Montpellier’s Opera House

“Ballets, farce, clog dancing, ‘new nigger acts,’ banjo solo, songs and dances.”

“During the past week, which was the first of the season in this new Bowery Opera House, the large measure of patronage extended to it ought to satisfy the manager as to its permanent success.  The theatre, which is very capacious and, we may add, very perfect in its arrangements, has been crowded every night. Mr. Montpellier has the advantage of a very strong company and a corps de ballet—which is one of the leading features—not surpassed in any house in the city.  The performances combine excellent farces with good singing, athletic feats, and really admirable ballet, put upon the stage with all the accessories of costume and scenery necessary to the production of this attractive entertainment. The clog dancers Montpellier, Tim Hayes and Messrs. Childs and Carroll are not second to any to be met with in the metropolis.  Altogether, the Montpellier Opera House is an institution that ought to be encouraged by the pleasure seekers of the East End.  It presents a strong contrast, in point of refinement and the absence of all demoralizing influences, to the Bowery theatres, which, unfortunately for the morals of the youthful community, have hitherto exercised so baneful a control over that class.”

“For a new man, Mr. Montpelier [sic], of Montpelier’s [sic] Opera House in the Bowery, above Bayard street, has done extremely well.  He took the place under adverse circumstances; he very properly shut it up for a few weeks, and then opened with quite a fair company for that region of country.  During the past week, not crowded but paying audiences have rewarded his efforts.  Tim Hayes, clog dancer, was one of his principal cards, but rumor has it that Tim danced off with another dancer on the 26th, and that the twain became one in the silken bands of wedlock, which, the poet announcer, is a ticklish thing.  The outgoers are succeeded by several fresh incomers, among them Carrie Reeve, vocalist; John Herron, comedian and Irishist; and Louis J. Donnelly, who is billed as the ‘Ethiopian Cubas.’”