Lilian La Rue? Oh
heavens, that name sounds like something out of a New Orleans drag show. Lily
Street, maybe? But airy, fairy Lilian has been a serious mystery to, in
particular, Gilbert and Sullivan scholars and students for over a century. Who
was she? Should we ever know?
Miss La Rue arrived
on the London theatre scene in 1879, and was promptly cast by D’Oyly Carte in
the ‘Jessie Bond role’ of Hebe, in his second London touring company of HMS Pinafore, alongside that other (ex-)
mystery Emilie Petrelli, as Josephine. In January 1880, she was brought in to the West
End company, again playing Hebe and in the forepiece, In the Sulks. She was ‘sprightly and agreeable and sang the music
with grace and refinement of style’. When The
Pirates of Penzance was produced in London, Lilian was again allotted the
mezzo-soprano role’, as Kate. Thus, her fascination for the G&S
historians of today.
Julia Gwynne succeeded to the role of Kate, for Lilian was otherwise engaged.
She was to join the Carl Rosa Opera Company. ‘Nineteen years old, American …’.
Why? Admittedly, Rosa had done, and was still doing, extremely well with
American singers – Packard, Julia Gaylord, Josephine Yorke .. but a teenager?
Why was she not in Italy ‘perfecting her studies’? Or back in America learning
her trade on home ground?
Lilian made her
first appearance with the company at Manchester in September 1880, as Mercedes
to the Carmen of prima donna Georgina
Burns, and progressed to play Frederic in Mignon
(‘sang carefully and pleasingly’ ‘sang nicely’, ‘Her voice wants power but
she sang spiritedly and with intelligence’) and Fatima in The Cadi (‘makes the best of a not particularly strong or brilliant
voice …looks pretty’). Her next role was Lazarillo in Maritana, habitually played by Miss Yorke, the first contralto of
the troupe (‘sang well and made a good impression’), but there was more
dramatic to come. She was then given the star role of Carmen, originally the
property, like Frederic, of the sizzling Selina Dolaro and of such as Zélie
Trebelli. Julia Gaylord had played Carmen, and Georgina Burns, and both were
still with the company. Why was Lilian being given this plum, rather than those
experienced leading ladies?
Her first try was
equivocal. ‘Her voice is of peculiar quality … [but] no one can doubt her
earnestness of intention’ .. ‘it is not the Carmen of Selina Dolaro, or of
Emily Soldene, or even of Julia Gaylord…’. She had weeks in the provinces to
work it in, before the Rosas opened (14 January 1882) at London’s Her Majesty’s
Theatre. On night four, Lilian was introduced as Lazarillo, alongside Miss
Burns, Leslie Crotty and J W Turner, and the London critics got to dissect her.
‘She has a good voice, somewhat alloyed in its purity by a faulty production,
as well as by needless use of the tremolo, which renders it doubtful at times
to determine the exact note she intends to deliver ..’. But they made allowance
for first-night nerves and declared her to be by far the best actress or actor
in the cast.
Next up was Mignon and her Frederic went down much
better, before, 26 January, Miss La Rue brought forth her Carmen. It was a
decidedly transatlantic cast: Fred Packard sang Jose and Julia Gaylord, so
often the representative of Carmen, was Micaela. The result was quite
surprising. She was hailed for ‘a very remarkable performance … an ideal Carmen
...’ ‘Fresh … new … young … different’. But it was her acting that caught them.
Her singing was dismissed, at the end of most reviews, as fair enough, at best ‘a
mezzo-soprano voice of pleasing quality and a considerable degree of dramatic
power’.
‘A refined Carmen
of the most fascinating kind; a coquettish, wilful, passionate, vain,
captivating little witch, utterly irresistible …’ claimed one paper. Another,
disagreeing, felt she played it like a comic opera soubrette. And her singing
was just all right. Another preferred her Frederic: ‘Frederic was taken by Miss
Lilian La Rue, a debutante, who charmed by her fresh voice and pleasing stage
presence, and who afterwards in the more exacting part of Carmen partially
retained the good opinion she had won’.
After the London
season, the company played at the Crystal Palace and those performances were
Lilian’s last with Rosa. Strange? After all the pains taken to establish her as
an attraction.
Lilian returned
for a while to America, but in October 1883 she was back in London, at the
Avenue Theatre, featured in a production based loosely on La Vie Parisienne and a semi-pasticcio Offenbach score. She played Christine de Gondremarck, now, for
‘proper’ England, the Baron’s daughter rather than his wife. ‘A voice of charming
quality … she acts agreeably and has a ladylike appearance’. Not quite the
visceral performance of Carmen. ‘No
beauty and less voice’ snarled another critic. She played the role through till
December, when the show was condensed and Florence St John, ‘the queen of comic
opera’ brought in to replace her. Why?
And that was the
last that the theatre public, on either side of the pond, saw of Miss Lilian La
Rue. Her career had lasted some three years, and left behind nothing but a row
of question marks.
Who was Lilian La
Rue? Well, of course, I’m going to tell you. Her identity was never revealed in
the press, as far as I know, but I found a way round that. What did we know of
her? American. Everyone was firm about that. Nineteen (well, maybe a bit more).
Where was the Carl Rosa company advertised to sing on census night 1881?
Birmingham. Yes, there they were – the Gaylords, Josie Yorke, Georgina Burns, G
H Snazelle -- in digs in Bath Street et al. So I simply went through the whole
census for Birmingham looking for young American ladies who weren’t servants or
daughters. And soon all was explained.
There was only one
lady who fitted the bill. She was 25 and not 19 but everything else fitted. And
she was actually sharing those digs in Bath Street with Josie and Georgina.
Miss Frances Alice Jones, born Ohio. Younger sister of Miss Josie Jones ka
Yorke. So that was how she had crossed the ocean, that was how she had swanned
into the Carl Rosa, that was why Miss Yorke had given up to her the role of
Lazarillo. The prima donna contralto’s little sister. Miss Jones, fourth
daughter of the soap manufacturer from Cincinnati.
And the other end
of the story? Well, the girls returned to America where Josie had been
contracted to the Mapleson company. They made the papers when they got robbed
in a New York hotel. Josie would go back to England and more career, but not
Fanny.
Frances Alice
Jones of Cincinnati died in the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, aged 30 years six months and 13 days, on 22 June 1885.
So, there’s one
more Gilbert and Sullivan ‘mystery’ solved. We can now write:
LA RUE, Lilian [JONES, Frances Alice] (b Cincinnati, Ohio b 9 December 1854; d Chicago 22 June 1885)
1 comment:
Gilded kudos on this one. When a fish escapes so many fishermen for so long, the won who finally hooks it deserves a round of huzzahs.
Post a Comment