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 Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre was designed by C. J. Phipps for Richard D'Oyly Carte and opened on 10 October 1881 on a site previously occupied by the Savoy Palace. Its intended purpose was to showcase the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, which became known as the Savoy operas.
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major road in the West End of London, named after The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It runs north-easterly from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly Circus to Cambridge Circus, it is in the City of Westminster, and from Cambridge Circus to New Oxford Street, it is in the London Borough of Camden.
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400.
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.
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 Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. It opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, with a capacity of 2,500. The current capacity is 1,416. The title "Shaftesbury Theatre" belonged to another theatre lower down the avenue between 1888 and 1941. The Prince's adopted the name in 1963.
Sir Augustus Henry Glossop Harris was a British actor, impresario, and dramatist, a dominant figure in the West End theatre of the 1880s and 1890s.
The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at the junction of Denman Street and Sherwood Street, near Piccadilly Circus, in the City of Westminster, London. It opened in 1928.
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.
The London Opera Centre, a school for the training of opera singers and other opera professionals, existed in England between 1963 and 1978. It was located in the former Troxy Cinema on Commercial Road in London's East End Borough of Stepney. The Troxy, with 3,520 seats, opened in 1933 and was one of England's largest cinemas. As a result of wartime damage and the general decline of the area, the cinema closed in November 1960.
Gillian Knight is an English opera singer and actress, known for her performances in the contralto roles of the Savoy operas. After six years from 1959 to 1965 starring in these roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Knight began a grand opera career.
Edward Geoffrey Toye, known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English conductor, composer and opera producer.
The Globe was a Victorian theatre built in 1868 and demolished in 1902. It was the third of five London theatres to bear the name, following Shakespeare’s Bankside house, which closed in 1642, and the former Rotunda Theatre in Blackfriars Road, which for a few years from 1833 was renamed the Globe. The new theatre was also known at various times as the Royal Globe Theatre or Globe Theatre Royal. Its repertoire consisted mainly of comedies and musical shows.
Edward Laurillard was a cinema and theatre producer in London and New York City during the first third of the 20th century. He is best remembered for promoting the cinema early in the 20th century and for Edwardian musical comedies produced in partnership with George Grossmith, Jr., including Tonight's the Night (1914), Theodore & Co (1916) and Yes, Uncle! (1917).
Richard Charles Watson was an Australian bass opera and concert singer and actor. He is probably best remembered for his performances and recordings of the comic bass-baritone roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, but he appeared in a wide range of operas at the Royal Opera House and with the Carl Rosa Opera Company with such singers as Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior, under conductors including Sir Thomas Beecham and Bruno Walter.
The O2 ABC was a nightclub and music venue on Sauchiehall Street, in the centre of Glasgow. The building was constructed in 1875, renovated many times in its lifetime and also largely rebuilt in the 1920s. The building was used for numerous functions before being finally converted to its final purpose between 2002 and 2005, before finally closing in June 2018 after extensive fire damage. In 2009, the Academy Music Group took a majority stake in the venue, rebranding it the O2 ABC. The venue is protected as a category C(S) listed building. In March 2009; the Academy Music Group became the major stockholder of the O2 ABC.
Runs of several thousand performances were familiar in West End theatres in the 21st century. The closure of London theatres in the Covid-19 pandemic halted the continuous runs of eight shows that had been running for more than 4,000 performances. Such long runs were a phenomenon not seen before the late 20th century: in earlier years, much shorter runs were the norm, even for shows considered great successes.
Lewis Cairns James was a Scottish-born baritone, actor, educator and opera producer most prominent during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. From 1887 to 1891 he performed with a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring company performing the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan before embarking on a successful career on the West End stage and as a teacher of elocution.
