Anschütz German Opera: La dame blanche

“The German Opera’s last performance for the time being will take place tonight at the Academy of Music. We hear, however, that the company may succeed in renting a Broadway theater in the spring. Next week the company will give four performances in Brooklyn.”

“Last evening the German artists sang Boieldieu’s charming opera, La Dame Blanche. There was a large audience present, and the performance was certainly very successful. Mme. Johansen, as Anna, sang and acted, as usual, most satisfactorily. Mme. Canissa, as Jenny, was also very pleasing. The new basso, Herr Hermanns, made much of the part of Gaveston. This artist nightly gains favor. The same may be said of Herr Hablemann, who, in George Brown, has one of the best roles.

La Dame Blanche will be sung in Brooklyn by the German Opera troupe on Monday evening next.

“Yesterday, the German Opera Company ended its winter season at the Academy of Music with a well-attended house. The performance was better than the last one of La Dame Blanche.  

Despite the close of the regular season, an extra performance will be given next Wednesday for the benefit of Mr. Hermann, who, in the short time he has been here has already won the public over. On that occasion, Nicolai’s ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ will be performed, with Mr. Hermann in the role of Falstaff, one of his most brilliant roles.

“Boieldieu’s charming comic opera, ‘La dame blanche,’ was given by the Company, and did not fail to prove its usual attractiveness. In spite of the many changes, the modern representatives of the Opera comique have wrought in their melodies as well as in their treatment of them since Boieldieu wrote the above opera, the latter has still enough of modern elements to be thoroughly enjoyed by audiences of the present time. The plot has all the intricacies of the modern Opera comique, and the music is in its chief melodies as fresh and sparkling, as if it had been composed but recently. Besides, it gives the orchestra some honest work to perform—a circumstance, which in modern French comic operas but seldom occurs, and, moreover, it has that melodious fluency and completeness of detail, which more than ever seems to us a secret lost to modern composers.

The performance was very unequal. Mr. Habelmann suffered from a cold, and, moreover, was not quite familiar with his part. It requires a superior singer, and a still more superior actor, and although Mr. Habelmann has the materials to become with earnest industry a good representative of the gay and jolly French officer, he can by no means be considered so at the present time. Mad. Johannsen was also not quite sure in her role, in fact, the whole performance of the opera showed that it had not been sufficiently rehearsed. Mr. Hermanns was a capital Gaveston, but he, too, acted under a certain constrainedness, which marred somewhat the impression of his really artistic singing.”