The story of “Lalla Rookh,” as told in the delightfully romantic poem of the Orient by Tom Moore, will be exploited in the pyrotechnic carnival which is to celebrate the opening of The Detroit Railway lines at Boulevard Park, 14th Avenue and the Boulevard, Detrot, beginning Tuesday, July 23. Lalla Rookh, as the readers of Tom Moore will remember, was the daughter of the powerful Arungzebe. As the time in which the story opens she was betrothed to the youthful king of Lesser Bucharia. The king had fallen in love with the heroine while visiting at her father’s court, where he was entertained in a style of magnificent hospitality. The young king goes back to his home and Lalla Rookh is to follow him. The day of her departure from Delhi was a day of the most gorgeous celebration and it is here that the story of the pyrospectacle opens. Setting forth from Delhi, in magnificently equipped barges and surrounded by the flotilla upon the Jumna, the action of the piece opens in a blaze of light. Upon the waters of the lake, which has been constructed at the park, the flotilla will set sail, attended by the feast of the roses, and Oriental custom of much beauty. The lake has been so prepared that it will represent, as correctly as may be, all the aisles and shores of the Persian Gulf and standing out in bold relief in the background will be the temples and alters of the fire worshippers. Volcanos in full eruption will illuminate the far distance. Each step in Moore’s story up to the time she meets the unknown Casmerean poet and is enchanted will be followed as told in the romance. Her desire to flee the court with the poet rather than marry the king is the climax of dramatic action. Into the story are introduced the tragic elements which Moore so graphically told and the happy denouement when the princess recognizes in the king the poet to whom her first maiden’s love has been given. With such a story, environed by all the wealth of gorgeous pyrotechnic display that the great master, Pain, is capable of, will the visitors to Boulevard Park be entertained on the carnival nights of The Detroit Railway. Already the amphitheatre approaches completion, the vast stage is ready for its twelve tons of scenery, the great lake has been flooded and the chorus and accessories numbering some three hundred people, are in training. Hundreds of workmen have been busy for weeks completing the double track line which The Detroit Railway has built to its park and by July 20 the last stroke of preparation will have been made and the pyro-spectacle ready for its guests. Parties intending to visit Boulevard Park and desiring seats in any particular portion of the grand stand will do well to notify Manager G. E. Raymond, 719 Chamber of Commerce Building, of their intention, that he may reserve accommodations for them. The first performance will be given July 23 and repeated every Thursday and Saturday night thereafter until August 10, with a grand special performance August 7.
[tags]Ann Arbor Register, July, 1895[/tags]