Isaacs, Rebecca (1828-1877) Words of the Song Sung in the Musical Interlude of the Pet of the Public.
[London: no printer, 1853.]
Small broadside playbill with the words of the songs, "Laddie," "Little Mandoline," and "Vive la France et l'Angleterre," songs composed specifically with Isaacs in mind; the first by G. Linley, and the last by Henry Russell, printed within a border in a single column, old folds, some surface soiling, 9 x 3 1/2 in.
Isaacs was a British operatic soprano and the Director of Operas at the Strand, where The Pet of the Public, a star vehicle for the performer, premiered in the fall of 1853. A successful Jewish performer, she was trained by her father, actor and singer John Isaacs (1791-1830), who introduced his daughter to the stage at the age of four. A contemporary reviewer had the following remarks regarding her work in this particular production. "The attraction of the evening was a musical vaudeville in one act called The Pet of the Public, in which Miss Rebecca Isaacs, in the part of the said 'Pet,' assumed the character that the said 'Public' have lately conferred upon her. Her graceful appeal was responded to with hearty good humor; she was loudly encored in a song in the character of a French itinerant ballad singer, and the audience took care by their renewed plaudits at the conclusion, to signify to the fair aspirant that she had done quite right in assuming the laurel that they had laid at her feet." (The Musical World, vol. xxxi, London: Myers & Co., 1853, page 723.)
