Ye Grand Queen Bess

Event Information

Venue(s):
Fifth Avenue Theatre (1867-73)

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
5 May 2017

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

23 Dec 1867, Evening
24 Dec 1867, Evening
25 Dec 1867, Evening
25 Dec 1867, 2:00 PM
26 Dec 1867, Evening
27 Dec 1867, Evening
28 Dec 1867, Evening

Performers and/or Works Performed

1)
Text Author: Falconer
Participants:  Rose Watkins (role: Essex);  Miron Winslow Leffingwell (role: Queen Bess)

Citations

1)
Advertisement: New York Herald, 23 December 1867.
2)
Review: New York Herald, 24 December 1867, 8.

“The taste for light metrical compositions, always to be found in a community like that of New York, fostered as it has been by the recent introduction of the French comic opera, is the real secret of success of the musical burlesque now on the boards of the Fifth Avenue Theatre. The author was keen enough to notice the similarity in many of the incidents of Ristori’s Elizabeth and Offenbach’s Duchess, and skillful enough to combine in ‘Ye Grand Queen Bess’ a droll burlesque of the one and a mirth-provoking travestie of the music and situations of the other. It is the hit of the hour. Leffingwell’s grotesque Elizabeth is all the more grotesque for what we have seen of Ristori’s, and the character has an admirable contrast in the diminutive daintiness of Mrs. Watkins’ Essex. This cosey [sic] little theatre can make one boast.  Its handsome company of ladies, for their number, is not excelled on any other stage in town.”