Kitty Clive

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Kitty Clive in her role as Philida , mezzotint after a painting by Peter van Bleeck from 1735
Catherine "Kitty" Clive, engraving , around 1740
Facade of the Theater Royal, Drury Lane , circa 1775

Catherine Clive , nee Catherine Raftor , (born November 5, 1711 in London , † December 6, 1785 in Twickenham ) was an English actress and opera singer ( soprano ) who had considerable success on the stages of the capital in the first half of the 18th century and was also active as a writer of plays, libretti and song texts. She was one of David Garrick's favorite actresses , even if they didn't always agree with a professional opinion over the decades of passionate collaboration. In addition, she cultivated long-term friendships with the cultural greats of her time, such as Georg Friedrich Händel , Horace Walpole and Samuel Johnson .

Life

Kitty Clive was born as Catherine Raftor. Her father, William Raftor, was an Irish lawyer from Kilkenny . William Raftor had served as an officer in the army of Louis XIV , having fought for the former King of England James II at the Battle of the Boyne and spending years in exile in France before Queen Anne pardoned him.

Catherine Raftor first performed at the Theater Royal, Drury Lane when she was around 17 . The theater's manager at the time, Colley Cibber , noticed her and cast her as Ismene in Nat Lee's tragedy Mithrades, King of Pontus. Shortly thereafter, she married George Clive, a criminal defense attorney and relative of Baron Clive . The marriage failed and she quickly returned to acting.

By the early 1730s she had established herself perfectly as a popular star actress, preferring comedies. One of the few exceptions was the role of Portia in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , where she appeared with Charles Macklin , who played Shylock. However, she did not count this role to her success. In 1747 she was a founding member of David Garrick's acting company.

As a soprano , Kitty Clive occasionally appeared in operas, for example she played the roles of Emma and Venus in Thomas Arne's masked opera Alfred in 1740. In 1743 she also played the role of Delilah in Georg Friedrich Handel's oratorio Samson . She had other singing roles in William Davenant's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth (1735), Henry Woodward's The beggar's pantomime - or, The contending colombines (1736), where she appeared in a duet with Susannah Maria Cibber , in Arnes Comus and Henry Carey's Calliope (1739 ) or John Frederick Lampes' musical pantomime Colombine courtezan . Various song text drafts from her hand for musical compositions by Thomas Arne or Henry Carey as well as Aileen aroon are especially from the time around 1740 . An Irish ballad. which suggest that she was already working as a songwriter at this point in time. Her adaptation of Handel's choral and instrumental works, on the one hand, ensured her fame when critics sought a scapegoat for declining audience numbers on Drury Lane around 1733. But her friend, Handel, also benefited from this artistic exchange.

Her stage career, which she spent exclusively in London with the exception of a brief interlude in Dublin in 1741 , spanned over 40 years and after KA Crouch she was one of the very best actresses of her generation in terms of income. Clive tried with some success at writing short plays, such as in 1753 with The Rehearsal .

In April 1769 she retired from the stage with a spoken epilogue in The Apprentice and the role of Violante in The Wonder back to their small villa in Twickenham , called Little Strawberry Hill or Clive's Den to live, they as a gift from her friend Horace Walpole . She died there in 1785 and found her final resting place in Twickenham. A poem on her plaque praised her charity. Another of her friends, Samuel Johnson , praised Boswell's humor and comprehension in retrospect: “Clive, sir, is a good thing to sit by. She always understands what you say. In the sprightliness of humor, I have never seen her equalled. "

Artistic afterlife

Some porcelain figurines from the Bow Factory, directed by Thomas Frye , which are supposed to depict Kitty Clive and Henry Woodward as "the Fine Lady and the Fine Gentleman" from David Garrick's mythological burlesque Lethe (performances between 1750 and 1752 ) are probably the first porcelain portraits of this quality in English porcelain mass-produced for art lovers.

Baron Thomas Pitt Camelford published the poem On Mrs. Clive in her honor . David Garrick himself wrote a mock poem for a colleague in 1743, in which he described the reasons why Kitty Clive had turned down the role in Fielding's play. Her friend Walpole dedicated the poem Inscription at Strawberry Hill to her.

Plays / Libretti

Kitty Clive as Lady Easy in The Careless Husband . Mezzotint by John Faber Jr. after a painting by Philip Mercier , 1739
  • together with William Boyce (music): The rehearsal, or, Bays in petticoats: a [musical] comedy in two acts. 1753, Theater Royal on Drury Lane
  • Every woman in her humor. Farce in two acts. First performed March 20, 1760, Theater Royal, Drury Lane, managers: James Lacy and David Garrick
  • The island of slaves - in two acts. Comedy in two acts. (Incomplete survival) First performance March 26, 1761, Theater Royal, Drury Lane, managers: James Lacy and David Garrick
  • The sketch of a fine lady's return from a rout. Farce. One act. First performed March 21, 1763, Theater Royal, Drury Lane, Managers: James Lacy and David Garrick
  • The faithful Irish woman. Farce in two acts. First performed on March 18, 1765, Theater Royal, Drury Lane

literature

  • KA Crouch: Clive, Catherine (1711–1785). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Edited by HCG Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006.
  • Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald: The life of Mrs. Catherine Clive; with an account of her adventures on and off the stage, a round of her characters, together with her correspondence. London 1888.
  • Berta Joncus: A star is born - Kitty Clive and female representation in eighteenth-century English musical theater. (Thesis Ph.D) University of Oxford, Oxford 2003.
  • Berta Joncus: Handel at Drury Lane: Ballad Opera and the Production of Kitty Clive. In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association. Volume 131, Part 2, Oxford 2006, pp. 179-226 ( muse.jhu.edu ).

Web links

Commons : Kitty Clive  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berta Joncus: Trading at Drury Lane: Ballad Opera and the Production of Kitty Clive. In: Journal of the Royal Musical Association ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Volume 131, part 2, Oxford 2006, pp. 179-226. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / muse.jhu.edu
  2. ↑ See also their classification in John Hill: “ The actor: or, a treatise on the art of playing. A new work, written by the author of the former, and adapted to the present state of the theaters. Containing impartial observations on the performance, manner, perfections, and defects of Mr. Garrick, Mr. Barry, Mr. Woodward, Mr. Foot, Mr. Havard, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Berry, & c. Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, miss. Nossiter, Mrs. Gregory, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Green, Miss Bellamy, & c. In their several Capital Parts. ”London 1755.
  3. ↑ Arthur Murphy , David Garrick : The apprentice. A farce in two acts. First performed in 1769, Theater Royal, Drury Lane.
  4. ↑ picture of the memorial plaque
  5. ^ Kitty Clive in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  6. ↑ artknowledgenews.com
  7. ^ JVG Mallet: In: Rococo: Art and Design in Hogarth's England. Victorian and Albert Museum, London 1984 (exhibition catalog) Plate O14, p. 248.
  8. ↑ Images of both figurines. Holburne Museum of Art . On: museumnetworkuk.org. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
  9. ↑ Thomas Pitt, Baron Camelford: On Mrs. Clive . 1737, OCLC 230384624 .
  10. ↑ David Garrick: Upon Mrs. Clive's refusing to act the part of a go-between in one of Mr. Fielding's comedies. 1743.
  11. ^ Horace Walpole: Inscription at Strawberry Hill . 1744, OCLC 233973747 .
  12. ↑ “ Ye smiles and jests still hover round; | This is mirth's consecrated ground: | Here liv'd the laughter loving lady, | A matchless actress, Clive her name. | The comic muse with her retir'd | And shed a tear when she expir'd. Quoted from: Johan Zoffany RA, David Garrick, William Shakespeare and Kitty Clive (and Bushy Park). April 16, 2012. Accessed July 31, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Clive, Kitty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clive, Catherine; Raftor, Catherine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English actress and opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1711
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH December 6, 1785
Place of death Twickenham