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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1914)
3 DEATH STORY TOO GREWSOME FOR EXPERIENCED THEATER MANAGER AND BILL IS WITHDRAWN f , 1 'it " ?s k 3 yM 7 , ( A f, M I CSv " .j j -zV C a"'?' I'M Iw'f'.fl ! "i K '' '" n-sf ''"'"." ' V . A' " " " 'f -s v "iJlll? '"Vf " : . I - i ., I I i V X. I -L-i "01 1 1 - - . . X - A . , j I . V r ' -Cr i' Ji I I I - j jsVi - - J - g ..-2- i BT LLOTD K. LOKEBCAN. NEW YORK. May iO. (Special.) It Is about time for managers to make their annual trips to Eu rope la search of novelties, but many of them confess that they doubt whether the game is worth the candle. There was a time, not many years Bgro, when foreign plays were almost eure money-makers. That period has passed away, and the - up-to-date pro ducers are pinning their faith to a Crreat extent upon American authors. The majority of the plays that have succeeded this year have been the work of American dramatists, who have written about American life and in cidents, and the belief i3 that the same will hold true next year. It is safe to predict now, however, that "nasty" plays will be barred. It Is true that "whit$ slave" dramas paid last season, but only for a short time, and many producers who took up the fad toward the end lost money. What is wanted are pood clean dra mas and good bright comedies. Any of these that come along are insured a welcome and managers now thoroughly realize it. "Within the Law" and Potash and Ferlmutter" are two ex cellent examples of the kind of amuse ment that the New York public is wlll lngr to see. Musical comedy haa. on the whole, had a bad. season. Perhaps the rea son is that the public prefers to do. its own dancing these days. Another ex planation is that one musical comedy is the same as another and that we are tired of looking at them. Anyway, mu sical comedy is an expensive luxury and "angels" are' getting harder and harder to lind every season. And a musical comedy without an "angel" Is usually destined to a speedy death. Out of the West (San Francisco, to be exact! has come a playette which breaks all records for shortness of run. It is called "Electrocution" and was presented at Hammerstein's Victoria Theater on a Monday afternoon and closed before the evening performance "rang up." John Barry, a newspaperman, wrote It. Out West it was called "Hanged." I believe, but when brought to New York it was changed to lit our style of capital punishment. Its purpose is to aid the propaganda of a society opposed to executions. The scene is laid in the execution chamber of & prison. It is daybreak and a prison aid enters to. prepare Vr the electrocution of a man who kilted his wife in a lit of jealous rage. The lights are tried and salt and. water mixed to saturate the sponges which conduct the killing current. A prison guard and a doctor talk at length about the last hours of other men who have died. Then other officials and report ers enter. The brother of the dead woman expresses satisfaction that the -fearaWe?' Car- wsS slayer is to pay tne penalty, after which the priest enters, followed by the trembling victim, repeating the re- Make the Entire Summer a Vacation With Comfortable Lawn and Porch Furniture It is cool, comfortable, sightly and inexpensive. You can enjoy a continuous vacation at your own home if you vfiH visit this store and pick out some of these chairs, settees, lawn sofas and fibre mats, etc., making your home as it should be the most restful of all places. This large importation we have just received from the Orient. It is natural finish, substantially made and weather-proof. Just as appropriate for interior furnishing as it is for use on the porch or lawn. 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The warden seelfs for a substitute, but every man there re fuses the Job. even the brother of the murdered woman. Finally a citizen steps out of the crowd and volunteers, because, he says, lie believes that per sons condemned by the courts should die. He steps to the switch and dark ness descends upon the stage as he turns on the current. The acting was effective, but the playette was too grewsome for the audience. Even Mr. Hammersteln was affected and in broken-hearted tones ordered that "Electrocution" be with drawn at once. And it was. Douglas Fairbanks and Patricia Col linge, both Broadway favorites, have taken the plunge into vaudeville and are appearing in a specially written sketch entitled "All at Sea." The ac tion takes place in the wireless room of an ocean liner. Fairbanks is there as the wireless man, in order to be near his sweetheart, who is going to Europe with her wealthy father. The operator is worth $10,000, but stern papa declares he shall never wed his daughter until he has increased that amount to an even $100,000. After all this has been explained telegrams be gin to arrive by wireless, announcing that the father's business enemies are at work to ruin the financier while he is on the ocean. - All of these messages are more or less incomprehensible to the audience and all are extremely im probable. The operator triumphs by answering these communications with such acumen and experience that he makes another fortune for the financier and also increases his own wealth to such an extent that he can truthfully say he is worth $100,000. Mr. Fairbanks was his usual agile and cheerful self. Miss Collinge never looked prettier and . the audience seemed satisfied with the offering. Hazel Dawn, the Salt Lake girl who won fame in "The Pink Lady," is now under - the management of John C. Fisher. She will be starred next season In a musical comedy called "The De butante." The book and lyrics are by Harry B. Smith and Robert .Smith, and the music by Victor Herbert. In the offering. Miss Dawn will have an op portunity to play the violin, as she did In "The Pink Lady." In the support ing company so far selected, will bo Alan Mudie, Will West, William Dan forth, John Park, Stewart Baird. Zoo Barnett, Maude Odell and Sylvia Jason. The first performance will be given on September 28 at the National Theater, Washington. ... The famous Knickerbocker is the latest of Broadway theaters to go into the motion picture field. Beginning Monday, the house will have as its at traction "Cabiria," which has been brought to this country by Werba and Luescher, formerly producers of "The Spring Maid," and other big attractions. JAN SIBELIUS, FINNISH COMPOSER, TO PLAY IN THIS COUNTRY FIRST TIME Great Musician Will Appear at Unique Festival in Norfolk, Conn. Andreas Dippel Orchestra Plays in New York in Fall Boston Opera Company Plans Visit to Frisco Mrae. Schnmann-Heink's Daughter to Wed. BT EM1LIE FRANCES BAT'ER. BW YORK, May 30. (Special.) constitutes the entire musical in "Next season! Next season." This terest, and one might go further and say the drama is in the same category. All the music of Interest in the world is the activity- in London and Paris, and most of the artists are either those who have been with us all of last sea son or those who will come next sea son. This is said, not forgetting the fes tivals, which will close in a blaze of glory in Norfolk, Conn., at the most remarkable festival of all which will serve to bring Jan Sibelius, the great Finnish composer, to America, for the first time. The unique part of this festival is that it is purely a personal affair of Carl Staeckel, a music lover who gives these festivals with the same lavish hand as. though they were expected to bring in hundreds of dollars at the box office, when, as a matter of fact, the audience is there by courtesy of this ardent music lover and by his In vitation only. Sibelius sailed May 19 on the Kaiser Wilhelm and will make no other appearances. Amato has been a sensational figure among the festivals. He has filled a great many of these engagements, notable among which were the Cin cinnati festival, where be sang upon two occasions, and the Buffalo festival, where, contrary to a hard and fast rule that no soloist should be engaged for two successive seasons, Amato was one of the greatest features . of the event. . Mme. Hempel was heard there for the first time, and the German prima donna made a sensational success. One of the most satisfying of the Buffalo offerings was "Samson and Delilah," which was sung by Kathleen Howard, of the Century Opera Company; Lam bert Murphy, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and Louis Kreidler, of the Century. Andreas Dippel announces definitely now that he will run a season of 35 weeks in New York, beginning Octo ber 6, at the Forty-fourth-street Thea ter. He will have the last-ten weeks of the season at the Century Opera house, where he will have his per manent offices throughout the year. Mr. Dippel probably has heard every singing actor and actress and a good many that could lay no claim to the latter title, in New York, but he en gaged only 26 women for the chorus and very few principals. The men's chorus is more difficult to assemble. Mr. Dippel says: "I have not found many men who were willing to go into the chorus, and while I may be compelled to draft my chorus from abroad, it is not due to any feeling -against American singers, but the fact is that a position of this sort does not offer American men enough returns to pay them to go into it. I want the American girls to feel differently about my choruses and I have found that many of them are willing to take it as they would take a training school. "Whatever the remainder of the com pany may be, the ensemble must be flawless, and I have engaged some of the best church singers in New York for the chorus. They have been per mitted to retain their church positions and to attend their rehearsals as they see fit and they appreciate the benefit from the practice which they will have. I want every one of them to be able to take a small part from the be ginning and they shall have .small parts. In other words. I will not make up a chorus that could not take princi pal roles if they were needed there. I hope to advance them as can only be done in the case of an institution which is to become permanent, as I hope to have this become." The orchestra he has made up In the same way. using many men from the Philharmonic Orchestra who will be excused for the purpose of attending to their orchestral concerts, but who upon all other occasions will be mem bers of the Dippel Orchestra. The company was incorporated in Albany as the Dippel Opera Comique Company, and among the incorporators were Otto H. Kahn, Mortimer Schiff, Philip Lydig and other equally well-known capitalists and patrons of music The conditions surrounding the Bos ton Opera Company have changed com pletely since this organization has be come an established success In Paris. Henry Russell Is now booking and ar ranging1 his company for touring." It will not return to Boston until Janu ary, and it Is likely that plans will materialize by which the entire organ ization will go to Australia, returning by way of San Francisco during the ex position festivities. Mr. Russell has just engaged Eleanore de Cisneros, the great American contralto, as a member of the company while in Paris. A young recruit to the Boston grand opera from light opera and musical comedy is Cecil Cunningham, whose last appearance In light opera was made in "Maid of Athens." Miss Cun ningham crossed for Europe on the same steamer as Henry Russell, and she. was asked to sing one afternoon by some friends on board. Result: An engagement by the Impresario of the Boston Opera Company to take effect at once in Paris. Campanini's season in Chicago will not differ much from the arrangement of last season. It will open November 23 in Chicago " after a three" weeks' session in Philadelphia, Ten weeks in Chicago will be followed by another four weeks in Philadelphia, with the usual visits to the Metropolitan in New York. The engagements already announced include Bonci, .Maria Barrientos. the Spanish coloratura, who was to have appeared here with Hammerstein; Heinrich Hansel. W'agnerian tenor, Edyth Walker, Marie Kousnezoff, the Russian soprano, now singing with Russell in Paris; Louise Edvina, Llna Cavallieri, Alice Zeppilli, Miss Kvan., Beatrice Wheeler, Margaret Keyes, Rosa Ralsa. Mme. Schumann-Heink, Muratore, Marcou. "Whitehill. Ruffo,' Sammarco, " Hinckley and Huberdeau and others. CampaninI stated when he sailed that he would go to Bayreuth this Summer for the purpose of inducing Siegfried Wagner to come to Chicago to conduct a series of Wagnerian operas which he expects to give on Sundays. The Bayreuth performances will open July 22 and run until August "0. Dur ing this time there will be seven per formances of "Parsifal," five of "The Flying Dutchman" and two of the "Ring" cycle. The conductors will be Siegfried Wagner, Michael Balling and Dr. Muck. Mme. Schumann-Heink and Margaret Bruntsch, a, California girl, are among those engaged. Dr. Muck also is to conduct at the Mozart festival, to be held in Salzburg, and, notwithstanding rumors to the contrary. Dr. Muck will return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This great conductor has been announced as identified with every opera-house in Europe, when as a matter of fact Dr. Muck Is happier . at the baton of a great symphony orchestra than at the head of any opera-house In the world. Lombard 1. the well-known Italian impresario from San Francisco, paBsed through New York this Week on his way to Milan, where he will meet M. Constantino, the tenor, and Marchetti, who will together arrange a. company for next season to play locally in Los Angeles and later to make road tours of opera in English. The only engage ments that have been rati fled here are those of O. Picco, the Italian baritone, and Constanino. Picco Is one of the best of the baritones now available. In arranging his plans for next sea son John Philip Sousa is planning for 10 weeks at San Francisco, beginning In. May. 2 - .