The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-04-23


York is rapidly taking its place as the great
centre Of fashion and art. The Central Park
Is already much more remarkable and OK
tensive pleasure ground than ever the Bots de
Boulogne was in the zenith of its glory. The
Fifth avenue. with its prospective extension
10 parallel line with Broadway and leading
directly from the Battery to the Central Park,
assumes more and more the aspect Of the
Champs Elysees, while Madison square, clus-
tering around the Fifth Avenue Hotel, gives
already to that part of the city something of
the appearance Of the Place Vcndome. The
grace Of attire OF the gentlemen and ladies
who haunt these fashionable regions is also
pre-eminently Parisian and our theatres are
beginning to shape themselves after those Of
the ex-gay French capital. 1t is true the
Alhazzar and Mile. Theresa are still wanting.
but they are coming, and the places of recrea-
ton in the vicinity of the Central Park are fast
becoming des catSs chGnt0nts. Hippodromes
or circuses abound here, and the minstrels
afford intellectual Injuries of which even Paris
conld not boast in her Augustan-N apoleon!c era.
Wallacks delightfully."- blends the artistic
charms Of the 'Varietes" and s'Vaudeville"
theatres of Paris, and its accomplished manager
equals in variety and grace the best of Pari-
sian actors. Days Fifth Avenue theatre is a
New York version Of the Palais Royal, with
its sprightly, spicy, telling hits. Booths
representa-, to some extent, the Theatre Fran
Gals, and though he may not be Talma,
in scenic splendor his theatre surpasses its
French contemporary. Niblos, too, is fast
eclipsing in its scenic beauties and sensational
tableaux the Porte st. Martin, and Fisk is
Schneiderizing his Grand Opera House with
Erie velocity. Indeed, what would become Of
the Grande Duchesse, now that Gerolstein and
all the other German principalities are merged
in the Hohenzollern and that the Parsians are
no longer in the mood of laughing at Fritz
and at Schwartz, if Fisk had not taken
these refugees under his protection and pro-
vided in New York an asylum for Offenbach,
whose lyrics cannot thrill any longer in Paris
alongside of the Commune's thunderbolts
against Versailles
New York is, therefore, in more than one
sense, the heir-at-law Of Paris, and Mayor
HAL, d UTuIudtleL utLlSelI, 10 OuT IluuSSuduH
We have our Folies Marigny, too, in Miss
Lima Edwins performances, and our Gaitf,
alas suddenly faded, in Laura Keene's.
We have, also, German theatres, which
could never flourish in Paris, and the
mere mention of which would, in the
Ristori, who played to empty benches in Paris,
created here, by her performance Of Marie
Antoinette and Marie Stuart, the most tragical
sensation among our Fifth avenue dowagers
who sympathize with the Bourbons and the
Stuarts and who are fond of everything that
savors of aristocracy.
But more remains to be done to complete
the Partisan glories OF New York. We need
an Italian grand opera, and this is the moment
for the shareholders to take Mrs. Nickleby's
advice and speculate" aud to avail them
selves of the unparalleled opportunity which
the collapse Of Paris gives for the operate
splendors of New York. An intellectual and
energetic manager would grasp in any other
part of the world such an opportunity as this,
and we are glad to see the stone is being
rolled from this long silent sepulchre of song
In all our theatres there is o movement and
ambition which predict brilliant era for the
drama and light comedy. The two only light
comedians of the highest range Of excellence
left-Lester w allack and Charles Mathews
are with us; and Shakespeare, who in London
has been banished to the Edgeware road and
Victoria theatre, is, at Mr.. Booths theatre,
voluptuously honored here.
The wealth of our people holds out ilresist.
ible temptations to the most eminent artists to
prefer the New to the Old World. With the
masses of our working classes rapidly rising to
prosperity-if our feudal railway and land and
money grabbing barons will not consign them
again to auperdom-Shakspear is destined
to experience new birth in this country, he
being new to the fresh, rising generation here.
while the base classes of England have well
nigh exhausted his mine of dramatic treasures.
The great danger to dramatic art in the
United States is that the masses of the people,
novices in its enjoyment, are not yet critical
as the French people were in their tastes, and
are apt to applaud the most vulgar feats OF
performance where more discriminating adopts
of dramatic art would frown them down.
Here, therefore, the theatre, it il
does not sink to the level of untutored
audiences, must rise to become their
teachers in taste and culture, and if highly
cultivated people keep aloof from the theatre
because it lacks an artistic excellence the less
fastidious taste Of the multitude holds out as
it were premium to mediocrity. Here, then,
lies the rub If our theatres give us the best
contemporary art can afford they will soon dis
seminate q higher taste among the people IT,
on the other hand, they take advantage Of the
uneducated judgment OF our theatre-goers and
give us trash, they will Marylobone our style