A similar drama, full of love and murder, was “The Fugitive,” by Tom Craven, which had a very brief run at the Windsor.
Vivacious Nelly Farren and the London Gaiety Company, which recently held the boards of the Standard Theatre in “Monte Christo, jr.,” gave New Yorkers an enlivening taste of English burlesque. The play is nothing, the dancing everything.
The German opera season is well under way. The Metropolitan Opera House opened with “The Huguenots,” which was followed by “William Tell” and “Fidelio.” Herr Anton Seidl, with his unrivalled orchestra, makes these productions of the great German and Italian composers a yearly treat to lovers of music, which is looked forward to with eagerness and parted from with regret.
“The Old Homestead” holds its own at the Academy of Music; the “Brass Monkey” at the Bijou has had a longer run than it deserves; Clara Morris has been appearing in Brooklyn; Louis James and Marie Wainwright are beginning their New York engagement. “She” was pronounced a great success in Boston, over $1600 being taken in at one performance. Mr. Boucicault is conducting his Madison Square theatre-school of acting with patience and confidence, although the results thus far are not very promising. Of the eighty pupils, the men are awkward and the women lack talent. However, as Mr. Boucicault said, if but three or even one out of the eighty should come to dramatic eminence, it would be well worth all the trouble.
Our German fellow-citizens are to be congratulated on the opening of Mr. Amberg’s new theatre in Fifteenth Street. The location is central, the house is well built, the company good, and the repertory includes drama, comedy, farce, and comic opera.
There have not been many dramatic events abroad this season. The new Shaftesbury Theatre in London is possessed of such a wonderful fire-proof curtain that a few weeks ago the audience had to be dismissed because they could not raise it. “Captain Swift” proved a great success, financially, at the Haymarket, and “Nadjy” is attracting crowds at the Avenue Theatre. At Terry’s, “Dream Faces,” a one-act play, and “The Policeman,” a three-act farce, had good houses. Grace Hawthorne has just had to pay a hundred pounds to the owners of some lions. She was seeking to produce an English version of “Theodora,” and engaged a den of lions twelve months in advance of the time she wanted them. She demurred to paying for the animals that she had not used, but the case went against her. On the Continent there is not much doing. P. A. Morin, the dean of Holland’s dramatists and actors, recently celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance, his golden jubilee, at 246 Amsterdam. It is announced that Patti will sing in “Romeo and Juliet,” at the Grand Opera House, Paris, giving three performances for one thousand dollars each.
More attention than usual is being paid just now to the development of musical taste on both sides of the water. Mr. Walter Damrosch has been lecturing in New York on Symphony. The Liederkranz and the Symphony Society have been giving enjoyable concerts; and Herr Moriz Rosenthal, the pianist, has met with a success that has only been rivalled in late years by Joseffy.