The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-11-14 00:00:00

MUSIC AND THE DRAMA

THE SATURDAY EVENING CONCERTS, in the Concert-
hall, Lord Nelson-street, will, on Saturday, be under the
immediate patronage of J. A. Tobin, Esq., the new Mayor.
A grand concert of vocal and instrumental music will be
given on the occasion.
PHILHARMONIC SHILLING ORATORIO.—On Tuesday
evening the members of the Philharmonic Society gave
one of their popular entertainments, known as "Shilling
Oratorios," in the hall. The piece selected for the occa-
sion was " The Creation," which was very creditably per-
formed. The solo singers were Miss Stott, Mr. B. Robinson,
and Mr. Armstrong; Mr. Sudlow was conductor, and Mr.
Hirst presided at the organ. The audience was both
numerous and highly-respectable, and they testified their
appreciation of the performances by repeated applause.

AT THE ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE Mr. G. V. Brooke
has been delighting crowded audiences of admirers by a
round of his most celebrated characters, prior to his
departure for Australia. During the past week he has
appeared as Master Walter, in the " Hunchback " sup-
ported ably by Miss F. Cathcart as Julia. On Wednes-
day, Massinger's play of "A New Way to Pay Old Debts "
was revived, Mr. Brooke playing Sir Giles Overreach;
on Thursday, he appeared as Claude Metnotte, in Bulwer's
drama of " The Lady of Lyons," in which Miss' F.
Cathcart appeared to advantage as Pauline. The wily
and impassioned Richelieu, in the play of the same name,
was represented on Friday evening by Mr. Brooke, with
his customary energy and usual tact ; and on Saturday he
presented his spirited delineation of the "crooked-backed
tyrant," in " Richard the Third," His performances are
advertised to continue throughout the present week, dur-
ing which he will, as before, be supported by the strength
and talent of the resident company.
THE GRAND OPERA at the Theatre Royal last week
was confined to one performance, that of Friday evening,
Monday's opera having been omitted on account of indis-
position among members of the Corps Operatique. On
Friday, the performance consisted of Mozart's Opera,
" The Seraglio," which was given in German. The piece
was capitally put upon the stage, and well performed.
The Constance of Madame Rudersdorff was a pleasing
and graceful performance, and, in singing the music, she
acquitted herself with her customary good taste and
ability. Her fine clear rich voice, and admirable ear,
enable her to do justice to the beautiful melodies of
Mozart, and, as usual, she did not withhold exertion of them,
although evidently labouring under the effects of a cold.
She sang with animation, and in excellent taste, and was,
as she deserved to be, repeatedly applauded, and once, at
least, enthusiastically encored. Mad'lle. Agnes Bury, as
Blonda, made a highly creditable appearance. In the
character of Belmont, Herr Reichart made his first appear-
ance since his recent severe illness, and was cordially
greeted by the audience ; a courtesy and expression of
kindness which he seemed to feel with grateful acuteness,
and which he acknowledged with becoming propriety.
In rendering the music he was felicitous, and the excellent
quality of his voice was markedly useful in the various
concerted pieces, as well as in the solos incidental to the
character. Herr Carl Formes was excellent as Osmin, and
sung and acted the buffo with great skill and spirit ; in
particular his singing and acting in the drinking song
were admirable, and elicited high applause. I
AT THETHEA.TRE ROYAL,during the past week,Vanden-
hoff, that veteran tragedian, has been leading the business,
appearing on Tuesday and Wednesday as Cato, in Addi-
son's tragedy of that name, and as Penruddock,in Cum-
berland's play of the " Wheel of Fortune ;" the lyrical
tragedy of " Antigone," announced for performance on
those evenings, having been postponed on account of the
indisposition of Miss Vandenhoff, who was advertised to
perform the heroine in Sophocles' beautiful classic tragedy.
On Thursday, the English version of that tragedy was
revived at this theatre with classical elegance and un-
stinted stage effect, so far as music and costume were
concerned, and as regarded the chief performers with
nearly as much power and talent as could be wished for.
To understand this play, which, in its construction and
representation, differs widely from the tragic dramas of
modern days, the following outline, taken chiefly from the
play-bill, becomes necessary, and will be found sufficient :
" Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of tEdipus, King of
Thebes, agreed to reign alternately. Eteocles having
once grasped the sceptre, determined to retain it. Polynices
procured the aid of his father-in-law, the King of Argos,
to enforce his right of alternate sway. An Argive army
besieged Thebes; it was defeated; and the brothers, con-
tending in battle, fell by each other's hand. Creon, their
nearest male relative, in concurrence with the general
usage, immediately ascended the throne, and forbade the
rights of sepulture to the body of Polynices, as an enemy
of the state. Antigone, one of the daughters of Edipus,
animated by piety and sisterly love, nobly dared to break
the tyrant Creon's mandate. She was detected in attempt-
ing to inter her brother, and was condemned to die by
incarceration and starvation in the cavern of a rock.
Tiresias, the blind seer, prophetically announcing the
sequent ills of this unjust sentence, induces Creon to bury
Polynices, and release Antigone. He inters the corpse,
and hastens to the cavern to release Antigone, but too
late. To avert the torments of a lingering death, Antigone
had strangled herself. Her betrothed lover, his son
Hcemon, was there discovered, lamenting her untimely
end. The youth destroys himself. Eurydice, his mother,
distracted by the loss of her son, plunges a weapon in her
bosom and expires. The tragedy concludes by the self-
reproaches and miseries of Creon. The chorus consists of
nobles and councillors of Thebes, who are assembled
before the palace of Creon, to hear his tyrannic decree
which proved so fatal to his family.—ln the ancient
Greek theatre the scene was fixed, and was used for all
plays indiscriminately. In order to point out to the
audience the relative positions of the actors, they entered
and left the stage by the same door. The king, or prin-
cipal actor, only entered by the centre, called the royal
door. The second character by a smaller door on the
right-hand side, and the third characters by a small door
on the left. At the extremities of the scene were two
doors ; that on the right leading to the city, through
which citizens, &c., entered ; and that on the left leading
to the country, for strangers, messengers, and other such
characters. The choruses, orchestra, bacchanals, &c., were
below the stage. The Greek play having been written
with a view to this arrangement, the ancient Greek mode
was adapted to the modern theatre as far as the same was
practicable." The arrangements, it will thus be seen, are
of the simplest kind, the effect of the piece being entirely
dependent on the talent, culture, and judgment of the
performers. In the arduous and noble character of
Antigone, Miss Vandenhoff was very effective, albeit that
in some very few instances she appeared to depend too
much on physical energy; too little on that quiet mental
discrimination which appeals directly to the more tender
emotions of the heart. The frank, heroic nobleness of
self-devotion with which she acknowledges the infraction
of the tyrannic edict, forbidding the rites of sepulture to
her beloved brother, absolving her sister from any parti-
cipation in the act, yet denying her criminality in resisting
and contemning the decree, was beautifully given, as was
also her lofty disdain of Creon's reproaches. In the por-
tion of the play where, bewailing her hard fate and unjust
condemnation to a horrid death, she appeals to the people,
she was scarcely so happy. Her grief and despair found
utterance in what seemed a struggle between natural
feeling and that conventional expression of it which hardly
touches the heart, however smartly it may assail the
ear ; nevertheless her impersonation of the character was
exalted, classical, and effective; pure and tasteful in con-
ception; and, as a whole, faithfully rendered in accord-
ance with that conception. As Creon, Mr. Vandenhoff
was powerful and impressive, just in style of declamation,
and dignified even in the most colloquial portions of his
dialogue. At the concluding portion, his grief was ex-
pressed in manly accents, alike remote from the whine of
the histrionic sentimentalist and the rant of the melo-
dramatic declaimer. His costume was rich and elegant,
and, like that of his daughter, designed on a tastefully
classic model. The other characters in the play had little
to do, the dramatic interest and action centering almost
exclusively in the two powerful characters. The choral
performances were well rendered, and added much to the
general effect ; but that, it must be admitted, derived a
large portion of its most attractive merit from the admira-
ble tableau vivan with which the representation closed ;
this was in nearly every respect beautiful, and drew down,
as it deserved to do, an enthusiastic burst of applause.

THE SNOBBERY OP " GENTEEL" MANUFACTURERS.—
In alluding to the late Countess of Stamford and Warring-
ton, the Huddersfield Examiner says : —She was born and
brought up among the lower ranks ; the daughter of a
poor, but honest man in the town of Cambridge. It is,
however, said, to the credit of the lowly-born countess, that
she adorned the high rank to which the affection of her
husband raised her, and that her every act was worthy of a
lady and a peeress of the realm. But while the poor and
the humble among whom the late countess lived rejoiced
in the singular good fortune which raised her to so
elevated a station, it was different with some purse-proud
middle-class people, from whom better things might have
been expected. It is well known that the " snobs" of a large
manufacturing town, whose villas adjoin one of the
residences of her ladyship's husband, offered her a deli-
berate insult, the repetition of which brutality was only

avoided by the young couple ceasing to reside among the
genteel people of cottonopolis. Just think of men, whose
fathers and grandfathers were factory labourers, making a
howl over one from the same rank with themselves being
allowed to enter into aristocratic circles ! Yet such is the

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