With his usual tact the manager had determined on a change of entertainment which should offer a marked contrast to the classical success just obtained, and was now meditating a revival of the once popular romantic drama, ‘The Corsican Brothers,’ with all its spectral effects—certainly one of the best of many admirably-constructed and effective French pieces. To such a group belong the absorbing ‘Two Orphans,’ ‘Thirty Years of a Gambler’s Life,’ ‘Victorine,’ and others. ‘The Lady of Lyons’ is the only one of our _répertoire_ that can be put beside these ingenious efforts. Some thirty years ago, when it was produced at the Princess’s, the horny-voiced Charles Kean performing the Brothers, it took hold of the public with a sort of fascination—the strange music of Stöpel, and the mysterious, gliding progress of the murdered brother across the stage, enthralling everyone. There was a story at the time that the acts, sent over from Paris in separate parcels for translation, had become transposed, the second act being placed first, and this order was retained in the representation with some benefit to the play. This may be a legend; but the fact is that either act could come first without making any serious difference.
Magnificent and attractive as was the mounting of this piece at the time, it was really excelled in sumptuousness on its later revival in 1891. The experience of ten years had made the manager feel a certainty in the results of his own efforts; his touch had become sure; the beautiful and striking effects were developed naturally, without that undue emphasis which often disturbs the onward course of a piece. All his agents had grown skilled in the resources of the scene; and he himself, enjoying this security, and confident as would be a rider on the back of a well-trained horse, could give his undoubted fancy and imagination full range. Hence that fine, unobtrusive harmony which now reigns in all his pictures. Even now the wonderful opera house, the forest glades, the _salon_ in Paris, all rise before us. Nor was there less art shown in the subdued tone of mystery which it was contrived to throw over the scenes. The scenes themselves, even those of reckless gaiety, seemed to strike this “awesome” note. Much as the familiar “ghost tune” was welcomed, more mysterious, as it always seemed to me, was the “creepy variation” on the original theme, devised by Mr. H. Clarke, and which stole in mournfully at some impending crisis all through the piece. There was some criticism on the D’Orsay costumes of the piece; the short-waisted waist-coats, the broad-brimmed opera hats, and the rich cravats—_Joinvilles_, as they used to be called. These lent a piquancy, and yet were not too remote from the present time. Terriss, it must be said, was lacking in elegance and “distinction.” There always lingers in the memory the image of the smooth grace and courtesies of Alfred Wigan, who really made a dramatic character of the part—sympathetic and exciting interest. It is in these things that we miss the style, the bearing which is itself acting, without utterance of a word, and which now seems to be a lost art. One result of this treatment, as Mr. Clement Scott truly pointed out, was the shifting of sympathies. “Château-Renaud was, no doubt, a villain, but he was one of the first class, and with magnetic power in him. He had won for himself a high place. He was cold as steel, and reserved. For him to deal with Louis was child’s play. And yet all this was reversed: it was Louis that dominated the situation; no one felt the least apprehension for his fate.” This is a judicious criticism.