Article on the indecency of Offenbach’s operas

“The theory of amusements at the Tammany temple of high art ranges just now with bewildering variation from pitch and toss to manslaughter, with a decided tendency latterly to manslaughter. It has always been an interesting question, and has become even more so by the peculiar condition of our stage, as to how far a manager may go in catering to the whims and caprices of the public. Offenbach grew broader and braoder in his musical improprieties until a climax was reached in the startling story of ‘Geneviève de Brabant,’ the plot of which, it is pleasant to record, no newspapers published in the English language has yet ventured to faithfully translate. A natural weakness in the American male bosom for shapely ankles and blue boots has been considerately indulged by pandering managers until the little which remains undeveloped of the female form divine can be amply draped in a yard of silk and a handful of glittering spangles. In Paris, that voluptuous and æsthetic city of luxury, one lovely creature blazoned her name high in the annals of the naked drama by floating in sylph-like languor on the stage enveloped only in a haloot electric light. It would have been a curious contretemps, and one doubtless highly gratifying to such an audience as witnessed this prostitution of science, had the apparatus ceased to work during the exhibition and left the actress nude and appealingly beautiful, even as Phryne stood before the judges.

The prevailing rage, just now, ever, is neither the indelicacies of Offenbach nor the nudity of burlesque ladies, but the nightly periling of life and limb by children and women; and at the Tammany resort this carried to an extreme which makes it in one sense essentially high art.” Goes on to criticize current acrobatic performances at Tammany Hall."