El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-02-10
LAST NIGHTS CONCERT.
The Contra1to, Miss Broadfoot, Won
The Honors Of The EYenina.

TIC IlOnOGS vi INC EVENING".
A fair sized audience attended the
excellent operate copcart at the opera
house last night. Miss Broadfoot, con
~tralto, was by all mea the ~favorite
among those b took part. Her work
called for frequent applause. The
rich quality, full mellow tone, and ex'
quisite finish of her voice were
brought out at all times. increasingly
toward the enc. Her musical career
should be a brilliant one.
Madame De We're was disappointing.
Her failure to rouse great interest in
her auditors must be ascribed to
fatigue, illness, the absence of an
orchestra, or something Of the sort,
for her true worth WAS not made sp-
parent at all in her work last night.
We're in opera or oratoriO will agree
that her voice is of q most Unusual
character, and that as q singer and
actor she deserves to rank among the
very best. Those who had never heard
her would not have guessed last night
that b was qualified to fill so high a
place. She was cold. unsympathetic,
seemingly without that living, absorb
ing interest in her work which en-
thuses an audience.
1t would be quite unfair to criticise
her work in detail, for she was very far
from being at her best-from what
cause is only to be ~copjectured.
George Mitchell, the tenor, did very
acceptable work at all times. He
showed no remarkable ability either as
an actor or singer until the last act
that of TrovatOre-in which he acted
and sang his part with intense feeling
and with evident understanding. His
voice Is an unusually fine one. It is as
full and round as q baritone, and at the
same time is capable of producing a
'Of peculiar sweetness.
Winfred Golf, the baritone, was ex-
tremely pleasing. His make up and
acting as Mephisto were not adequate,
and in the quartet he appeared at a
beside the tenor. But
although he had no very favorable op-
portunity to display his voice, it was
easy to see that he has a fine voice and
knows how to use it.
After all, il is to Miss Eleouore
hat the honors must go. As
Martha, as Siebel. and as Azucena her
singing and acting we're fully adequate
to the demands made upon them, and
the admiration of the audience for her
increased steadily from beginning to
end.
Signor Sapio is an accompanist of
a~ttainments. AS conduc-
WI LII ~ v ULS Il, huU
in the absence OF an orchestra he was
forced to play the accomplishments on
the piano. His work was highly salts
factory in every way. The position is
a most difficult to fill, but to Signor
Sap1O, the eminent operate conductor,
it means a descent to fill it.
1t is safe to say that to most people
it would have been more pleasing had
these people, who are each aud all &C.
to be artists of extraor-
binary ability, given a select concert
program rather than the isolated
scenes from a number of operas. One
OF them, preferably Trovatore, might
prOitably been introduced in the
course OF the evening, the remainder
the time being give up to vocal
music of high order without any at
at staging. An ordinary person
has got to be a mental acrobat to Jump
from opera to opera, here a snatch,
a snatch, in one evening. 1t is
like reading three books at the same
do 1t successfully and Intel
ligently is q feat to be proud of. More
over, to appreciate these separate
or acts to the full one must have
heard the whole opera previously and
be entirely familiar with the story.
Without the allied portions they are
illogical, and unsteady speaking they
are quite unfair to the composer. They
give and leave in most cases, especially
IN utterly false impression.