Mr Smith: An admirable Victorian impresario. Voices not scenery.

 

His name came up somewhere, today, so I thought 'why not'. Amazingly few photos of him. Thanks to the Carl Rosa Trust for those here ...

SMITH, [Marmaduke] Valentine aka FABRINI, Valentine  (b Barnard Castle, Durham, 8 April 1849; d 103 Anerley Road, London SE20, 9 May 1933)

 

For more than thirty years, the tenor known more often as ‘Valentine Smith’ than as ‘Signor Fabrini’ was a feature of the British musical scene, notably, during the 1890s when he travelled his small-scale, yet often ambitious, opera company to all parts of the British isles and even beyond.

 

Marmaduke Smith was born in the Durham town of Barnard Castle, one of the ten or more children of William Smith and his wife Mary.  William Smith is described in 1851 as ‘whitesmith and farrier’ of Market Place, Pulman Yard, Barnard Castle. In 1861 he is ‘smith and iron foundryman’ of George Street in the same town. 

 

I first spot young Marmaduke up on the concert platform in 1870, at twenty years of age, singing in a concert at the New Victoria Hall in Sheerness, on a bill topped by Blanche Cole and with Meyer Lutz as accompanist, under the name of Mr M Smith. But it is some three years before he appears before me again, and now he is in London advertising ‘his first appearance since his return from Italy’ (27 March 1873) as a soloist with Henry Leslie’s choir, giving the Rossini ‘Cuius animum’ alongside Jessie Jones, Henry Guy and Charles Santley. The three men were all featured again, with Janet Patey, Pauline Rita and Julia Wigan in another concert on 24 April, and just a fortnight later Smith made what seems to have been his operatic debut – in England, at least – singing the role of Don Ottavio alongside Blanche Cole, Ida and Henri Corri, Frank Celli, George Fox, Alice Barth and Henry Pope at the Crystal Palace.

However, Mr V Smith was not to be around very much longer than Mr M Smith had been. For Marmaduke was swiftly picked up by Colonel Mapleson, signed to a contract with the Italian Opera, and when he resurfaced it was as ‘Signor Fabrini’.

Clarice Sinico

His first assignment as an Italian was a Mapleson concert party tour. Therese Titiens herself topped the bill along with Clarice Sinico and mezzo Justine Macvitz, one real Italian in Borella, and three Anglophone ones: Campobello, Giulio Perkins and Fabrini. During the company’s time in Edinburgh a performance of The Messiah was given, and Signor Fabrini took the tenor music alongside Titiens, Zélie Trebelli and Agnesi. When it came to the Italian opera season at Her Majesty’s Theatre, however, Signor Fabrini seems only to have appeared (alongside Perkins and Costa) as one of the three monks in Les Huguenots. During the season he also appeared at Christine Nilsson’s concert, on a bill including Santley, Castellan, Agnesi, Louise Singelli and Amelie Deméric-Lablache, singing ‘Bella adorata’ and ‘When other lips’.

Signor Fabrini did not pursue the Italian opera experience. Instead, he returned to English opera, and travelled to Ireland for an operatic season with the brothers Gunn at Dublin and Cork. I notice him playing Thaddeus to the Bohemian Girl of Rose Hersee.

 

 

Johanna Levier

 

During 1875, the young tenor picked up speed. He was seen at the Albert Hall, singing the tenor music in Israel in Egypt alongside Johanna Levier and Antoinette Sterling. Initially hired to sing second tenor to Sims Reeves, he ended up performing the whole of the tenor part when Reeves cancelled. Later in the year, he deputised elsewhere for the chronically unreliable star tenor, and also returned to the Albert Hall for an Elijah with Mme Lemmens-Sherrington, Bessie Palmer and Whitney. In May he returned to the Crystal Palace opera troupe, to sing the title-role in Faust and the tenor part in Le Domino noir alongside Rose Hersee, and, during the season, he can be seen on programmes at Mme Sainton-Dolby’s concerts, at the Brighton Aquarium with Jose Sherrington or Edna Hall, at Gatti’s promenade concerts (‘M’appari’, ‘When other lips’), in various provincial dates, and at the end of the year (10 December) he made a first performance with the Sacred Harmonic Society in The Messiah, sharing the tenor music with Reeves, Edward Lloyd and Montem Smith. By the following March, however, when the Society gave Samson, Signor Fabrini had been promoted to principal tenor, sharing the top of the bill with Edith Wynne, Janet Patey and Lewis Thomas.

Jose Sherrington

On 14 February 1876, Fabrini gave his first own concert in the modest surroundings of the Store Street Music Hall. Somewhat surprisingly, he opted for a Ballad concert, and Ann Banks and her sister, Agnes Drummond, featured alongside Helen D’Alton, Charles Tinney and Lithgow James. Fabrini had, however, as much talent for ballad singing as he had for larger music, and later in the year, when he appeared at Dr Bernhardt’s concerts at Langham Hall it was reported that he ‘gave some old English ballads exceedingly well’.

 He was heard in concert for Madame Sainton-Dolby (‘Her own sweet self’), at the Alexnadra Palace, the Royal Aquarium,, and on a number of occasions for Dr Bernhard’s Cecilian Choralists at Langham Hall, gave St Paul at the Albert Hall with Mme Nouver, Enriques and Foli, and played Acis to the Galatea of Ann Banks at Warrington, before in the new year he returned in force to the operatic stage, taking the tenor roles, between September and October, in Lucrezia Borgia, Il Trovatore, L’Elisir d’amore and Faust at the Crystal Palace with Henri and Ida Corri, Bessie Palmer and George Fox. In November he also appeared at the Aquarium in Isidore de Solla’s operatic season, singing Thaddeus once again opposite Rose Hersee.

Rose Hersee

For the next two years, Signor Fabrini seems to have confined his activities largely to concerts and oratorios in the provinces, Although in early 1879 I spot him singing at the Albert Hall on St Patrick’s Day and at St James’s Hall in Salvayre’s Stabat Mater. He was announced by D’Oyly Carte to sing the role of Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore in a short season at the Standard Theatre in September, but in the event both he and the contralto dropped out (although G&S historians have sometimes failed to catch this fact) and it was William Seymour and Rosina Brandram who actually appeared.

The reason for Signor Fabrini’s scratching may have been contractual, for it had already been reported in the music trade papers that he had been hired for a return to the operatic stage. Not in London, this time, nor even in Britain, but in the United States of America. He had, so it was averred, been hired for Emma Abbott’s lucratively touring English opera company.  If he had been, he didn’t go. Not yet. Only two years later. In the meanwhile, he continued with appearances under William Carter in various national concerts and in oratorio at the Albert Hall and in opera, during October and November 1880- at St George’s Hall (Il Trovatore, Don Giovanni, Norma), and concerts with Jenny Viard-Louis and Miss Melville, until on 30 June 1881 he set out for America.

 

Signor Valentino Fabrini was well publicised before his arrival .. ‘a new tenor formerly of Her Majesty’s company’ ‘late of Mapleson’s London Opera Company’ ... but he needed to be. For he was taking the place of co-first tenor (with the inexhaustible William Castle) in Miss Abbott’s company occupied in the previous season by the much loved Pasqualino Brignoli. Just how well he succeeded is evident in the fact that he would remain with Miss Abbott for four full seasons.

His first role with the company appears to have been Lionel in Martha played at New York’s Grand Opera House (4 October 1881) and his notices were careful: ‘a fine presence, fair acting and a pleasing light tenor voice’ or later ‘Sig Fabrini has a good voice – one better than his method – but it will not bear forcing. He does not seem at his ease on stage but was a very fair Lionel’ as he went on to sing Edgardo to Miss Abbott’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Manrico to her Leonora in Il Trovatore, Faust to her Marguerite,and Thaddeus to her Bohemian Girl, whilst Castle took the leads in Fra Diavolo, Maritana, Olivette, The Chimes of Normandy and Emilio Usiglio’s The Two Cavaliers.

 

His notices seem to have been unanimously appreciative, his voice was liked (although, curiously, often spoken of as being ‘light’), his acting was liked, and there were frequent mentions of his ‘handsome appearance’. There was also, given Miss Abbott’s propensity for publicity and for grabbing newspaper inches at any cost, a certain amount of nonsense promulgated concerning the Signor’s private life. At one stage it was asserted that ‘his real name is Fabrian and he is an American’, at another he was identified as being a Mr Smythe (which was a bit nearer) in the same sentence which accused Enrico Campobello of being ‘Mr Campbell’ (he was né Harry Martin). He was, however, spared the indignity, which fell to Castle, of being involved in ‘the Emma Abbott kiss’, in which the pair were supposed passionately to indulge, when Paul and Virginia was produced.

The Abbott kiss: a decided lack of passion

The season ended in May 1882, and Fabrini returned to England but he was back in America, the following August, to go round the country again, and the same timetable was repeated in 1883 and 1884. Over these years he added the Duke of Rigoletto, Idreno in Semiramide, when Miss Abbott was rash enough to attempt that opera, Elvino in La Sonnambula,Tolloller in Iolanthe and he also appeared from time to time in Castle’s roles in Mignon, The Chimes of Normandy and King for a Day et al.

 

 On 25 April 1885 Miss Abbott’s latest annual season came to an end, and with it Signor Fabrini’s connection with her. And, on his return to Britain, so also did Mr Marmaduke Smith’s connection with Signor Fabrini. From now on, for the remainder of his career, Marmaduke would be plain English ‘Mr Valentine Smith’.

Georgina Burns

 Mr Valentine Smith made his return to the English concert stage, befittingly, singing the oratorio Placida, the Christian Martyr, composed by his most faithful patron, William Carter (25 July 1885), and he made his return to the operatic stage, immediately afterwards, as a principal tenor, alongside Frederick Packard and Barton McGuckin, with the Carl Rosa company. He began his engagement by singing Faust to the Marguerite of Julia Gaylord at Blackpool and Manrico in Dublin, then moved on to play Don Jose to the Carmen of Marie Roze, The Bohemian Girl with Georgina Burns and the title-role in Marchetti’s Ruy Blas, (‘his powerful, rich tenor voice..’) produced at Liverpool in February 1886.

When the Rosa company played a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, with more tenors available than seemed possible – McGuckin, Runcio, Max Eugene, Scovel, Smith and Seymour Jackson -- he sang only Maritana. In between times (‘by permission of Carl Rosa) he sang in concert and oratorio, from Bradford to the Albert Hall.

Valentine Smith sang for three seasons with Carl Rosa. It might, perhaps, only have been two but, when Scovel tried to blackmail the manager for a large increase in salary – from 20 to 45 pounds – Rosa responded by simply dropping the vain and importunate singer and re-hiring Smith at 30 pounds a week.

The Chevalier Scovel alias Signor Scovello

By the time his third season with the company was done, Valentine Smith was able to advertise that he had played the principal tenor roles in Lohengrin, Carmen, Faust, Ruy Blas, Il Trovatore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Giovanni, Esmeralda, Maritana, The Bohemian Girl and The Puritan’s Daughter for Rosa.

 

After, now, some seven years singing first tenor with other people’s companies, in August 1888, Valentine Smith decided to launch his own outfit. He began in a suitably modest manner, at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall, and followed up with a season at the Alexandra Palace. Emily Parkinson, daughter of the tenor, was his prima donna and the company included Jeannie Rosse, Egbert Roberts, Charles H Victor, Rita Presano and Messrs Cushing and Muller. From late August until early October, Maritana, Il Trovatore, The Bohemian Girl, Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula were given as a complement to Messrs Pain’s daylight firework depiction of The Destruction of Pompeii and Professor Baldwin ‘the daring American aeronaut’ with his balloon and parachute act. 

Rita Presano

Over the following months, he appeared in a number of Carter concerts at the Albert Hall, and visited Dublin to play in opera for Augustus Harris, before on 26 January he brought his opera company to the West End. The venue was the less than loved Olympic Theatre, and the performances were not what the West End was accustomed to. For Valentine Smith’s productions centred firmly on the performers. There was minimal scenery and no attempt at all to appeal to the ‘fashionable’ audiences of the Italian opera or of the Covent Garden and Her Majesty’s Theatre English operas. The Times sniffed: ‘The originator of this undertaking can have no intention of courting comparison with any London revivals of operas known to the present generation' ... tutting that ‘the modest ambition on the part of the management is seen by the fact that extra cheap seats have been put in instead of stalls’ but allowing ‘The indulgence of the house is less called for in respect of the singing and acting than in the matter of mise en scene. The ballet and the chorus of this revival may be ranked as operatic curiosities’.

Clara Perry

Indeed, Smith’s leading singers – Clara Perry, Henry Pope, Ella Collins – had played their roles with the best English opera companies, and Susetta Fenn, Stanley Potter, Charles Victor, Richard Lansmere and Louise Lyle also had their references. And, when Fra Diavolo was produced, the company’s general manager, the veteran Charles Durand took once again to the stage. Maritana, The Bohemian Girl, Lucia di Lammermoor and Il Trovatore were also played over a one-month season. A month later Agnes Hewitt, lessee of the Olympic, filed for bankruptcy.

 

Not so Valentine Smith. He returned first of all to the concert stage, giving his ‘Let me like a soldier fall’, ‘The anchor’s weighed’, ‘Sound an alarm’, ‘When other lips’ and other tenor classics at a run of concerts at the Albert Hall, at the Prince’s Hall, and in the Covent Garden proms season before, with the coming of autumn, he relaunched his company on a provincial tour. ‘Valentine Smith the dramatic tenor and his Grand English Opera Company’ including at this stage Carina Clelland, Miss Parkinson, Durand’s sometime star soprano Mlle Mariani, now singing contralto, Sam Whyte, and many of his originals, would cover the country for some eight years. The accent would remain, throughout, on the performance – the venues which Smith played were not always conventional, and ranged from a stage mocked up in Newcastle Town Hall to, over Michael Gunn’s protests, the Round Room of the Rotundo in Dublin – and, most particularly, on the manager-star’s performance. ‘The dramatic tenor’ and his ‘top C from the chest’ were advertised to good effect.

 

Smith’s company retained the old favourite operas in its repertoire -  Maritana, The Bohemian Girl, Faust, Il Trovatore, Fra Diavolo and Lucia di Lammermoor were never far away, and Norma, The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, Martha, The Rose of Castille, The Lily of Killarney were also played -- but Smith revived Balfe’s Blanche de Nevers in 1890, in 1893 he put out a version of Adam’s Si j’étais roi (King for a Day), which he had played with Emma Abbott, and in 1896 he premiered Stephen Philpot’s La Gitana. He also added Cavalleria Rusticana to his baggage when that opera became fashionable.

 

Amelia Sinico, Julia Lennox (ex-Siedle), Kneale Campbell, Constance St Bride (ie Bridget Connolly), Josephine Pulham and Ghita Corri took turns in supporting the tenor, who ventured occasionally to the London suburbs, at the Standard or the Parkhurst Theatre, without again invading the West End. At the age of almost fifty ‘the popular tenor’ was still pulling notices such as ‘his command of a chest C may be set down in two senses as a notable achievement in the way of ut de poitrine’, and between his touring seasons he still put in appearances at the Albert Hall and other concert venues. In 1897 (18 June) he can be seen at the Albert Hall alongside Albani, Esther Palliser and others, giving those tenor chestnuts ‘The Message’ and ‘The Death of Nelson’ in his own particular style.

Valentine Smith continued to perform, into the twentieth century, after folding away his opera tours. I have spotted him at the new Theatre Royal, Kilburn (19 March 1900) doing operatic selections and a new 1-act romantic opera by Stephen Philpot alongside the comicalties of Arthur Roberts, and again in 1902 (28 April) at Stratford’s Borough Theatre singing Manrico with Kelson Trueman’s Imperial Grand Opera Company in a company including Joseph O’Mara, Marie Duma, G H Snazelle and Marie Titiens. ‘He was applauded to the echo’ the press reported.

After thirty years of singing, that was certainly a reference.

 

Valentine Smith appears to have retired around this time. I see his name no more on the bills of the nation, no more advertisements of the famous ‘C from the chest’. He lived on, in retirement, for a further thirty years, and died at the age of 83 in 1933.

 

Valentine Smith married during his early years as a singer and he and his wife Mary Ann née Gugeri gave birth to (at least) two sons and two daughters. Their eldest son, named Marmaduke Valentine Smith (b Croydon 1874; d Boscombe 15 August 1951) for his father, became well known as a newspaper proprietor, printer and distributor.