The National Magazine. New Series. A Monthly Review. December 1899

The former contains nothing so cold and languishing as the last act of Orphee but it possesses nothing of the intensely tender emotion as the scene in the Cham ps-Elysees nothing of the refinement and charm of the instrumentation nor the marvellous combination of the haubois flute and violins that accompany the approach of Orphee ta the sojourn of the happy shades. [...] The entrance to Hades the thick darkness around the formidable gorge which penetrates into the bowels of the earth and in the depths of which are only perceptible piles of rocks is well the threshold of the dark empire. [...] The director of the Opera House wishes to produte before the eyes the musical impression of Gluck's Champs Elysees that is to say the sensation of an emotional felicity of a happiness deep as tears and that emanates from the chorus the Orchestra and the words of Orphie. [...] The hostility of the French towards the English did not deter some men from having a concert to aid the fund for the widows and orphans of the British soldiers killed in the Transvaal. [...] The cost would be twenty million sterling a sum never likely to be obtained. as the Goverment has not the means and financiers see nothing in the route to pay interest on capital or ever to secure the capitaL But the enterprising people who nurse the project want the fine to tranport soldiers to the Congo and thence to the Nile.