The Boston Ideal Opera Company, later The Bostonians, was a comic opera acting company based in Boston from 1878 through 1905. [1]
The Boston Ideal Opera Company, later The Bostonians, was a comic opera acting company based in Boston from 1878 through 1905. [1]
Effie Hinckley Ober (1843–1927) started the group to perform an "ideal" production of H.M.S. Pinafore in Boston. The company first performed Pinafore in November 1878 on a boat in a lake in Boston's Oakland Park. It was a success, and the company continued. [2] It engaged well-regarded concert singers and opened on 14 April 1879 at the 3,000-seat Boston Theatre. The critics agreed that the company fulfilled its goal of presenting an "ideal" production. The Boston Journal reported that the audience was "wrought up by the entertainment to a point of absolute approval". [3] The company went on to become one of the most successful touring companies in America. [3]
When the top actors later took over the group around 1887, it became "The Bostonians."
Actors in the group included Henry Clay Barnabee, [4] [5] Jessie Bartlett Davis, Mena Cleary, W. H. MacDonald, Eugene Cowles, Tom Karl, Marie Stone-MacDonald, [6] Geraldine Ulmar and Alice Nielsen. Other actors in the group for spells included Camille D'Arville, Bertha Waltzinger, Myron W. Whitney., [1] [7] Kirke La Shelle, and Zephie Dinsmore.
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer, and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era. He built two of London's theatres and a hotel empire, while also establishing an opera company that ran continuously for over a hundred years and a management agency representing some of the most important artists of the day.
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where it was well received by both audiences and critics. Its London debut was on 3 April 1880, at the Opera Comique, where it ran for 363 performances.
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London on 25 May 1878, and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical theatre piece up to that time. H.M.S. Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their first international sensation.
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, located between Wych Street, Holywell Street and the Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway.
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The company was revived for short seasons and tours from 1988 to 2003, and since 2013 it has co-produced four of the operas with Scottish Opera.
Geraldine Ulmar was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Hugh Talbot, born Hugo Talbot Brennan, was an Irish tenor best known for creating, to universally bad reviews, the role of Frederic in the Gilbert and Sullivan hit The Pirates of Penzance in the original New York production.
Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.
Emma Howson was an Australian opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of the principal soprano role of Josephine in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore.
John Handford Ryley was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the comic baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, particularly in America. His second wife was D'Oyly Carte performer, actress and playwright Madeleine Lucette Ryley.
Jessie Bartlett Davis was an American operatic singer and actress from Morris, Illinois, who was billed as "America's Representative Contralto".
John Clark, better known as Signor Brocolini, was an Irish-born American operatic singer and actor remembered for creating the role of the Pirate King in the original New York City production of The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan, in 1879–80.
Georgie Eva Cayvan was a popular stage actress in the United States in the later part of the nineteenth century.
John Joseph Braham was an English-born American musical theater conductor and composer who introduced the works of Gilbert and Sullivan to the United States and composed some of the earliest original orchestral scores for silent film.
Sir George Power, 7th Baronet was an operatic tenor known for his performances in early Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, most famously creating the roles in London of Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance (1880).
Isabella Hill, better known as Mrs Howard Paul, was an English actress, operatic singer and actress-manager of the Victorian era, best remembered for creating the role of Lady Sangazure in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Sorcerer (1877).
Memphis Bound is a 1945 American musical based on the Gilbert and Sullivan opera H.M.S. Pinafore. The score was adapted and augmented by Don Walker and Clay Warnick, with a libretto credited to Albert Barker and Sally Benson, "with gratitude to W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan." The original production starred an all-black cast including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Avon Long, Billy Daniels, Ada Brown, and Sheila Guyse.
Thomas Husler Greene, who performed as Fred Clifton, was an English opera singer and actor known for creating three roles in the early Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas: the Notary in The Sorcerer (1877), the Boatswain in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance (1879).
Effie Hinckley Ober Kline was an American opera manager and booking agent. She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company in 1879.
Louis De Lange, also known as Louis De Lange Moss was an American playwright, actor, and theatrical manager. As a stage actor he primarily appeared in light operas and musicals; notably portraying Sir Joseph Porter in the original production of John Philip Sousa's pirated version of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore in Philadelphia, on Broadway and on tour in 1879. As a dramatist he mainly wrote the books for musicals; often in collaboration with writer Edgar Smith on projects created for the comedy duo Lew Fields and Joe Weber. De Lange also worked as Fields and Weber's manager for their national tours. His wife was the Broadway actress Selma Mantell who appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies among other Broadway shows. Their son was the bandleader and lyricist Eddie DeLange.
