Bateman French Opera: La Grande duchesse de Gérolstein

“FRENCH THEATRE.—Mlle. Tostée reappeared in ‘La Grande Duchesse’ last evening with restored health and undiminished magnetism. It is scarcely necessary to add that she was welcomed with enthusiasm by a crowded audience, and that under her inspiration the whole operatic company blazed with even more than their wonted fire and fun. Mlle. Tostée will appear again this evening and on Wednesday evening. The sovereign people of New York will thus enjoy, for at least two nights more, a privilege denied to the Sovereign Pontiff and said to be envied by him. A French journal, alluding to the fact that La Grand Duchesse is now holding her court in the Eternal City, reports that his Holiness exclaimed, ‘Che disgrazia to think that I am the only sovereign in the world who cannot see this ‘Grand Duchess!’ What glory to Offenbach to have created the only temptation the force of which the head of the Church is said openly to admit.”

“The ‘Grand Duchess’ has had a ‘run’ of over one hundred and fifty nights, and being somewhat out of breath in consequence, has yielded the track to La Belle Helene, whose powers of endurance will hardly be found equal to this high standard."