El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-10-11
THE OPERA.
The Troupe Finish Saturday Night and
Depart Last Evening.

|
Depart Last Evening.
Hardly third of house at
tended Riggoletto Saturday afternoon,
and only half house showed up at II
Trovatore at night. The Riggoletto
| performance was q meritorious affair,
| and the duOs between the tenor and
| soprano especially in the third act de-
served the hearty applause they re-
ccived. The famous quartet in the
last act was q marvel of operatic
beauty, and the applause was 80 hearty
and prolonged that a repetition was
justly called for. However, it was not
given. The tenor made q decidedly
favorable impression in that oft re-
peated strain commonly known in vocal
circles as "Over the Summer Sea-"
Part of the theme is given as follows:
The singers appeared in good trim and
theentire opera was treat.
II TrovatOre was q disappointment.
The audience was much smaller than
was expected: but had the opera been
a comic one with ''living pictures and
a hagrant display of female anatomy,
real or assumed, the house would have
been crowded to the doors. Then the
failure Of creditable performance on
the stage was such as to greatly mar
the pleasure of the evening. The cos
tuning of the chorus at times was SLOW
emily and unpleasant to look at. The.
Nuns Chorus, lovely pie ce of con-
certed melody, was fredericksburg
off, on, and out of the key, ''six ways
for Sunday" and otherways and other
wise until the harp of the muse divine
threatened to become a permanent
ruin. There were no anvils in the
Anvil Chorus suggestive of Hamlet
gcod-that is, the first singing of it.
But in responding to the encore, the
singers acted as though entirely
unprepared to respond. The tenor got
r attled and began in the wrong strain,
the soprano had to catch on as best she
could, the orchestra not knowing
where to come in, tried one place and
one was hit; ard as if this were not
enough, the baritone as the 'Counti
di Luna" played in addition to his own
role, that of ''the right man in the
wrong place. and stalked onto the
stage just as the tenor and soprano
were "dOing it all over again." The
of the soprano showed him he
waving q graceful adios he. chased
himself off-for the time being. The
soprano just went for that tenor when
she got him in the wings, sand "Jim-
how the maccaroni did fly.
A flock of rocky mountain magpies
were not In 1t with that woman. The
tenor, FREDERICK Collenz (Eytalian for
Fred Collins) expressed due penitence-
in the vernacular, and said he'd"never,
by the beard of the pope, do so again.
Collins " as not at all graceful in the
way he handled Leonora in her great
swooning act the last of the opera. He
handled her very much as one would a
bag of corn meal. There is such a
thing as grace in treatment of q lady
when q man has to lay his hands
on her in dramtaic requirements, and
our genial friend, Mr.. Fred Collins,
would do we'll to take few lessons in
this matter.
The contralto was only ordinary,
fairly good. not to be compared with
Helen Won Doenhoff who has taken
that role in this city. Moreover, the
prOmpter took a greater share in the
performance that was pleasant to the
audience. However, it is only fair to
say that the principals did some excel
lent work which largely atOned for
the mistakes of the evening. The or
chestrs as usual did very well and ds-
serves only commendation. The troupe
left for the west last evening, expect
ing to open for week tonight in Los
Angeles.