George Sheringham (13 November 1884 – 11 November 1937) was a British painter and theatre designer. One of the first recipients of the Royal Designers for Industry distinction in 1937, he is remembered for his work for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Sheringham was born in London, the son of an Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Harry Alsager Sheringham, Rector of Christ Church, Marylebone, [1] and had a brother, Hugh, who became the Angling Editor of The Field. He was educated at the King's School, Gloucester, the Slade School of Fine Art (1899–1901), and the Sorbonne, Paris (1904–1906).
Sheringham first exhibited in Paris and later in Venice, Brussels, and Berlin. His one-man exhibitions included one in Paris in 1905, in London at the Ryder Gallery the same year, one in Melbourne, one in New York and seven more in London. [2] He exhibited with the International Society from 1922. [3]
Though best known as a stage designer and decorative artist, Sheringham also illustrated books by Max Beerbohm (including The Happy Hypocrite (1915)) and Edmond Rostand (La Princesse Lointaine, 1919). [4] In 1917, he illustrated Canadian Wonder Tales by Cyrus MacMillan. [5] In 1921, he collaborated with his brother Hugh on a book about fishing, The Book of the Fly Rod. [6] He wrote Drawing in Pen and Pencil (1922), with James Laver, Design in the Theatre (1927). [7] and with Rupert Mason and R. Boyd Morrison he edited Robes of Thespis, Costume Designs by Modern Artists (1928). [8] His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. [9]
As a decorator, Sheringham designed the music room at 40 Devonshire House, London; a series of paintings for Seaford House, London, for the 8th Baron Howard de Walden (also Baron Seaford) to illustrate his Celtic poem, The Cauldron of Anwn; [10] the ballroom at Claridge's Hotel; and the Paris Exhibition of 1937. [2] He also created commercial designs used in home decorations. [11] When, in 1936, the Royal Society of Arts established the prestigious Royal Designers for Industry distinction, Sheringham was one of its first recipients in 1937. [12] Sheringham also became known as a designer of fans. [3]
Sheringham designed scenery and costumes for ballets, opera and straight theatre including The Clandestine Marriage , The Skin Game , The Lady of the Camellias , Othello , Love in a Village, Derby Day , The Duenna , and the Stratford Memorial Theatre's opening production of Twelfth Night , and Hamlet . [13] In the theatre he worked closely with the actor-manager Nigel Playfair.
For D’Oyly Carte, he designed new productions of H.M.S. Pinafore (1929); The Pirates of Penzance (1929); Patience (1929, with other designs contributed by Hugo Rumbold); [14] Trial by Jury (costumes only) and Iolanthe (costumes only, 1932). [15]
Sheringham obtained a Grand Prix at the Paris Salon in 1925 for mural and theatrical design. An invalid from 1932, he continued to paint flowers.
In 1937, George Sheringham died on 11 November in his home in Hampstead, London, two days before his 53rd birthday. [3]
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.
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.
Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house the Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of the non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas were seminal influences on the creation of the modern musical.
Charles de Sousy Ricketts was a British artist, illustrator, author and printer, known for his work as a book designer and typographer and for his costume and scenery designs for plays and operas.
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera is a satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and '80s in England and, more broadly, on fads, superficiality, vanity, hypocrisy and pretentiousness; it also satirises romantic love, rural simplicity and military bluster.
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company which, 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.
Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte DBE was head of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1948 until 1982. She was the granddaughter of the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte and the only daughter of Rupert D'Oyly Carte.
Rupert D'Oyly Carte was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948.
Peter Goffin F.R.S.A., was an English set and costume designer and stage manager, known for his work with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
John Le Hay was the stage name of John Mackway Healy, an English singer and actor known for his portrayal of the comic baritone roles in the Savoy Operas. He also appeared in non-musical plays, adaptations of French comic operas and opérettes, and in Edwardian musical comedy, usually in comic roles, though sometimes in more serious character parts. As a skilled ventriloquist he appeared before royalty, and periodically he presented his own one-man entertainment during his half-century long stage career.
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
André Édouard Marty or A. É. Marty was a Parisian artist who worked mainly in the classic Art Deco style.
Percy Anderson was an English stage designer and painter, best known for his work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at His Majesty’s Theatre and Edwardian musical comedies.
Hugo Cecil Levinge Rumbold was an English designer of theatrical scenery and costumes. Among those who commissioned designs from him were Sir Herbert Tree, Sir Thomas Beecham, Arthur Bourchier and Rupert D'Oyly Carte.
Julia Gwynne was an English opera singer and actress best remembered for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1879 to 1883. She married producer George Edwardes.
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. The story concerns a "breach of promise of marriage" lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. Gilbert based the libretto of Trial by Jury on an operetta parody that he had written in 1868.
Frederick Federici was an Italian-born British opera singer known for his work in the bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas written by Gilbert and Sullivan. He is also remembered as a reputed theatre ghost in Australia.
Patience Glossop Harris, was a British costume designer for the theatre best known for her work with the actor Ellen Terry early in her career.