Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1907-09-29
Madam Butterfly"

Henry w. Savage's new Madam Butterfly production will be given its premiere in Newark Monday night and will remain in the East until Christmas week, when the company will leave for tour through the South that will extend to California. Judging by the outlay Mir. Savage has made for the American production of the famous Puccini opera, the cities securing the English Grand Opera company in this reigning success will be for tunate. The orchestra has been increased to sixty pieces and is made up of finer body of musicians than has ever been sent on the road with a single production, not even ex- cepting Savage's famous "Parsifal." New artists of European fame have l been engaged to sing the leading roles. In addition to the favorite Rna Vivienne from Milan and beau tlful Dora de Fillipe from Paris, two new singers for the role of 1 Butterfly will add a flash of bril- ! lance to the production. One of ! them, Miss Febea Strakosch, is a niece of Adelina Patti with a record Convent Garden, Stockholm, Naples, Milan and Madrid, in all of which 1 capitals she has been a royal fav- orite in grand opera.
 Another singer engaged is Betty Wolff, without doubt the youngest woman in Europe entitled to rank among Primma Donnas. Miss Wolff is only P, and is the daugh- ter of chief justice at Frankfort ton Main. Mir. Savage was compelled | to pay honsomely to secure her re- lease from the Staadt theater at ] Mainz.
 With four such talented singers on his roll, Mir. Savage will be able td give eight performances weekly when Madam Butterfly" starts on it's southern and western tour.
 For the role of Suzuki, Butter ty's maid, who is on the stage for even a greater part of the time than the Japanese heroine, Mir. Savage has engaged Harriet Behne from Berlin and Ethel Houston from Par is. these two finished singers sing CTS won fine artistic triumphs last season, and are expected to repeat them before American audiences.
 David BlascO on American Plays.
 II believe implicitly in the Ameri- can character, and while many of our playwrights of ten or fifteen years ago turned to foreign subjects, claim, with all due modesty, to be one of the pioneers in the writ ing and production of plays dealing with American subjects" remarked David Belasco, in a private conver- sation with some friends the othe: night during a performance of "The Rose of the Rancho.'
 "Playwrights are often daZzled hy the glamour of courts and the ex citement of knightly jousts. Dis tance lends enchantment, and the,' forget that right her at home in their midst they have all the mater ial at hand for strong plays pulsat ing with life and action. They have all the lacal color they can ask for. and all the domantic impulse essential to the inspiring of wonder full interest. It is true,I have some times gone abroad for my material, but it mas been the exception rath- or than the rule. and my favorte field long ago was my own country ,aonle by my own countrymen. My first effort as a boyish dramatis' vas to bring western characters or
 the stage. When the French plays
 still had a sort of right of way ano
 American society was touched oniN
 on sporadically, "The Wife, "1hf Charity Ball" and Men and Wom
 on" I daresay hoiped to 1mprcs