Desktop clearance! 'Interesting/puzzling old theatre things'

My desktop is getting cluttered with 'interesting theatrical bits' culled from here and there.  It's time for a clear out ... the solved and the unsolved ... so here goes.

Photo taken in Ödenburg, by a German photographer, inscribed in Kassa/Kosice now Slovakia (I think) and Belgrade, in English ... by Mr Alfred Barker ...

So who was Mr Barker? Well, as he says, he was a 'clown August' who seems to have made his career as such in central Europe in the 1890s. I have glimpsed him in Poland, in Austria ... to wit

'August der Dumme'. Ah! I see. That's what he played as ...  now the story unfolds? Or is the speechless August merely a type of 'auguste' clown performer?  As early as 1877, I see one such named, with 'der kleine Alfred'. That'll be our man, I thought. And, I presume, his father. So he's an hereditary August? Oh. Maybe not. The elder was apparently a Herr Pandzer. 'beliebte Komiker und Kunstreiter'. He shows up from 1874 with the Zirkus Renz, the Zirkus Ciniselli, the Circus Suhr, the Circus Carré, by which time he's 'Mr Jacques' and has acquired little Alfred. Alfred Krembser. In Graz. OK. It seems that the occupants of the names were many and varied! In 1880 we have 'August der Dumme and his son' of the Circus Renz, in 1885 Herr Gärtner apparently occupies the name ... but in 1890 we get 'Herr Alfred Backer', clown with the Skandiavischer Circus .. And in 1900 'Mr Barker' is still the tenant of the title. Oh! In 1899 he's in my family's home, Floridsdorf! 'Der englische Clown'. 1902 'der beste englische Clown' in Graz. And so forth ... 

On to the next. 'Opera Star' claims the vendor. Yeah. We all know the word 'star' is meaningless these days. Let's see with this chap ...

OK. Already we have a level. Mr A L Wilbur's opera company was long-lived but distinctly ummm provincial. Phineas W NARES. So ... Born Ontario, Geneva, New York 1867. Son of George W Nares and his wife Henrietta née Rawlings. George was a Lieutenant in the New York Engineers in the Civil War. He survived, but died at forty in 1874. His wife had died in 1869 (25 September). So the young Phineas was brought up his grandmother (1838-1903). 

George W Nares

When Phineas's photo was taken, he was 20, so I imagine he had not been on the stage long. Anyway, on 18th August 1887 he and the company were indeed in Toledo. Well actually 4 miles from Toledo, at Presque Isle Park, on the shores of Maumee Bay, where the company was playing a 10 weeks season (during the Republican State Convention) at the new 3,900-seater open air theatre. Unfortunately, the Wilbur company didn't inspire the sort of notices in the trade press which allowed space for the performers' names, but he was playing some good roles, such as Spinola in The Merry War and the King in Les Manteaux noirs alongside soprano Susie Kirwin (d Philadelphia 1919). I see they also played Erminie, La Grande-Duchesse (Prince Paul), Fra Diavolo (Lorenzo)  and HMS Pinafore before moving on to Grand Rapids ...

I spot him but rarely thereafter ... he was still with the Wilbur troupe in 1889, in 1890 he was playing in a Civil War drama Fort Donelson, in 1891 he was back with the Wilburs ... in 1913 he was still describing himself as 'actor' but I have no idea where. He died 26 October 1926.

The next one has been surprisingly very fruitful.

The lady is Mlle Emma Rivenès and, as you can see, she is dressed for the title-role of La Grande-Duchesse. This photo comes from a set taken in 1867, at Strasbourg -- the others were of Strasbourg veteran, Dutasta, as Boum, Mancini as Paul, and Riquier as Nepomuc. Odd choices, but the men were all Strasbourg regulars, Emma, apparently, was not. 'Excellente et joviale interpretation'. I see Dubouchet was the Fritz.

Who was this lady? Well, I now know all about her, thanks to the Touloiuse journal Le Midi artiste of April 1879.  Well, more or less. Hmmm. They've chopped the usual four years off her birth date. And 'edited' her beginnings ... the usual journalistic thing. 

RIVENÈZ, Emma Marie Louise (b Mons 12 February 1845). Daughter of bass singer, Louis Adolphe Rivenez and his wife Aimée Madeleine Mezières. Grew up in Algeria where father was engaged. Performed the juvenile repertoire of Céline Montaland there. Studied thereafter at the Brussels Conservatoire. Premier prix. First job at Ghent as dugazon, then .. in any order ... Lyon, Marseille, Metz, Strasbourg (ahha!), Montpelier (ah!), Rouen, Nantes ... they've left out Avignon in 1863 and Béziers 1863-4 and ...1868 in Le Havre ...  

Apparently she even passed briefly by the Bouffes-Parisiens, but returned to the provinces at Tournai where she met and married the director Gustave Cavé (4 April 1877). .. She returned to Montpelier on many an occasion in the lighter operatic roles (Mignon, La Favorita), played two seasons at Perpignan (Marguerite in Faust), 1878 at Cauterets, and in 1879, the occasion of this article, she is at Toulouse ...

1880 she is at the Graslin in Nantes (La Fille du tambour-major) 1881 she is dugazon at Toulon, 1882 at Montauban where she played the role of Jeanne in Jeanne qui pleure et Jean qui rit which she had played during her brief stay at the Bouffes, 1883 in Les Noces de Jeannette at Fontainbleau, Urbain in Les Huguenots and Mignon in Amiens, in 1888 Reinette in Le Violoneux at Bagnères . 

She didn't fade out.  She is Beatrix to her husband's Calabazas, in Le Jour et la Nuit at somewhere called the Folies-Voltaire, in 1890. I see her in 1894 playing 'les roles de Desclauzas at the Gymnase in Marseille .. 1896 'dugazon-mère', 1899 as the Senora in Miss Helyett at the Casino de Jarnac, 1900 'une très fine Desclauzas' and her husband in the Auvergne .. and is that she playing Emeraldine in Les Petits Brébis 'parfait duègne'?  And what? 1905 Amiens '1er duègne Desclauzas', Laval 'mezzo-soprano', 1906 Casino de Luxeuil in comedy 'très bonne comédienne' ...  

Hang on! Is that her singing Azucena at the Théâtre Moncey in 1893??? 

Anyway, it was a very well-stuffed career of some thirty years.

Once you start, things often unroll. There she is in the departmental census for Perpignan of 1876 .. Gustave Adolphe Cavé 41, she 28 ('belge'), daughter Gabrielle 8 ...     another (or is it the same?) daughter, Marie (Mme Ernest Louyer)  .. Gustave died 18 March 1903 aged 71 ... and Emma 3 April 1912 aged 67 ...  

I think that is all we need to know :-). But I do wonder what happened at the Bouffes.

Some jolly bits of illustrated music ...

Here's one by Frank Green about 'the Row in Dame Europa's School'. Some things never change! Britain, of course, was not regarded as part of Europe any more than it is today. This will be the Alsace and Lorraine business .. and a few other squabbles ...

Here's a minstrel sheet. One of a bundle of such, in the same format, put out by the Christy company. I liked this one, because it gave us a portrait of Edwin Winter Haigh, elder brother to the tenorious Henry Haigh. 

I see I wrote, a dozen years ago:  "Edwin Winter Haigh was christened in Wakefield on 9 November 1828. We see him, in the 1851 census, living in Sculcoates with mother Mary (b Almonbury, Yorks) and sister Sarah (b Horbury) and designated as a 22 year-old professor of music. It seems to be him with a wife named Rebecca in Glasgow in 1861, and in 1871 with the same wife and a daughter Alice Mary (b Glasgow 1861), on the road. In 1881, shortly before his death, his wife is Lavinia (d Halifax 1 July 1890). Edwin, occasionally billed ‘as the great basso’, made himself a useful career, often in tandem with his serio-comic wife, in music-halls and popular concerts, a lecturer with Hamilton’s Diorama, and as a longterm member of the Christy Minstrels. On one occasion the couple performed at Blenheim Palace with ‘Thiodon’s Exhibition of Arts’. "

Well, I can't come up with either marriage. So maybe they were 'unofficiall'. I can only add that Edwin was born in Horbury 16 September 1828, that his mother was Mary née Holmes, that Rebecca died 5 March 1875 ... 

He was organist at St Jude's Church in the 1850s, in 1861 at Wilton's music hall he is billed as 'Edward Winter Haigh', in Liverpool with the Christys in 1865 he is 'E W Winter Haigh', in 1867 'Mrs Winter Haigh' appears on the Glasgow bills, and in 1871-2 they are both with Hamiltons on the Halls in the sketch Courtship and Matrimony. By 1877 'Madame Haigh' has been replaced by 'Mrs Haigh' which must be Lavinia.  And there is Rebecca's daughter, Alice .... in 1911 she, unmarried, was a 'hatmaker' in Halifax ... 

Not a very satisfactory result

This one has me puzzled. Our old friend Randegger. No problems there. Except Randegger died in 1911. And this operetta was published in 1918. So I guess it's not he.  I see there was a Guiseppe Aldo Randegger (1874-1946). An Italian-American musician of a much lesser standing. If it is, I think it's a bit snarky of Ricordi to publish him as 'A Randegger', literally encouraging others to make the same assumption that I did. 

 Here's another case of a re-used name. A title. I wonder how often this has been used!

OK. That's got my desk partly cleared. Just a couple of pretties which I downloaded for my own pleasure. Anything, just anything, to do with the German Reeds. partiicularly Mrs, I store. I've written the lady's biography in detail in Victorian Vocalists ... but that volume didn't run to coloured illustrations. So we'll put you here, Priscilla ...

And this one. Alas, the Tam o'Shanter cantata of Howard Glover, performed by Sims Reeves, David Miranda and other tenors in its time, didn't get the apotheosis of a coloured cover. I almost purchased the full score from the British Library a decade or two back, but 'my' stroke left me with a crippled hand, so I wouldn't have been able to play it. So, its chance for reincarnation passed it by ...

I don't imagine this one is quite up to dear old Glover's ..

I wonder who Mr G W Warren was. Maybe I'll have a wee dig tomorrow, between my Blood Pressure test, buying an umbrella and having a nice, long pedicure.   

PS Michael Green has told me all about Mr Warren ..

Right now, the sun has plunged below the edge of the ocean and there's a bottle of Johnny Walker staring at me across the room ... and I had better learn how to switch on the TV as Wimbledon is getting interesting (three Frenchmen in the last 16!) and the best stages of the Tour de France are coming up. 

Tomorrow is another day ...