Edward Connell: bass-baritones get overlooked ...

 

When I wrote about the players of Trial by Jury, I skipped over 'Mr E Connell' as being too substantial to fit in the article. Lacuna amended. Here he is. And you can see that, for a 'forgotten' man, he had quite a career.

CONNELL, Edward [Lawrence] (b Vine Court, Spitalfields, c 1842; d 123rd Street, NYC, 1 March 1891)

 

Edward Connell (the ‘Lawrence’ seems to have been a later accretion) was born in London – and not in Ireland, as sometimes claimed -- around 1842, the third of the six children of Eastender Maurice Connell and his first wife, Mary Cecilia (née Sheen, d 1849).

Maurice Connell worked as a labourer, a foreman and, later, a clerk on the London docks, but his family were brought up to music and all his three sons by his first marriage, Maurice William, Edward and James became boy singers. 

Wimborne 1856

The name of ‘Master Connell’, which appeared on all sorts of bills during the 1850s, could refer to either Maurice junior or to Edward. But, from external evidence, it seems that in fact Edward who was ‘popularly known as a boy soprano at dinners, concerts etcetera’, who sang at Evans’s celebrated supper rooms, featured on the opening bill at the Canterbury Music Hall (17 May 1852), and who can be seen in the mid-fifties singing at various City functions, and in the concerts given by George Genge. 

1856

However, he can not have been the ‘Master Connell’ who can be seen singing at the South London Music Hall in 1861, for by 1861 Edward Connell had already launched his adult career.

On 11 June 1859, the tenor Augustus Braham opened what was intended to be a season of English opera at the St James’s Theatre. His first production was a new piece, Raymond and Agnes, with a score by Edward Loder, and with Hermine Rudersdorff and George Perren in the title roles. The tiny part of ‘a landlord’ was taken by ‘Mr E Connell’. It was not a long engagement. Raymond and Agnes was a failure, and the intended season quickly dissolved.

Mr Connell moved on to hone his new bass voice as a chorister and small part player in other operatic companies. In 1860, he went on the road with Frederick Burgess’s Company, starring Mme Rudersdorff, Elliot Galer, Fanny Reeves and J G Patey and with Alberto Randegger as conductor, and in 1862 he took a similar position in Henry Haigh’s touring opera company, with the duty of understudying the second basso roles of the repertoire (1st Gipsy in Il Trovatore &c). His chance came when the company hit Huddersfield, and Henry Rowland was floored by a cold on Faust night. The young chorister with the solid musical education conned the role of Mephistopheles in three days, went on, and was far from disgraced.

Connell subsequently joined Hamilton Braham’s operatic tour, which closed prematurely, in Rochester, when the manager died, and in 1863, he went out as a supporting player with Brookhouse Bowler’s company, and then (1863-4 ‘a promising young artiste’) as second bass with the more substantial Henry Cooper troupe (Don Carlos in Ernani, Basilio in The Barber of Seville, the Gnome in Lurline, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Gubetta in Lucrezia Borgia &c), before joining the chamber opera company which Louisa Pyne had mounted following the closure of the Pyne and Harrison company. Louisa and Susan Pyne, J G Patey, John Rouse, Harrison and Mr Connell appeared in The Swiss Cottage and Fanchette around Maidstone, Rochester, Chatham and the ilk.

 

In 1865, Mr Connell toured with the Loveday and Summers company (Hugo in Robin Hood etc), before returning to chamber opera in a season with Galer and Fanny Reeves at the little Royalty Theatre. Now thoroughly established as a principal player, Connell created the roles of the Prince of Provence in Lutz’s Felix, or the flower festival (23 October 1865), Jabot in Love’s Limit (6 January 1866) and Reuben in Sylvia, the forest flower (17 February 1866) through a five months season.

He went back on the operatic road later in 1866, with Edmund Rosenthal’s company, before, in 1867-8, returning to Louisa Pyne, for a more substantial tour of opera di camera, and, in 1869, making his first appearances with the operatic troupe at the Crystal Palace. On 22 November 1869, he shifted to London’s mecca of the opera di camera, the German Reeds’ Gallery of Illustration, and there created the role of Angus McTavish/Brown in the enormously successful Clay/Gilbert operetta Ages Ago. Ages Ago played in Regent Street for over eight months, and in parts of the run Connell kept his hand in at the Crystal Palace, sometimes appearing there in the afternoon performances of grand opera (Arnheim in The Bohemian Girl, Don Jose in Maritana, Belcore in L’Elisir d’amore, Hippocras in The Pet Dove, Lurline, Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea, Don Pedro in The Rose of Castille) whilst playing opera di camera in the evening.

In 1870-1, Connell played again at the Crystal Palace, and also appeared in Rivière’s promenade concerts at the Agricultural Hall, at the Standard Theatre (The Bohemian Girl, La Sonnambula &c) , sang Ashton alongside Sims Reeves and Blanche Cole in a concert Lucia di Lammermoor at the Glasgow Saturday Concerts, and when the Alhambra made an effort at opera and produced Maritana in its vast auditorium, Connell again played Don Jose ('he acted the character perhaps better than he sang it'). The connection with the Alhambra proved a fruitful one, for when the house sensibly abandoned opera in favour of the grand opera-bouffe féerie, Edward Connell was cast in leading buffo roles in the house’s spectacular productions of Le Roi Carotte (7 June 1872, Pippertrunk/Prince Fridolin) and Black Crook (23 December 1872, King Tintinabulum) 

In the early 1870s, Connell played further engagements with the Crystal Palace company (The Barber of Seville, L’Elisir d’amore, Robin Hood, Cox and Box &c), and took part in the unfortunate concerts of Guinet's Le Feu du ciel, but more and more he leaned towards buffo roles in opéra-bouffe and opéra-comique. He toured as Larivaudière in La Fille de Madame Angot, and as San Jose in Fred Sullivan’s La Contrabandista company, he appeared as Harpin in Le Pré Saint-Gervais at the Criterion Theatre, and in La Périchole at Manchester, he took over as the Usher in Trial by Jury at the Royalty Theatre  and appeared at the St James’s Theatre as Captain Flint in Cellier’s The Sultan of Mocha, at Manchester in the same composer’s new Nell Gwynne and on tour with Richard South’s opéra-bouffe company playing La Grande-Duchesse (General Boom), La Fille de Madame Angot (Larivaudière), and the title-role in Bucalossi's Pom.  He joined Emily Soldene to play in Madame L'Archiduc and Trial by Jury at the Opera Comique, toured with R W South as Boom to Dolly Dolaro's Grande-Duchesse and Agammemnon to her Belle Hélène et al. and then opposite Alice May.

Edward Connell

In August 1877, he returned to the Crystal Palace in The Lily of Killarney, and at Christmas he went north to Bolton to play for South in The Fair One With the Golden Locks (King Silverspoon). In April 1878 he took over as the Marquis in the London production of Les Cloches de Corneville.

 

Connell was now well-established as one of the leading comic basso players in all kinds of theatre all around Britain, but when an offer came from the Alice Oates company, one of the more established American companies purveying similar material round the US of A, he chose to uproot and cross the Atlantic. In August 1878, Connell and tenor Dick Beverley sailed for America. It turned out to be a definitive move: Edward Connell would never return to his home country.

 In 1878-9 he played, with the Oates company, the principal bass-comic and buffo roles of the standard repertoire: Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore, Montlandry in The Little Duke, Casimir in La Princesse de Trébizonde, Morzouk in Giroflé-Girofla, the Marquis in Les Cloches de Corneville, in La Marjolaine, before moving on to Crossey's North Broad Street Theatre, Philadelphia to play Fatinitza, Fra Diavolo and the new The First Life Guards at Brighton (Walter Dashwood), Don Januario in Der Seekadett et al. He played in New York as Alidoro in Henry Jarrett’s spectacular Cinderella production, and as Marvejol (a role in which he later toured) in J C Duff’s Olivette. He toured for Stuart and Gray in a pirated Billee Taylor and played Christopher Crab in a different piracy of the same show for McCaull at the Bijou Theatre, and with the Comley-Barton troupe. He visited Broadway as the Marquis in Les Cloches de Corneville (1881) and the Alcazar in the leading role of a version of Crispino e la comare (1882) and, again, in the Chicago musical Zenobia, the British The Merry Duchess (1883, Farmer Bowman), in Duff’s A Night in Venice (Pappacoda) at Daly’s Theatre (1884) and as Devilshoof, the Marquis of Corneville and as Beppo in Fra Diavolo at the Bijou Theatre. By now, it appears, the once slim singer sported ‘a formidable paunch’ and one critic characterised him as ‘great and coarse’.

He appeared as Private Willis in Philadelphia’s production of Iolanthe (882), repeated his roles in La Fille de Madame Angot and Giroflé-Girofla in Boston (1884) and appeared there in Fantine (François les bas-bleus, 1885), he voyaged again to Philadelphia with H B Mahn’s company (1885-6, The Princess of Trébizonde, The Mikado, Giroflé Girofla, La Grande-Duchesse, Princess Toto, Beppo in Fra Diavolo, Olivette), and in between engagements – which were still many and frequent – he sang basso solos in the choirs at St John’s Methodist Church, St Mark's, the Church of Heavenly Rest et al.

In March 1886, however, he was the victim of an accident, when he slipped on the New York ice, and broke his ankle. The injury was slow to mend, and he had to relinquish his engagement to play in Solomon’s new The Maid and the Moonshiner, but, ultimately, he did return to the stage.

In 1887, he toured with Charles Turner and Annis Montague, and played at the Philadelphia Casino Theatre in comic opera (La Princesse de Trébizonde, The Pirates of Penzance &c), and in 1889 he took to the road playing his old role of the Marquis in Les Cloches de Corneville alongside the improbable Serpolette of Loie Fuller. In 1890, he was again seen in New York, repeating his Devilshoof at the Grand Opera House. It turned out to be his last stage appearance, for Edward Connell died in March of 1891, after an outstanding career, and still not yet fifty years of age.

 

In his time in America, Connell had apparently married twice. First to the widowed Mrs Julia Sophia Campbell Cady (6 April 1880), and later to Lucy Jane Johnson (22 January 1884), who survived him.

 

It seems, too, that Connell’s brother Maurice also continued in the entertainment world. Even though, on his marriage certificate of 1862, to Lucy Ann Chambers, he describes himself as a cork cutter. I spot a Mr Connell (tenor) performing at the Canterbury Music Hall in 1871, in which year he is censussed with wife and three babies in  Mercer Street, Long Acre, and described, yes, as 'vocalist', and a Maurice Connell appears latterly on the musical stage in America.

When his son, Frank, on whose birth registration in 1867 he is described as 'vocalist', weds in 1890, he describes his father still as 'musician'. The cork-cutting can't have lasted long.