Kelly and Leon’s Minstrels

Event Information

Venue(s):
Kelly and Leon's Minstrels Hall (720 Broadway)

Event Type:
Minstrel

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
11 August 2016

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

11 Nov 1867, Evening
12 Nov 1867, Evening
13 Nov 1867, Evening
14 Nov 1867, Evening
15 Nov 1867, Evening
16 Nov 1867, Evening

Program Details

“Grand Fanfare Militaire, Opera Chorus, Soldiers’ Brass Band, Grand Marine Transformation."

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
LIST OF PERFORMER(S)/ORGANIZATION(S)
Participants:  Kelly and Leon’s Minstrels
2)
Faust, [burlesque (Unknown)]
Text Author: Unknown playwright

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 11 November 1867.
2)
Review: New York Herald, 16 November 1867, 5.

“Kelly & Leon’s burlesque of Faust is one of the cleverest things brought out in a minstrel hall this season. The music, singing, scenery and other effects are far above the ordinary standard of entertainment.”

3)
Review: New York Clipper, 23 November 1867, 262.

“People may sneer at the operatic attempts of minstrel companies, but were they to analyse the music and the sweetness and melody of some of the voices composing Kelly and Leon’s Company they would find more harmony, more soul, at least in connection with our feelings, than is generally produced by nine-tenths of the Italian opera singers who have appeared in this city within the past ten years. We now speak of music in its pure, unalloyed state, music stripped of its appendages, its variations, and the vast power of the human voice when excited to the screaming point. The burlesque of ‘Faust’ contains some capital musical gems, which are very finely rendered at the Kelly and Leon Minstrel Hall.”