Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1882 — The (grandest of Stage Spectacles. [ARTICLE]

The (grandest of Stage Spectacles.

•Let me tell you first of the “Thousand and One Nights” which Adophe d’Ennery and Paul Ferrier have put on the stage for us. The theatre was closed for thirty nights for full-dress rehearsals; several times during the performance there are 400 persons on the stage; there are 2,800 costumes, thirty-one tableaux, and SIOO,OOO has been spent on scenery and costumes. You may imagine something of the dazzling splendor of the fairy piece. Let me tell you the wonders of three tableaux. Two of them, Cleopatra’s Court and the Infernal Hunt, are said to be the most brilliant tableaux ever put on the stage. One of these tableaux is laid in “the unfathomed caves of the ocean,” where corals, seaweeds, madrepores, shrimps, fishes and lobsters, represented by young, pretty girls in pretty dresses that never begin and are always ending, who dance and dive and float. So the eyes are fairly dazzled by the number of groups and the variety of costumes. Cleopatra •nters on an immense houdah borne by two magnificent elephants, painted to look more splendid, and with magnificent gold bracelets on eaoh leg. The houdah is as brilliant as satin, sSk, velvet, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, tassels and fringes can make it. Cleopatra lies on a divan, surrounded by her slaves and by fifty fan bearers; no two persons among Blaves and fan bearers have the same costume, and each costume is as rich as possible. Cleopatra is welcomed by a brilliant ballet, and not one of the danseuses has the same costume. The Infernal Hunt brings on the stage a pack of 150 honnds, 12 whippers-in, 24 huntsmen, 10 members of the hunt, and 5 ladies; they hunt 60 tigers, that are immense Danish dogs covered with tiger’s skin; these dogs are so mortified at being obliged to play this most ridiculous part that they go about the theatre before and after the piece is played with heads hung down and tails between their legs. The scene is, however, exciting; horns blow, whips are cracked, dogs mouth it, and horses gallop at swiftest pace. • Ihe army of the United States is not attractive for enlisted men. About eleven per cent, desert eaoh year.