Those of our readers who have perused the flattering notices of this troupe in our Hongkong contemporaries and who were present at Wednesday night's entertainment must have gone away with the sense of their expectations having been more than realised. We ourselves were somewhat doubtful as to whether so small a number of performers could satisfy the somewhat pampered appetite of the Shanghai public but from the first number of the concert to the fall of the curtain on the operatic selection, the individual excellence of the artistes, the class of music and the general finish and completeness of the performance, give us the fullest confidence in recommending this company to avy one who has the least king for good music well performed, oran usement of a very high stand-
Commencing with the instrumentalists we may say that both the pianist and flautist ure excellent. Mr. Geo. Clutsam, whose accompaniments throughout were narked by great taste and sympathy, played a Marche Hongruise by Kowalski with great brilliancy and masterly execution, through we think he would have been heard to better advantage had the piano been placed in the centro of the orchestra. Mr. John Lemmone's numbers were both well given, and we were much struck by his execution of rapid variations, and the sweetness and clearness of tone in his pian" passages. To turn to the vocalists, we did not hear very much of Mr. Sherwin as he was suffering from indisposition and in our opinion his voice lacked the neces: sary force for the lower notes in the well-known duet Lore awl War by Cooke. Mr.
li, the tenor of the troupe, possesses a voiev of remarkable beauty and range; his high notes are clear and pure without suspicion of falsetto, and he has an amount of power in his lower register rarely found in this voice. This was most marked in his of the Messoye, his singing of which so pleased the audience that they insisted on an encore, and he responded to this by an exquisite rendering of Let me like @ soldier fall, that most excellent stand-by of all tenors: this gentleman also obtained an encore for his second song, the catchy Estudiautine by Lacome, substituting My Pipe from Rip van Winkle. Miss Minna Fischer has a mezzo-soprano voice of great beauty; we were told she was suffering from a cold, but this was hardly noticeable in her charming song The beating of my own heart by Mac: farren, which would certainly have been encored had it come later on in the evening. As in the case of Mr. Sherwin, so we hope to be able to have a better opportunity of judging of this lady's powers later on.
Dliss Amy Sherwin was an artiste we had heard and read, but that she was a Prima Donna of the first rank, we had not imagined. She bassa voice of singular beauty and clearness, trained to a pitch of excellence which must place her at the top of her profession: whether in the florid Little bird so sweetly singing (Allen) or in Home, sweet Home, a melody which must and does appeal to the most callous amongst her audience of exiles, she showed that
the melodies only. Her enunciation is per-the sang the maaaaing of her songs and not fect and her execution admirable, especially the long shake which she used to advantage in the first act of Marta, and her power of sustaining a high note without any loss of pitch. In fact we may say that to hear Miss Sherwin sing is a treat which no one should deny himself, and in saying this we would wish to convey a great deal.
'The selection from Flotow's Marta was a most happy one. 'True, the first act had to be considerably cattailed owing to its being composed largely of music for chorus, but in both the first and third acts' the finished character of the performance made one forget that there was anything wanting, As the curtain rose we were introduced to Lady Harriet (lise Sherwin), and her friend Nancy (Miss Fischer) who is trying to perenne Lady Hai to throw off her feeling of listlessness and ennui, and join in the pleasures of the court where she (Lady Harriet) is a Maid-of-Honour. To them enters Sir Tristram (Mr. Sh old beau who still considers him sistible, and who proceeds to bore Lady Harriet still further by his efforts to amuse her. He is however interrupted by the song of the servants going to the Hiring Fair, which Lady Harriet suddenly resolves to visit together with Nancy, disguised as serving maids; she also compels Sir Tristram to join them, and the scene concludes with the amusing dancing lesson, The second act shews the interior of Plunkett's (Mr. Sherwin) farm where he and Lionel (Mr, Stockwell) bring Lady Harriet and Nancy home as their servants. The ladies naturally refuse to do any work and in the end make the two farmers spin for them. Meanwhile Lionel can no longer control his admiration for Martha, us Lady Har-net calls herself, and declares himself, saying that he will cast his rauk and station aside if she will only be his wife. She of course laughs at him, and the act ends by Nancy being brought in by the ear by Phuckett from the kitd and the dismissal of the girls to their Fons. Where all acquitted theneelves so well it would be invidious to particularise but we may say that Mr. Stockwell and Miss Sherwin in their duet were excellent, the tenor taking B fat in alt from the chest with the greatest ease. Miss Sherwin's charming singing of The Last Rose of Summer wound the audience up to the greatest enthusiasm, so that she had to respond to the demand for an encore, givin Home, Siveet Home with oe much real feels ing that there was the most utter stillness in the house during the whole song, and the last phrase with its saddening cadence was received with a momentary silence, and then an outburst of applause prolonged and hearty. Of the concerted pieces the spinning quartet and the finale Good Night were the most noticeable.
Finally we may say that although the house on Wednesday last was not a pour one considering all things, yet the company deserve a much better, and we hope that to-morrow when they play Balfe's Sleeping Queen in its entirety, the audience will be as large as the merit of the singers is cunspicuous.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.