The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1884-06-18
A STAGE TREAT.
The Musical May Festival in
Chicago.
Music Hath Charms to Soothe tn
Savage Montanian.
Theodore Thomas Immense Troupe Max
ing Sweet Sounds f For the Multitude.
CHICAGO, June l, 1881.

CHICAGO, June /, 1884.
The crowds of people now flocking to
the city give to the hotels and places oil
amusement u particularly lively appear.
ance.
OF the dozen theatres which are now
running nightly, Sundays included, the
chief feature seems to be comic opera OF
some sort, good, bad or Indifferent. AT
McVicker's, Frank Mayo is running
quite successfully new play arranged
for the stage by himself, called Nordeck.
1t is a play of the time Of the Polish in
surrections, one hundred years ago; is
| striking in its dramatic effect and finely
put on the stage. Mayo, however, does
not show his powers as an actor in this
play as he does in some of his old parts
of different style, such as Davy Crock
| ct, for instance.
| The chief feature in the amusement
| line this last week has been the great
May festival, which opened on Monday,
May 9th and ran for five days, giving
seven concerts. This was the second
biennial festival, was held at the Expo
sition building, and under the direction,
as was the first of Theodore Thomas.
Go to the central music hall and get
your ticket day or two before the con-
cert, if you wish to get a good seat, fer
which you may pay from 81 to $3.50, ac-
cording to location. Now join the great
crowd that is pouring into the huge
building through the numerous en-
frances. If you have white ticket go
through this door; If it is yellow one,
that is your door with notice over it;
if your ticket is blue you see by the no.
tice that this other passage is the one
you must follow; if you belong to the
escort it is this way; to the chorus that
way; and if you have a dollar seat
please hunt around for it in the wilder
ness at the back Of the house.
Upon entering you will see an i'm
mense hall having a seating capacity of
about 5000, with stage holding an or
chestra of $50 and chorus of | 900, all
of which is under the blaze of over 900
large gas jets. A large force of lively
ushers are showing people rapidly to
their seats, which consist of good sub
stantial chairs that will get rather hard
before the evening is over, if you are
not we'll upholstered yourself.
The audience is a brilliant one, con-
sidering it's size, and on every side can
be seen beauty in feature, complexion
and costume. And then the chorus
the beautiful blondes and dashing bru
nettes, the sea of white, pink and blue,
oyer which hovers a spray of powder
and diamond dust-it is this sight that
breaks the Montana backwoodsman sall
up"
Thomas, the great director. takes his
place, gives a sharp rap with his baton,
the thousand singers rise and clear their
throat organs, the directors hands go
up and come down gracefully and the
throng of musicians go at it with will.
Fifty violins, eighteen violas, nineteen
violincellos and twenty double basses
are sawed in perfect time, accompanied
by numerous trombones, flutes, piccolos,
bassons, kettle drums, triangles GYM
balls and other instruments too nGmer-
Gus to mention. AS Handels TIE Deum
"Dettengen' moves on in all it's gran
deur, and the great battle of George II.
is being fought, which it was composed
to commemorate, the sensations of one
of the audience at least were somewhat
mixed.
Music often affects the brain much in
the same way that sleep does. The
reasoning faculty is soothed into inac- /
ton, and every fancy runs into wild
dreams of all beautiful and fantas-
tic one instant cold and calculating the
next AS in dream great periods of
time seem condensed into the space of a
few moments, SO under the influence of
perfect time and grand music the
thoughts fly with rapidity and without |
control from one thing to another.
AS the chorus and orchestra are MAX |
ing wild charge on to victory, and the |
routed French are flying in all direc- |
tions, we imagine that we are on the |
back Of wild cayuse. bounding over
the plains, and swinging our arms over |
our head, sweeping with the eye the |
the great expanse before us, and feeling |
that we own every inch of ground from |
the Highwood mountains to the great |
Missouri.
While in the height of this lofty mood |
perhaps the nnanimity of |
action-suggested to our distorted imag- /
ination that the chorus is a flock of sheep |
rushing at us with ..one loud shout for
salt. This frightful thought is immed-
lately followed by one of shame and sor-
row. To even think for an instant of |
comparing those splendid pink and |
white tyrants and those dear creatures |
in blue, who have each and every one,
spent an hour and ninety minutes be-
fore the mirror in making themselves
acceptable to our eyes, to band of sheep
is preposterous- it is ingratitude too
great to be allowed without a protest |
But the Te Deum goes on, gets into a
gentler phase, the soothing strains
nf1iat oI,r nerves and we p0 sailing |