Theatrical and Circus Life: or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust ArenaJennings, John J. (John Joseph)
History
Theatrical and Circus Life: or, Secrets of the Stage, Green-Room and Sawdust Arena
Jennings, John J. (John Joseph)
Circus; Theater -- United States
The young man or the young lady who has given years of study to
preparation for the stage finds the debut night one fraught with
fears and hopes. There are friends behind the scenes and friends in
the audience willing to overlook faults and exaggerate excellencies;
but there are cold, stern critics, too, anxious to puncture the new
candidate for public favor in every tender spot their cruel eyes can
search out, and there is the great public, that fickle body whose
applause or condemnation often depends upon the whim of the moment. The
effort is an enormous one to the new player; the suspense, frightful. A
whole life's work may be swept out of sight in a moment, and the life
itself blighted forever. But when the moment of success arrives--what
a thrill of joy the triumph sends to the heart of the actress, if
actress it be! What a dream of glory she already begins to live in!
How her brain throbs and her heart bounds, and all the world seems a
paradise, beautiful and fair as Eden was when it left the hands of the
Creator! Friends crowd around, the house is ringing with applause, and
she tears away from the congratulations and kisses and hand-shakings to
step out before the curtain, and, with glowing face and tears in her
eyes, kisses her hand and makes a profoundly thankful obeisance to the
audience. Then she returns to her crowding friends on the stage, from
the manager down to the call-boy and scene-shifters, and her ears ring
with praise and encouraging words until it is time for the curtain to
go up once more.
The debut of Emma Livry, an artiste who promised to lead a very
brilliant career, but who was suddenly and early cut down by death,
is described in a very interesting manner by one who was present. It
was at the Grand Opera House, Paris, and the theatre was filled from
parquette to dome with an extraordinary audience. Louis Napoleon was
there, and the Empress Eugenie; princes and dukes filled the boxes,
and the nobility of France, representative Americans and prominent
Englishmen were in the audience. Emma Livry was then only sixteen. From
her earliest childhood, says the writer, she had been devoted to the
art of dancing--though this was no extraordinary thing, for there are a
large number of girls always in training for the Grand Opera in Paris,
who are taken at the age of four years, and kept in constant practice
until they reach womanhood, when they appear in public. But this girl
had shown extraordinary genius. In her later years the celebrated
dancer, Marie Taglioni, Countess de Voisius, hearing of the new dancer,
left her villa on the Lake of Como, and her palace in Venice, to come
to Paris to give the girl lessons. Her improvement was miraculous.
Taglioni said she would renew the triumphs she herself had won in
former days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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