French Opera: Barbe-bleue

“At the Fifth-avenue [sic] Theatre, Maillart’s opera, ‘Les Dragons de Villars,’ the success of which is a gratifying proof of popular musical intelligence, will be repeated to-night and on Wednesday and Friday. Mlle. Tostee will appear as Boulotte in ‘Barble Blue’ [sic] on the alternate evenings of the week.”

“FAITS DIVERS * * * BARBE-BLEUE. –The habitués of the lovely little theater on twenty-fourth street were waiting, not without a certain anxious curiosity, for the appearance of Mlle Tostée in the role of Boulotte.

This role had been so favorable to Mme Irma Marié, and she had so easily won the favor of the audience, that it seemed almost foolhardy for another artist—even la Belle Hélène—to dare to touch this character which had become  legendary and which, up to the present time, the public had never ceased to hold onto under the name of the creator who had become [its] type and archetype.

Mlle Tostée has proven what real talent can do. Without imitating her predecessor in anything, and drawing her comic effects from her gifts alone, she succeeded in being very entertaining.

Nobody should complain about these rivalries of talent which, in sum, profit Milord Public. Here, now, is a piece that’s nearly worn out that the attraction of this new casting rejuvenates, and which will have regained success, without the merit of one of the artists altering or depreciating in any way that of the other. Aujac keeps his part of Barbe-Bleue, incontestably the best of all his roles . . . .”