The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 30, 1903, Page 46

46 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 30, 1903. <> DOD onn mas Oberle’s this week at th Windsor vet in my was to go I interrupted. s Mr. Oberle ex a f supers who do noth- £ € dress—not s who I nd you it he got through 1d me what part the actor said Charlie Hicks, mour together serries 1 got a A s t t r me t fo He great way of w the Queen s and that amberlains. I can a penny and ng through life “He is truly person. And I that night at * Mr. Parker in- he actor sald. Then, tily, he began: “You any kind of wine you banquet, but it is all abels on the bottles, and terward that in the excitement meeting with royalty and v I had chal- it was Cha- His astonish- to history. I don’t answer though.” for the story '‘Abingdon tells it the same way,” Mr. Ps firmed e labels are removed because " 1 inquired Oberle replied. *“It is further on record as to the banquet,” he then went on with a certain pride, “that the royal train was kept waiting at Wind- sor station that night for three-quarters of an hour for the ‘gentleman supers.’ * “How @id you rank among the com- pany 7 ‘Oh, between the chorus and the prin- cipals. We ed with the principals— he same room—and dressed under the ‘Gentlemen supers.’ * * * The London Pelican came to get my impres- ms of the affair a day or two after- ward—the impressions of an American at Windsor. They went about it in a truly odd fashion. Their representative asked me mo ,questions. but said he could get my opinions from my behavior at the re- Rearsal 1 was conducting at the Adel- Thomas Oberle of the Shenandoah Company Who Once Helped to Entertain the ERS avo o= M USIC - FOLK * BY BLANCHE PARTINGTON . caa- phi! You can imagine the outcome. It absolutely un-American, and as fun- Oberle meant “absurd”) “as could be.’ ou were long with Frohman as stage manager?” ht years” Mr. Oberle replied, re- gretfully leaving England. “I staged the first Frohman production out here, ‘Men and Women® it was. I've been with Dan Frohman, too, acting. I had the honor, by the way, of speaking the first line in the Empire Theater of New York—though there is no tablet commemorating the event. * * * And I've been with Soth- ern, Seabrooke. I created the part of Swiftfoot Jim with Nat Goodwin in “The Cowboy and the Lady’ among other things. I was acting the part of Sergeant Kellar in ‘Arizona,’ by the way when the doctor ordered me to Arizona. Peculiar?’ I grant it. Then ask: “Since then you have spent much time down there? Do you like it?” “No place on earth like it,” Mr. Oberle expressed it. “I was down there three years and slept indoors just three nights in that time.” “Do they give you the roof here?” No, @nd I just stifie,” “the .actor laughed, and stretched out his arms like a cowboy. “But that shows you the kind of climate Arizona has.” “How about the rain?" ‘I sleep on the porch of my house gen- erally,” he explained, “still, it rarely rains there.” = “‘And what about the creeping things?’ I shiver. “Oh, they don't hurt you. They never touch a -Mexican,” with the accent on the “never.” *Of course, there are all sorts of them, centipedes, scorpions, tarantulas, -trapdoor spiders and such, and the first thing the tourist sees down there is this sort of thing on a card,” and with weirdly crooked fingers and popping eyes Mr. Oberle transformed himself into a sort of crabby monster that gave me all kinds of Miss Muffety shivers. “But you hardly ever hear of any one getting hurt,” he consoled. “Let's change the subject,” I suggest. “What do you do with yourself down there?” £ “Have a ranch.” 'And ratse?’ “Alfalfa, chickens, turkeys and ducks,” the amateur farmer replied proudly. “I tried to revolutionize Arizona on the sub- ject of chicken farming. It doesn't pay to go into it down there for itself alone. I knew one chap that put $5000 into a lant, incubators and things, and I could Lve had the place, with all the improve- ments—and all the chickens left—for $7 a month. * ¢ * Now another fellow I know has about 350 chickens, serves perhaps forty families with milk with one helper, has two helpers with his hay—sixty acres, and makes a good penny out of eggs at% cents to 40 cents a dozen.” “Why, that's cheap here,” I insert from the proud depths of my kitchen ex- perience. “I thought everything was so dear in Arizona?" ‘‘Most things are,” the Arizonan grant- ed. “But that is the kind of farming that pays down there.” How are the theaters?” \ “The Doris in Phoenix is the prettiest theater in Arizona; there aren’t very many. It doesn't pay to play down there. The traffic is too high. With all the the- atrical reductions there is no traveling for less than 4% cents a mile. Well, you know what that means. Six cents is the ordinary fare. No wonder things are dear. we're between two depots, the Southera Pacific and the Santa Fe. That's why there’s so little cnime there. ~ pres { % . “Well, they can't get away. We'd have them in a day. The few hobos that ar- rive with the circuses all get held up.” “But the Doris is a fine little theater,” he reverted, “and we do get a good com- »any dawn there now and again. They, ) P Phoenix itself {sn't on any line— Late Y take tickets clear from Seattle to Boston and work it that way. It's cheaper. S. Miller Kent was down there some time ago with ‘The Cowboy and the Lady,’ and short on.a Swiftfoot Jim. He sent for me—I was working for the water company then—and the doctor consenting, 1 went in my overalls to rehearsal. I enjoyed it, I tell you.” “You have played much down there?” “Quite a little. At El Paso, at Albu- querque—that gambler, I forget his name, built the prettiest theater in New Mexico there and had it burned down on him by the Mafia Soclety, so they said—then at Deming. But I must tell you about Dem- ing. Thet's where we struck the worst. ‘We got there when the town was full of cowboys, who had come in to elect a Sheriff. They had a candidate named Roberts and the other man was a half- breed Mexican, a clever, nice fellow. But ‘we were too much concerned about our- selves to bother about the election. I found a‘parlor table and a couch for the ladies to sleep on and we put up with bath tubs and floors. We dined at a Chi- nese restaurant and the griddle the steak was fried on had probably been cleaned in the days of Confucius. Not since. Then I went to look for the theater. I wan- dered about until I came to a sort of liv- ueen Victoria at Windsor. _ ery stable and asked a boy in fromt, ‘Where's the theater? ‘This is it,” he sald. ‘Where's the manager? ‘That's him,” he said. ‘Him’ was a sporty looking customer in an automobile hat and tweed suit that looked as if they had descended from a turn at the Orpheum,” pursued the actor, “but I braced up and asked him if he were the manager. He told me it was none of my business, but when I per- suaded him it was, he showed me the theater. Then I asked where the dress- ing-rooms were?"” “Can't you see them?" he asked. “There was a sort of hayloft at the side of the stage that might be mistaken for a dressing-room’ Mr. Oberle woefully eontinued, “and I asked if that were one of them.” ’ “Them's 'em,” the manager summed up. “I put a curtain across the middle, and the ladles have one side, the gentiemen the other.” “I suppose I must have looked pretty rueful then, for he asked “What's up? ™ sald the amateur barnstormer, wrinkling his brow at the remembrance. “Don’'t they speak?”’ he asked. “We got $12 the first night, $63 the sec- ond and $80 the third out of Deming,” Mr. Oberle concluded. e — | X O-MORROW evening Wwe sha bave an opportunity to see ar other Aida make-up, for to-mor- row evening with as is the time-honored cu: , the Tiv. olf's grand opera season Op=ns. Like home without a mother would Tivoli season be without an “Alda.” opera, of course, offers exceptional tunity as a vehicle for exhibiting the sources of the singers. Then again, it Verdi at his best, in one of the m finely melodious and gplendidly dramat operad in the Italian repertolre. Incidentally and frivolously, there is usually a small ¢ 3 in the Aida make-up, down. “An Ethioplan sla s described by her creator, Camille du Locle, and the variety of her material- izations on the local stage has furmished much harmless amusement. The striped chocolate of De Frate's motherly coun tenance last year evoked an almost ribald chuckle from the graceless. Dear lady! thou couMst not 1 understand the profane American, saw thy hip- pered cheek whilest thou and Verdi at his sweetest sang “Fuggiam gli Ardort.” Anna Lichter's fashion of going about the The however, the thing was still more naive. Anna had no mind to hide her plump prettiness— it was before her banting days—under the tan alleged to be E opian. ther had she a mind to wear the Pocahontas sort of head-dress usually imposed upon an Alda. Her compromise was artless- ness {itself, one remembe) Correctly chocolate was the plump I ltmb that the bon ten of Ethiopia osed to view, correctly chocolate also torso, b and Miss Lichter's round che: her dimpled arms, were as as God made 'em. It was a triumph plebaldry. Matie Tavary's get-up was the first that made me wish that it were possible for the Ethiopian to change his skin. She was my first Alda, and I was yet un- hardened. But I instinctively feit thet her greeny blonde wig, ochred cheeks, and snuffy tights were not quite au fait, peither the cut of her costume, that wav- ered between that of the Ephesian Diana and the Empress Josephine. A smoky little dumpling of a person called “Natall” was another early Aida of mine. One forgave her a face that could by ng stretch of fancy be called aught but dirty for its supreme good humor. And, by the way, is it usual for the Ethiopian belle's damask cheek to differ so strangely from her papa’'s? I remember Natall’s was distinctly a “horse of another color” from that of her Amon- asro. She probab took after her mamma. Effie Stewart looked like Silas Marner's Eppie, as if she had “been in the coal hole.” As a make-up her Alda was the most woe-begone in my not limited ex- perience. All of these good people, however, at least made some concession to tradition, that one of the world's great artists sin- gularly refused to make. I speak of Nor- dica. Her appearance in the part was a glaring solecism. The costume was wholly without character, half Greek, half Italian, and her make-up suggested almost anything but the Ethiopian slave girl. Remains now only Nice Barbareschi, who looked and dressed the part with singular fitness and beauty, and Eames— the only Alda. Who can forget that glori- ous pomegranate bloom of the Eames Aida, the barbaric beauty of the cos- tume, the wimple and noble fashion of the hair? A grateful audience, too com- monly supine under affrighting. assaults upon Its vision, applauded to the echo this most lovely gift to its gallery of stage pictures. Nelther here should be forgotten Maes- tro Salassa, whose superbly pietured Amonasro is worthy to rank with the Eames Alda- To-morrow evening, alas! we shall not have with us Maestro Salassa, but in Adamo Gregoretti, who sings the Amon- asro role, Mr. Leahy modestly believes he bas an artist who is now what our dear old friend was in his palmiest days. Lina de Benedetto, a dramatic soprano, who comes with large reputation, will be the Aida of the cast, and Cloe Marche- sini—who will later challenge.comparisons with Collamarint as Carmen—will be the Amneris. Emanuele Ischierdo, who is also lavishly heralded, will he the Rhad- ames, and our old friend Dado steps aside to let us taste of Baldo Travaglini's qual- ity in the Ramphis role. Baldo will have hard work to fill Augusto’s place, but the cast gains by Dado’s presence as the King. Lk Tuesday evening will exhibit most of the remaining members of the company. “Lucia” is the opera. In the title role will appear Adelalde Tromben, to whom rumor gives the chief fame of the year's organization. Signorina Tromben has the promising title of the “Venetian night- ingale,” and is said to have the willing ear of Europe. Agostini will be heard for the first time as Edgar and needs no fntroduction to San Francisco. I hear he looks thinner than when we sent him away last year. He'll probably mend a' that before the week's out. Such a handshaking as there was when the silver-voiced tenor walked into the Tivoll last Wednesday! Others who will appear in the immortal sextet are Guiseppe Zanini, as Henry Ashton: Alfredo Tedeschi, as Bucklaw, and Dado, of course, as Raymond. Mr. Steindorff, too, over and above everything, will be in front of a largely augmented orchestra and a picked chorus that has been singing its best for weeks past. - Ladies and gentlemen, the opera is served! LB The Philharmonic Symphony orchestra has begun work and announces this year as its president Glulio Minetti, who also continues as conductor. No better choice could have been made, as those remem- bering Mr. Minetti’s excellent guidance of the soclety’s fortunes last year will heart- ily agree. It is long since the affairs of this long famous soclety were in such flourishing condition and the prospects for the coming season argue the contin- uance of its prosperity. Mr. Minetti has a number of novelties in contemplation for the season’s programme. As before the rehearsals will take place on Monday evenings at Curtaz Hall, to which appli- cations for membership in the soclety should be sent to the secretary. Women interested In ensemble singing will do well to join the Treble Clef Club, a bright little band of singers that this week began the fifth year of their pleas- ant work. The club meets at Elks’ Hall on Monday afternoons at 2:30 o’clock and those desirous of joining should make early appilcation to the secretary, Ada D. Norton, 420 Emr::a §preskdu building. Miss Pearl Guzrhan, who has the im- portant role of the dashing widow In “The Prince if Pilsen,” is a Boston girl, who was well known as a soloist of the Symphony Orchestra before she decided to go upon the stage. Starting in the chorus of “The Prince of Piisen”’ she was soon promoted to be the San Franecisco girl In “The Song of the Cities” and achieved such a pronounced success that late in the New York run she was given the important role of Mrs. Crocker, in which she made a decided hit. She left Boston a chorus girl and returns as one of the principals.