294 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Octave Feuillet (1821-90) is a dramatist who has furnished the 

 American stage with several interesting plays of varying character. His 

 Romance 0} a Poor Young Man, written in 1858, was successful both 

 as novel and as play. It is a French work which enjoys the compara- 

 tively rare distinction of being harmless enough for perusal in young 

 ladies' boarding-schools. At the Boston Museum it enjoyed great 

 popularity back in the 70' s as did another play of Feuillet, La tentation 

 (i860), translated by Dion Boucicault under the title of Led Astray. 

 At the present time, however, Feuillet interests us chiefly as being the 

 author of A Parisian Romance (Uhistoire d'une parisienne, 1881), in 

 which the late Richard Mansfield gave one of the most famous of his 

 gruesome character impersonations in the part of the dissolute Baron 

 Chevrial. A Parisian Romance is now to be seen in the stock company 

 playhouses throughout the country. 



The name of Eugene Labiche (1815-88) is famous in France for the 

 many jolly evenings at the theater which it calls up. His work was 

 rapid, light, gay and voluminous, but all that we know of it is his 

 Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon (i860), which as Papa Perrichon was 

 in the repertory of the Boston Museum in the late 70's, in the days of 

 William Warren and Mrs. Vincent. A few seasons ago Mr. Clyde 

 Fitch readapted and Americanized it under the title of Cousin Billy 

 for Mr. Francis Wilson. 



Likewise the names of Henri Meilhac (1831-97) and Ludovic Halevy 

 (1834-1908) recall to our minds not only the brilliancy of their librettos, 

 but also the captivating music of the opera-bouses of Offenbach and 

 Lecocq. When we sit through an evening of dreary twaddle at one of 

 our modern American musical comedies, we wonder how long it is to 

 be before we have librettists worthy of the name, librettists worthy to 

 collaborate with such composers as Victor Herbert and Reginald De 

 Koven. To be sure we can scarcely hope to have another genius like 

 W. S. Gilbert. The unique and glorious work of Gilbert and Sullivan 

 is done. Furthermore, at present we seem incapable of lending dignity 

 to frivolity. It was this delicate and elusive gift which enabled Meilhac 

 and Halevy, though members of the august French Academy, to write 

 the texts to Orpheus and Eurydice (1861), La belle Helene (1865), Blue 



