Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (born May 3, 1844 in London ; † April 3, 1901 there ) was an English theater agent , impresario , composer and hotel owner. Carte built the Savoy Theater and the Palace Theater as well as the Savoy Hotel . His opera company, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company , continued uninterrupted for a hundred years. His son Rupert D'Oyly Carte led the company after him.
Life
First successes at the Opera Comique
Carte began his career in his father's business, a music publisher and manufacturer of musical instruments. During this time he also composed some pieces of music and took part in some amateur theater performances. From the end of the 1860s he built up an opera, concert and lecture agency that ultimately had over 200 customers, including well-known names such as Charles Gounod , Jacques Offenbach , Adelina Patti and Clara Schumann .
1874 leased the theater Carte House Opera Comique , a small building near the beach , where he worked for a Brussels opera company Charles Lecocqes Giroflé-Girofla , as well as an English version of Gaston Serpettes La industry cassée presented. After the end of the season, he temporarily terminated his lease. In 1875, under the supervision of his client, the singer Selina Dolaro , Carte became the impresario of the Royalty Theater , where he included Offenbach's La Périchole in the program. To fill in the evenings, he contacted WS Gilbert , who had shown him his libretto of the one-act play Trial by Jury two years earlier . Carte offered Arthur Sullivan to write the music for this operetta. The piece was a surprise success that even surpassed La Périchole . Carte later said that it was his aim in life to establish a "family-friendly comic opera" in London, which stood in contrast to the burlesques and English translations of suggestive French operettas that were prevalent at the time . On a tour of the play in Dublin he met the Scottish actress Helen Lenoir , whom he married in 1888, three years after the death of his first wife, Blanche Julia Prowse (1853-1885).
Establishment of the D'Oyly Carte's Opera Company and the Savoy
In 1876 Carte found four donors with whom he founded the Comedy Opera Company. This opera company would be dedicated to the production of future works by Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as other British librettists and composers. The first piece produced by the company was Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Sorcerer (1877). This work proved successful, and a year later the premiere of HMS Pinafore took place, which became a crowd puller on both sides of the Atlantic. Thereupon Carte convinced Gilbert and Sullivan to enter into a partnership after the expiration of the contract with the Comedy Opera Company. The profits of the thus founded Mr Richard D'Oyly Carte's Opera Company were divided equally between the three business partners.
In order to secure the copyrights in the United States, Carte and the other partners had the world premiere of the next operetta, The Pirates of Penzance , in New York. Even so, enforcing performing rights in America proved difficult. The premiere in April 1881 of Patience , the next Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, took place again at the Opera Comique. With the income from the operettas, Carte built the ultra-modern Savoy Theater in the same year , the first building in the world to be illuminated exclusively by electricity. The last eight Gilbert and Sullivan operettas all premiered at the Savoy, so that they were later referred to as Savoy Operas . Carte commissioned the architect Thomas Edward Collcutt to design the Savoy Hotel . Opened in 1889, the building was the first hotel to have electric lighting and electric elevators. Under the direction of César Ritz in the 1890s, the luxury hotel generated more income than any other Carte company.
Carte bought an island in the Thames around 1890 , which until then was called Folly Eyot . It was then renamed D'Oyly Carte Island . Carte built the main structure on the island: Eyot House . The house has a large garden that he and his wife designed. The house was used by him as a residence.
Carte wanted to use it as an extension of his Savoy Hotel , which could be reached by boat from the hotel, but local authorities refused him a license to serve alcohol. The property was sold by his widow after his death.
Last years
During the performance of The Gondoliers , Gilbert discovered that Carte did not bear the maintenance costs of the Savoy Theater himself, but financed it through the partnership. Thereupon Gilbert filed a lawsuit against Carte, from which he emerged successfully. The partnership between Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan suffered from this event. Carte opened the Royal English Opera House in early 1891 , which was intended to be the center for a new series of great English operas. This hope was not fulfilled, with the exception of Sullivan's only great opera, Ivanhoe . The opera house was later converted into a variety theater and later referred to as the Palace Theater .
Despite the rift between Carte and Sullivan on the one hand and Gilbert on the other, the partners found their way back together after a three-year hiatus. The penultimate Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Utopia, Limited , was comparatively unsuccessful. The last operetta, The Grand Duke , was only performed 123 times and was Gilbert and Sullivan's only financial failure. Cartes opera company suffered further setbacks in the 1890s while his hotel business flourished. As Cartes health deteriorated, his wife Helen took on more and more responsibility for the opera society. Carte died of edema and heart failure in his London home . He left a fortune of £ 250,000 . Until her death in 1913, his wife Helen controlled the family empire. Subsequently, his son Rupert D'Oyly Carte led the company.
literature
- Michael Ainger: Gilbert and Sullivan - A Dual Biography. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-514769-3 .
- Arthur Jacobs: Arthur Sullivan - A Victorian Musician. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1986, ISBN 0-19-282033-8 .
- Cyril Rollins, R. John Witts: The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas: A Record of Productions, 1875-1961. Michael Joseph, London 1962. In addition, five supplementary volumes self-published.
- Jane W. Stedman: WS Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theater. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-19-816174-3 .
- Tony Joseph: D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 1875-1982: An Unofficial History. Bunthorne Books, London 1994, ISBN 0-9507992-1-1 .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Barrington, Rutland, A Record of 35 Years' Experience on the English Stage, By Himself , p. 73
- ^ Keith Pauling "Richard D'Oyly Carte" , Thames Pathway: Journal of a Walk Down the River Thames , 2009 ISBN 1445222396
- ^ "Shepperton Lock," About the Thames , accessed April 11, 2009
Web links
- Richard D'Oyly Carte biography
- Article on Richard D'Oyly Carte in the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | D'Oyly Carte, Richard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English theater agent, impresario and hotelier |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 3, 1844 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London , UK |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 3, 1901 |
| Place of death | London , UK |