... . THE procession of Mr. Mapleson's prime donne seems inter minable. Last week, with very little prefatory announcement, Mme. Mazzoli Orsini, a prima donna drammatica of some celebrity on the Continent, made her first appearance in Eng land as Leonora, the heroine of Donizetti's finest opera, La Farorita. On Thursday last La Sonnambula was announced for the début of Mlle. Nevada as Amina, and ...

... . It was, we believe, intended to introduce into tbe second edition of Monte Crista more new features than had been got ready for Easter. The illness, however, of Miss Marion Hood and Miss Barlow, for whom substitutes had to be provided, was no doubt accountable for the diminished number of the promised changes. This, however, was of the slightest possible moment, for the old songs and dances ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITia MONTE CEISTO JR. THE amiable but anonymous cor respondent who lately requested me to in form him and his fellow residents in the country what Monte Cristo Jr. was like, and at the same time adjured my colleague to portray for him Miss Farren and Mr. Fred Leslie, will I fear have some cause to complain of my attempt to gratify his desires. In the first plaoe so much has ...

... THE RISE OF VOCALISTS' SALARIES.-- Madame Patti will in a few weeks return to this country after a seven months' Trans- Atlantic Concert and Opera Tour, during which it is estimated she has cleared up ...

... . For those West-end playgoers who would not go to Shore- ditch to see Henley Regatta on the stage, that tour deforce of scenic realisation has been brought by Messrs. Willing and Douglass to the Olympic. As would we feared be the case, the Olympic stage is hardly equal to the requirements of a finish for the Diamond ScuUs. The tank is there all right, so too are the water, the swans, and the ...

... MESSRS. POHLMANN AND SON.-- We can cordially recom mend The Discontented Maidens: a Dramatic Cantata for Female Voices, libretto by William Tirebuck, music by Alfred F. Christensen, to the heads of ...

... AT the VAUDEVILLE, where Mr. Buchanan's clever adaptation of Tom Jones still holds on its prosperous way, a new poetical comedietta by the same author has been produced by way of intro ductory piece ...

... fit COURTLEROY, by Anne Beale (3 Vols.: Hurst and Blackett), is a good, sound, wholesome piece of work, without any very distin guished merit, but certainly affording no scope for positive fault fin ...

... . The place of A Mark Secret, transferred, as we note else where, to the Olympic, has been taken at the Standard by Blind Justice, a melodrama by Mr. E. C. Bertrand, which has already done useful service in the provinces. This play deals with the extraordinary legal miscarriage whereby one Gilbert Glenthorne, an exceHent clergyman, is convicted of robbery, and is well-nigh convicted of murder. ...