Antiqueinspired: One of the truest theatrical treasures of my career!

 

I spent twenty years of my life compiling what ended up as the two vast volumes on the life and theatrical times of Miss Emily Lambert-Swain ... otherwise EMILY SOLDENE, the greatest opéra-bouffe vocalist of the Englsh nineteenth century. 

I scoured the libraries and old bookshops and flea markets of the world, and gathered some wonderful information, pictorial matter, music ... and the result was, though I say it myself, the best ever record of the world of the Victorian musical theatre to date. A quarter of a century later, it still is.

Twenty years of life (a whole quarter of my 'so far') is a lot. And it doesn't get shelved or forgotten just because one moves on to all the subsequent projects of one's career. Emily remains an important part of my life to this day. Even my racehorse is called EMILY.

My self-designed luxury mini-bathroom is decorated with Soldene posters. Notably this one, given to me by dear friend, the late Peter Joslin

And, yes, my farm is called GEROLSTEIN.

When you've published a book(s) -- and I'm very proud of this one -- there is, however, a downside. In the years, the decades that follow, you come upon material that makes you go .. 'oh! I wish I'd had THAT for the book'.  Happily, that hasn't happened much with the Emily project.  Yes, more pictures, from one side of the world or the other, have surfaced of Emily in her various roles. Today on e-bay is a nice young Drogan (from Faustino's Dad) and a rather plump ageing Chilpéric (from Antiqueinspired)

And blow me down, here'a Nellie Beaumont (Soldene chorine) from Boston 1876!

But to today's find. It's not Emily. But it's La Grande-Duchesse. Photographs from the original British production, that production which is a white stone in the history of British musical theatre and helped change its course for many a decade.  The production which I have investigated, and written about, more than perhaps any other ...  

Emily was not the first Grand Duchess in John Russell's first stop-gap mounting of the show at Covent Garden. She was a subsequent take-over ... the story of how it happened ('Opéra-bouffe in England' 'The Grande Duchesse') is in my book, along with the story of how the 'stop gap' became a huge hit. And also the story of the Anglo-Australian lassie, fresh off the boat from the antipodes who was its first star. It all takes up fifty pages, so I'll not repeat it here.

The show was a success of stature, but it had to end its brief run as it was time for the all-important pantomime 1867-8, to take the Garden's stage. Some of the cast went into the panto, others to their Christmas jobs ... but Russell managed to gather a good number of his cast back together for Spring 1868 and sent the show on the road. With Miss Julia Mathews from Australia, eventually, in her 'original' role ...

And in Edinburgh, it appears, at some stage, they all had their photo taken.  I didn't know that till now.  And those photos appeared today in Antiqueinspired's e-bay shop!

Well, six of them. The Duchess (Julia Mathews), General Boum (Tom Aynsley Cook), Baron Puck (Frank Matthews, 2 ts and no relation), Prince Paul (J D Stoyle), Nepomuc (Fred Payne) and Baron Grog (originally 'mad' Odell, but the caption is cut off).

No Soldier Fritz and No Wanda. Two roles which had changed hands notably since the original production. 

Julia Mathews as the Duchess

Aynsley Cook as Boom

Presumably Fred Payne as Nepomuc

Frank Matthews as Baron Puck

Baron Grog ... Edward Odell?

Johnnie Stoyle as Prince Paul

There they are! Now I just need to find that Edinburgh date ... 12 October 1868, Edinburgh Operetta House? That looks like it ...  so it IS Odell as Grog. Splendid!

So Wilford Morgan as Fritz and Claliah Albertazzi as Wanda ...

Oh! Antiqueinspired .. pleased find the two missing pictures and here we shall have a wonderful souvenir ...

PS In and out of my books I have done large-to-very-large to not-quite-so-large biographies of all these folk. Too long to post here ... inquiries welcome at ganzl@xtra.co.nz

ZING!!!!  Old rule of e-baying and junk shopping.  Where you find one treasure, check the surrounding items ...

This is another Grande-Duchesse item. 

This is Marguerite Anaïs PRADAL (b Bordeaux 27 July 1839; d Nimes 23 April 1883) who appeared in London in the company led by Hortense Schneider, with which she played the role of Wanda to the creator's Duchess. However, she had a rather remarkable decade of career around that.

She trained at the Paris Conservatoire under Laget and Levasseur and was awarded merely two minor accessits. However, she was signed for the Hague where she debuted most successfully in La Juive, as Valentine in Les Huguenots then caused a minor sensation when, cast for Berthe in Le Prophète, she stepped in at the last moment in the vast role of Fidès. She played at Toulouse in 1861, at Orleans in 1863 (Rosina in Le Barbier de Seville, with the Venzano Waltz) and then, again at Toulouse as Leonora (Trovatore) and Valentine.

In 1868 she appeared at the Porte Saint-Martin in Nos Ancêtres, at Versailles in Zampa, La Dame Blanche, Le Voyage en Chine, La Traviata and as Berthe in Le Prophète, then at the Athenée in Première Fraicheur.  She visted Liège as première chanteuse, was hired for Schneider's company for London in June 1869 (Wanda, Fleurette in Barbe-Bleue) and the 1870 Félix tour of the British provinces, and subsequently joined the company at the Bouffes-Parisiens where she created the little Le Moulin tenébreux of the Félix company's conductor, Vizentini. 

She seems to have followed up at Théâtre de la Monnaie at Brussels, and at Nantes .. and then she vanishes.

Remarkable? She seems to have performed every kind of soprano role, from the heaviest to the the very lightest. And everywhere with success. And she doesn't seem to have been photographed much. This is the only picture I have ever seen of her.

Better dig some more!