Greenwood's "Notes from over the Sea," New York Times, Sep 6, 1875

Greenwood's "Notes from over the Sea," New York Times, Sep 6, 1875

Lippincott, Sara Jane (pseudonym: Grace Greenwood), 1832-1904

Actors and Actresses--English

Travel Reports

England

England--London

Criticism

Praise

Greenwood writes this note in Lucerne, on Aug 15, 1875. She reviews some performances she witnessed in England during her travels. She mentions Henry Irving, Isabel Bateman, and Salvini.

Lippincott, Sara Jane (pseudonym: Grace Greenwood), 1832-1904

H.J. Raymond & Co.

1875-09-06

Reference

We did not see much of London theatricals, being usually, when night came, too much satiated with aristocratic display and royal splendor to care to see high life through the Dundreary of Soethern, or majesty through the Italian-Dane of Salvini. As for the opera, it was a pastime for gods and grandees. There was a splendid constellation of lyric stars to be seen almost any night--Patti, Titiens, Nilsson, Thalberg, Alabni--but their notes were worth their number in pearls. One night we snatched a costly pleasure, "the freedom of paradise in a box," and were thrilled and uplifted by the divine singing and glorious passion of Patti in the "Huguenots." One night we squaudered on "The American Cousin"--which we had seen or heard of everywhere in America for the last ten years--which is always dreary but never done--I mean the Yankee part, the melancholy caricature of Asa Trenchard. As for the titled idiot of the piece, with his preposterous coats, his proverbs, his eyeglass, and his spring-halt, I confess he makes me laugh, and laugh, and despise myself while I laugh. At the Lyceum we saw the new popular representative of "Hamlet," Henry Irving, in one of the last of his 200 consecutive performances of that character. In creating a great sensation in London, this gentleman has equaled in his way, Edward Irving, the preacher, who was a fine actor in the pulpit, while this actor seems like a preacher on the stage; at flesh, at least, he having a grave and austere countenance, a thin and angular figure, and a voice at times sepulchral in its solemnity. There is extraordinary power in the man, doubtless--thousands of admiring voices attest it; but I must say that he did not powerfully move me, except in one or two points, which were evidently not among his conscious and premediated tours de force. He is less formal than Booth, less melodramatic than Fetcher, but he lacks the princely dignity of the one, and the great reserves of passion of the other. [...]

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