[Illustration: "J'y suis."
Pro Arris et focus.]
_Monday.--Le Prophête_.--Notable performance. Profit to those who
were there; loss to those who weren't. The two Poles, NED and JOHN DE
RESZKÉ, excellent as the Tipster, or Prophet, and the Chief Anabaptist
Swindler. Madame RICHARD--"_O Richard, Oma Reine!_" repeated her grand
impersonation of _Fides_, but being a trifle "out of it" as to tune
occasionally, I cannot be _Fidei Defensor_, and swear she was quite
correct, so can only report that RICHARD was a bit "dicky"; otherwise,
sings like a Dicky-Bird. Cathedral Scene magnificent. Rites are wrong,
probably; but these are trifles, except to strict ritualists. Skating
Scene not up to date; it was a novelty once upon a time, but rinks
have done for it. There was an unrehearsed effect in the Prison Scene,
when the walls collapsed--the imprisoned Madame RICHARD escaped, and
the Curtain descended. Nobody hurt. The walls, which had fallen,
like those of Jericho, to the sound of the trumpet, were put away
carefully, for alteration and repairs. The prisoner, issuing from
her narrow fire-escape, was recaptured, and the Opera ended with the
Drinking Scene, the Prophet among the Peris, a peri-lous situation,
which makes the Opera go, at the climax, "like a house-a-fire." Burns
Justice is done to the Impostor, and, at a late hour, we call our
cabs, and return to hum "_béviam_" over "a modest quencher."
_Saturday_.--BOÏTO'S _Mefistofele_. Strong combination. Excellent. But
big "waits" made it heavy.
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