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From his cell, Laveaux heard in the streets the tramp of horses and of human feet; and from the deck of the Orphee, Polverel watched through his glass the bustle on the wharves, and the putting off of more than one boat, which prepared him to receive news. The news came.
I have known a vain regretter to turn no further back than to the nights of The Merry Widow, The Waltz Dream, The Chocolate Soldier, The Girl in the Train, and The Dollar Princess, in other words to the Viennese renaissance; another, in using the phrase, is subconsciously conjuring up pictures of La Belle Hélène, Orphée aux Enfers, or La Fille de Madame Angot, good fodder for memory to feed on here; a third will instinctively revert to the Johann Strauss operetta period, the era of The Queen's Lace Handkerchief and Die Fledermaus; a fourth cries, "Give us Gilbert and Sullivan!"
In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from 'Orphee aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part.
And often the music is adapted to entirely different situations in the changed form. The words of a follower become the awesome prophecy of a high priest. The trio in Orphée with its tender love and expressions of perfect happiness fairly trembles with accents of sorrow. The music had been written for an entirely different situation which justified them.
About seven in the evening, the Orphée, having on board five hundred men, struck to captain Storr, in the Revenge, who lost the calf of one leg in the engagement, during which he wras sustained by the ships Berwick and Preston.
From this point of view it would seem that the best manner of giving Orphée would be to conform to the author's definitive version. A tenor would have to take the part of Orpheus, since we no longer have male contraltos, and to keep to this kind of a voice in Orphée we would have to have recourse to what is called, in theatrical terms, a travesti. There are obstacles to this, however.
Yet another and quite different question: Should you be inclined to undertake in connection with "Alceste," "Orphee," "Armide," and "Iphigenia en Tauride," by Gluck, a similar task to that which you have already performed for "Iphigenie en Aulide," and what sum would you expect by way of honorarium?
It is only fair to say that Gluck, from some inexplicable caprice, did not give the same care to the instrumentation of Armide that he did to Orphée, Alcesti, and the Iphigenies. The trombones do not appear at all and the drums and flutes only at rare intervals.
The company had scarcely seated itself, before a strange light began to illuminate that end of the room at which the stage stood, and immediately the curtain rose to the overture of M. Offenbach's Orphee aux Enfers, the pianist continuing with great spirit until a round of applause greeted the entrance of the two spectral performers. Its effect upon them was in the highest degree disconcerting.
to a tune from Orphée aux Enfers, and the Captain said something about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day, and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was all lost on Barbican, who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably never heard a word they said.
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