This trifling fault we hold to be mainly
attributable to the high-heeled shoes. Miss La Rue’s first two Acts
were musically hetter than her third; but she finished well, and all ’s
well that does that.

Mr. Fked. C. Packakd sang Don Jose better than he played him,

being rather too
dignified and un-
impulsive for a
lover. But we are
not prepared to
deny that this may
be the more cor-
rect reading of the
part of the dashing
Young Sergeant,
who has abandoned
a dying mother,
thrown over an
affectionate cousin,
and deserted from
his regiment, for
the love of Carmen,
if the character be
regarded from a
moral and military
point of view. His
regimental train-

Giving the Toreador a little assistance in the air.
Horn accompaniment.

ing would naturally make him stiff, and conscience would be perpetu-
ally giving him twinges, to which the agony of tight patent-leather
boots on a Regent Street pavement in July would be nothing by
comparison.

Mr. Walter Bolton, as the Toreador, disappointed us both in
singing and acting. There was no heart about the great song; and the
Chorus, apparently depressed by the Toreador's manner, joined in it