Great Talent On The Stage

GREAT TALENT ON THE STAGE

The Benefit in Honor of Lester Wallack Highly Successful.

New York, May 22. - The testimonial and benefit performance in honor of Lester Wallack at the Metropolitan Opera house was highly successful, from both artistic and pecuniary standpoints. The audience of about 5,000 represented the best known people of the literary, artistic, and mercantile world of the metropolis. Over $21,000 was realized. Hamlet was superbly rendered, with Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett as "Hamlet" and the "Ghost," Modjeska as "Ophelia," Joseph Jefferson as "First Grave Digger," John Gilbert as "Polonius," Frank Mayor as the "King," Rose Coghlan as the "Player Queen," Rose Eytinge as the "Queen", and Herbert Kelcey, Joseph Wheelock, Gertrude Kellogg, Rosina Vokes, and many other well-known artists in minor roles. Among the distinguished persons present were Gen. Sherman, Chauncey M. Depew, Gen. Sickles, ex-Judge Noah Davis, Mayor Hewitt, August Belmont, Thomas L. James, and Edward Cooper, forming a committee of arrangement, and scores of others equally well known.