... . ON Monday evening Dr. Richter bade a temporary farewell to his Metropolitan admirers, but his absence will not be for long, as he is due back again in the autumn to give a short series of concerts in London, and to conduct the principal fixtures of the Hallé concerts at Manchester and Liverpool. The excessive competition that now goes on in the orchestral world, has had a slightly damaging ...

... . THE Royal Choral Society has at length dived into the deep flood of Wagnerian music, but, unused as it is to the whirling waters of modern polyphony, the venture has not proved altogether so happy as its well-wishers could desire. In the first place but a limited quantity of Wagner's work is well suited to the concert platform, and it cannot he said that the examples put forward by Sir ...

... . Grierson's Way, which, of course, has given rise to con siderable discussion, completed on Monday its series of four representations at the Haymarket Theatre, under the direc tion of the New Century Theatre Society, formed for the exploitation of plays that it may be presumed authority sniffs at, and passes with some prickings of conscience, and that the general public would not be likely to ...

... DRAMA OR THE WEEK. WHAT grandmotherly government did for the managers in the not very long ago the managers-- many of them-- now elect to do for themselves. And it is not necessary to put to their account any sudden access of piety in order to supply a reason for the Holy Week closure that has been adopted nearly all along the line. Holy Week is a broken week; for in it comes Good Friday, on ...

... . Messaline was given four performances at the Casino Theatre, Monte Carlo, and I was present at them all, and with each representation my admiration for the work in creased. Now what is to be its fate? On my way homewards through Paris I met Mons. Gaihard, the director of the Grand Opera, and he was cynically sceptical as to the merits of Mr. de Lara's work: but that may have been from ...

... . BUT for the Promenade Concerts at Queen's Hall, music is at a standstill so far as the metropolis is concerned, and will be until we get past the Norwich Festival next week. Then on Saturday the Crystal Palace Concerts start, and that will bring many others in its train. Provincial music is, however, to be in evidence for some few weeks longer, as immediately following the Norwich Festival ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. HALVES. PAST-master of stories as he may be, Mr. Conan Doyle is evidently but a novice at the drama. His Halves from first to last bears the stamp of the beginner-- so evidently, indeed, that I should not bo surprised to hear that it was written long ago. At the same time, I hope not; and this for the paradoxical reason that it is so delightfully old-fashioned: I have ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. GOING THE PACE. Going the Pace, the latest Princess's production, comes, like civilisation, from the East. Messrs. Landeek and Shirley's play was in fact originally brought out at the Pavilion Theatre, Mile End, and it is a fair example of the kind of work which managers provide, and audiences expect nowadays, in that part of London. From which we see once more, what I ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE LADY OF OSTEND. THE late Augustin Daly was almost the first person outside of Germany to see possibilities in German farcical comedy, and most of the successes of the lamented author-manager were taken from this source. As often as not, it is true, he owed as much to the performers whom he was enabled to call to his help as to the originals of his plays and to his ...

... . THE most interesting feature of the week's music was the production at the Richter's concerts of Mr. Edward Elgar's Variations for Full Orchestra, which is the first work of its kind that has made its appearance in London from the pen of the Malvern composer. Hitherto he has devoted himself to the writing of cantatas; and his Caractacus, produced at the last Leeds Festival, was ...

... . AT Her Majesty's Theatre on Saturday evening last there was a revival of The Musketeers, which will probably suffice to fill out the season, and to give Mr. Tree breathing time to consider whether Antony and Cleopatra or King John shall be his next production. When Mr. Sydney Grundy's adapta tion of Dumas was first seen in November last there was a general and hearty recognition of the fact ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. EARL'S COURT EXHIBITION. GREATER BRITAIN is a title wide enough to cover a multitude of-- subjects. Practically it includes everything-- even Birmingham. I do not seek to disparage Birmingham, for the Colonies could not get on without it. Neither could the shows. There is no going against the fact which the long experience of the Crystal Palace made evident-- that for ...