New-Yorker Stadt-Theater

“The Germans at the Stadt Theater have given us the first signs of a season of opera and of opera buffo. A brilliant trifle by Offenbach, acted there for the past week, has afforded pungent foretaste of the Duchess of Gerolstein. It is just a wine-glass full of fine pleasantry, which Offenbach knows how to distil [sic] with the best taste and vim. Fortunio’s Lieblied or love-song is the name of this one-act gem. It is the story of Fortunio, a retired gallant and lawyer, who has a pretty young wife, and half a dozen young clerks, one of ehom is her enthusiastic admirer, Valentine. There is a legend among the clerks that Fortunio has possession of an irresistible and priceless love-song which has enabled him to win in all his adventures. Having sent the master away on a goose-chase, they steal his song, and rehearse it. The six clerks are transformed into six lovers, all of whom appear on the scene with their sweethearts, Valentine meanwhile singing Fortunio’s song to the Jungfrau. Franz von Suppées [sic] Ten Girls to one Husband has been played as an afterpiece to Offenbach’s jeu d’esprit. It is also an effervescent one-act, more farcical and effective, and but slightly inferior in sentiment. Anything quite so good as the Liebelied it does not contain, but its burlesques of military and dramatic music, with a chorus or two, are hearty and capital. The Ten Girls are supposed to be the daughters of a droll old gentleman, between whom and them exists an anxiety that they shall find husbands. They are represented in the first scene as undergoing an amazonian drill a la militaire, to which the rosy old gentleman aforesaid acts as a sort of generalissimo, straddling a large and dangling sword, which he manages as though it were a prancing steed on parade. All this is wild burlesque, which Mr. Theodore L’Arronge conducts with the greatest drollery. A single candidate for matrimonial felicity arrives on the scene, and undergoes a course of amazonian terrorism and parental bullying. The ten daughters appear in the garb of various nationalities, and the composer’s lively talent for travesty has excellent compass and occasion. The Italian aria, here sung in the most fashionable ecstacy and agony of grand-opera by Madame L’Arronge, is a n imitation quite equal to many originals of the kind, and, therefore, something more positively admirable than a mere imitation in pinchback (?) of Italian jewelry. The upshot of the farce is briefly told. The one young man so much besieged by the ten charmingly competitive young ladies is, after all, only the suitor of their serving maid. The latter accepts him, and the ten errant damsels console themselves in a ludicrous and surprising finale performed on ten different pieces of wood. The Ten Girls are full of vivacity, and here, as in Fortunio’s love song, Madame L’Arronge takes the lead in a graceful and dashing comedy. The present stars of the Stadt are doubtless the best vocal comedians our German stage has given us in a number of years.” 

(…) The house was completely filled. The group of ten girls has grown into 18 girls. The scenery leaves nothing to wish for; the performance was well done. L’Arronge as “Papa Schönhahn” successfully targeted the laughing muscles; and his wife excelled in her role, especially with her Italian karicature bravura aria and the soulful performance of Abt’s song.