MISS CONNOLLY IN ENCHANTMENT.
I think the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children did a very good thing when it took Little Corinne from the stage. The child was overtaxed far beyond her years; there was nothing very clever about her any more than there would be about a school-girl of the same age who had been taught to speak her piece and did it boldly, but awkwardly and inartistically. It was more painful than pleasant to sit out a performance of "Cinderella" with this offspring of the Kemble family in the role of the heroine of the glass slipper, and it was a temporary blessing to the public while the little thing was kept out of the way. Like all the precocious ventures on the stage, Corinne will gradually fade from memory, and the only thought left of her will be a painful recollection of her childish efforts to please the grown people who were foolish enough to go to the theatre to see her.
LITTLE CORINNE.
The young man or the young lady who has given years of study to preparation for the stage finds the debut night one fraught with fears and hopes. There are friends behind the scenes and friends in the audience willing to overlook faults and exaggerate excellencies; but there are cold, stern critics, too, anxious to puncture the new candidate for public favor in every tender spot their cruel eyes can search out, and there is the great public, that fickle body whose applause or condemnation often depends upon the whim of the moment. The effort is an enormous one to the new player; the suspense, frightful. A whole life's work may be swept out of sight in a moment, and the life itself blighted forever. But when the moment of success arrives—what a thrill of joy the triumph sends to the heart of the actress, if actress it be! What a dream of glory she already begins to live in! How her brain throbs and her heart bounds, and all the world seems a paradise, beautiful and fair as Eden was when it left the hands of the Creator! Friends crowd around, the house is ringing with applause, and she tears away from the congratulations and kisses and hand-shakings to step out before the curtain, and, with glowing face and tears in her eyes, kisses her hand and makes a profoundly thankful obeisance to the audience. Then she returns to her crowding friends on the stage, from the manager down to the call-boy and scene-shifters, and her ears ring with praise and encouraging words until it is time for the curtain to go up once more.
The debut of Emma Livry, an artiste who promised to lead a very brilliant career, but who was suddenly and early cut down by death, is described in a very interesting manner by one who was present. It was at the Grand Opera House, Paris, and the theatre was filled from parquette to dome with an extraordinary audience. Louis Napoleon was there, and the Empress Eugenie; princes and dukes filled the boxes, and the nobility of France, representative Americans and prominent Englishmen were in the audience. Emma Livry was then only sixteen. From her earliest childhood, says the writer, she had been devoted to the art of dancing—though this was no extraordinary thing, for there are a large number of girls always in training for the Grand Opera in Paris, who are taken at the age of four years, and kept in constant practice until they reach womanhood, when they appear in public. But this girl had shown extraordinary genius. In her later years the celebrated dancer, Marie Taglioni, Countess de Voisius, hearing of the new dancer, left her villa on the Lake of Como, and her palace in Venice, to come to Paris to give the girl lessons. Her improvement was miraculous. Taglioni said she would renew the triumphs she herself had won in former days.
And now she glided upon the stage. The brilliant audience ceased their chatter as she appeared. The occasion took the character of what it was afterwards called in the newspapers—"a great solemnity." She was very young and was just at that period in the life of a girl when her figure is apt to be what old-fashioned people call raw-boned. She was tall, thin, and pale. Her face was not handsome. Her form gave no evidence of physical strength.
She was received in a hush of silence. "Let us see," this great audience seemed to say, "what you really can do in this poetic art." Any one who could have connected sensuality or grossness with this girl would have been baser than a sybarite; and yet her dress was the conventional dress of ballet dancers—short to the calf of the leg but thickly clad above.
She began. O Grace, you never found a prototype till now! O Painting, Sculpture, you paled before this supple, elastic, firm, yet dainty tread. At the conclusion of her first movement, when with a gush of sweet music she sprang like a fawn to the foot-lights, and extending her slender arms and delicate hands towards the audience, as if to ask, "Come, what is the verdict on me now?" a burst of enthusiastic applause, loud shouts of "Brava!" and "Bravissima!" "C'est magnifique!" waving of perfumed handkerchiefs, a deluge of sweet flowers formed the response.