_BRAVISSIMO_, Sir ARTHUR SULLIVAN of Ivanhoe, or to compress it
telegraphically by wire, "_Bravissimo Sullivanhoe!_" Loud cries of
"ARTHUR! ARTHUR!" and as ARTHUR and Composer he bows a solo gracefully
in front of the Curtain. Then Mr. JULIAN STURGIS is handed out to him,
when "SULLIVAN" and "JULIAN"--latter name phonetically suggestive of
ancient musical associations, though who nowadays remembers "Mons.
JULLIEN"?--the composer and librettist, bow a duet together. "Music"
and "Words" disappear behind gorgeous new draperies. "All's swell
that ends swell," and nothing could be sweller than the audience on
the first night. But to our tale. As to the dramatic construction of
this Opera, had I not been informed by the kindly playbill that I
was seeing _Ivanhoe_, I should never have found it out from the first
scene, nor should I have been quite clear about it until the situation
where that slyboots _Rebecca_ artfully threatens to chuck herself
off from the topmost turret rather than throw herself away on the bad
Templar _Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan_. The Opera might
be fairly described as "Scenes from _Ivanhoe_," musically illustrated.
There is, however, a continuity in the music which is lacking in the
plot.
[Illustration: All Dicky with Ivanhoe; or, The Long and Short of it.]
The scenic effects are throughout admirable, and the method, adopted
at the end of each _tableau_, of leaving the audience still more in
the dark than they were before as to what is going on on the stage, is
an excellent notion, well calculated to intensify the mystery in which
the entire plot is enveloped.
The change of scene--of course highly recommended by the leech
in attendance on the suffering _Ivanhoe_--from the little
second-floor-back in the top storey of the castle tower, where the
stout _Knight of Ivanhoe_ is in durance, is managed with the least
possible inconvenience to the invalid, who, whether suffering from
gout or pains in his side,--and, judging by his action, he seemed
to feel it, whatever it was, all over him,--found himself _and_ his
second-hand lodging-house sofa (quite good enough for a prisoner)
suddenly deposited at the comparatively safe distance of some three
hundred yards or so from the burning Castle of Torquilstone, in which
identical building he himself, not a minute before, had been immured.
So marvellous a flight of fancy is only to be found in an Arabian, not
a Christian, Night's Entertainment.
The Tournament Scene is a very effective "set," but practically an
elaborate "sell," as all the fighting on horseback is done "without."
Presently, after a fierce clashing of property-swords, sounding
suspiciously like fire-irons, _Ivanhoe_ and _Sir Brian_ come in,
afoot, to fight out "round the sixth, and last." There is refreshing
novelty in Mr. COPLAND's impersonation of _Isaac of York_, who might
be taken for _Shylock's_ younger brother who has been experimenting
on his beard with some curious kind of hair-dye. This comic little
_Isaac_ will no doubt grow older during the run of the piece, but
on the first night he neither looked nor behaved like _Rebecca's_
aged and venerable sire, nor did Miss MACINTYRE--who, by the
way, is charming as _Rebecca_, and who is so nimble in skipping
about the stage when avoiding the melodramatic _Sir Brian de
Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan_, and so generally active and artful as
to be quite a _Becky Sharp_,--nor, I say, did Miss MACINTYRE seem to
treat her precocious parent (_Isaac_ must have married very young,
seeing that _Becky_ is full twenty-one, and _Isaac_ apparently
very little more than twenty-eight, or, say, thirty) with any
great tenderness and affection; but these feelings no doubt will be
intensified, as she becomes more and more accustomed to her jewvenile
father during the run of the Opera, and he may say to her, as the
Bottle Imp did to his victim, "Ha! Ha! You must _learn_ to love me!"
[Illustration: The game of "Becky my Neighbour." The Stout Knight lays
low.]
I have not time to enumerate all the charming effects of the Opera,
but I must not forget the magic property-harp, with, apparently, limp
whip-cord strings, "the harp that once," or several times, was played
by those accomplished musicians, _King Richard_, and _Friar Tuck_,
the latter of whom has by far the most taking song in the Opera,
and which would have received a treble [or a baritone] encore, had
_Barkis_--meaning Sir ARTHUR--"been willin'." The contest between
_Richard_ and the _Friar_ is decidedly "Dicky." Nor must I forget the
magnificent property supper in the first scene, at so much a head,
where not a ham or a chicken is touched; nor must "the waits" between
some of the sets be forgotten,--"waits" being so suggestive of music
at the merriest time of the year. Nor, above all, must I omit to
mention the principal character, _Ivanhoe_ himself, played by Mr. BEN
DAVIES, who would be quite an ideal _Ivanhoe_ if he were not such
a very real _Ivanhoe_--only, of course, we must not forget that he
"doubles" the part. There is no thinness about "_Ben Mio_," whether
considered as a man, or as a good all-round tenor. I did not envy
_Ivanhoe's_ marvellous power of sleep while Miss MACINTYRE was singing
her best, her sweetest, and her loudest. For my part I prefer to
believe that the crafty Saxon was "only purtendin'," and was no more
asleep than _Josh Sedley_ on the eve of Waterloo, or the Fat Boy when
he surprised _Mr. Tupman_ and _Aunt Rachel_ in the arbour, or when he
pinched _Mr. Pickwick's_ leg in order to attract his attention. But,
after all, _Ivanhoe_ and _Rowena_, as THACKERAY remarked, are a poor
namby-pamby pair, and the real heroine is _Rebecca_. The Opera ends
with a "Rebecca Riot." Every one wishes success to the new venture.
[Illustration: "A1" Saxon Friar.]
As to the Music,--well, I am not a musician, and in any new Opera when
there is no one tuneful phrase as in _Aïda_ or _Tannhäuser_, which, at
the very first hearing, anyone with half an ear can straightway catch,
and reproduce next day till everyone about him cries, "Oh don't!" and
when, as in this instance, the conducting-composer, Wagnerianly, will
not permit _encores_--where am I? Nowhere. I return home in common
time, but tuneless. On the other hand, besides being certain that
_Friar Tuck's_ jovial song will "catch on," I must record the complete
satisfaction with which I heard the substantial whack on the drum so
descriptive of _Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan's_ heavy fall
"at the ropes." This last effect, being as novel as it is effective,
attracted the attention of the wily and observant DRURIOLANUS, who
mentally booked the effect as something startlingly new and original
for his next Pantomime. The combat between the Saxon Slogger, very
much out of training, and the Norman Nobbler, rather over-trained
as the result proved, is decidedly exciting, and the Nobbler would
be backed at long odds. Altogether, the whole show was thoroughly
appreciated by WAMBA JUNIOR.
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