Mrs Alban Croft

 

Many is the time I have searched history to match a photograph or portrait of a singer with his or her story. this time it's the other way round. I have the story ... but no picture.  Revelling in my success in disrobing the tale of Mrs Elwood Andrea, I lingered a little in the letter 'A' and turned my attentions to Alban Croft or, more especially, his rather more talented wife ....

CROFT, Mrs Alban [CROFT, Elinor] (née GRIFFITHS) (b Church Street, Widcombe 26 December 1813; d Dublin, 22 January 1878)

 

Alban Joseph Croft (b Llanarth, Monmouth 22 June 1803; d 53 Leinster Road, Dublin 5 December 1891) ‘son of James Croft of the Park, Llantilio Crossenny, afterwards of Troy, by Anne daughter to Charles Hyde of Hyde End, co Berks’, a family which was worthy of inclusion in a contemporary History of Monmouthshire, was a ‘professor of music’ in London in the 1830s. My earliest sighting of him as a performer, 'a pupil of Garcia', in January 1829, is singing in a concert at Bath. However, when he appeared at Mme Dulcken's concert in 1834 (7 June, 'E serbata') at London's King's Concert Rooms, it was billed as 'his first public appearance'.

 

On 28 July 1831, Croft was wedded, at All Souls, Marylebone, to Miss Elinor Griffiths, a teenaged lady, also 'of Bath', whose 'natural and lawful father' was a 'hatter, hosier and glover' called Walter, and whose mother, Jane Seymour Griffiths (apparently a stay and corset-maker) witnessed the ceremony. Miss Griffiths – to be known for the next forty years and more as ‘Mrs Alban Croft’ -- was possessed of a strong soprano voice, and from 1837 she was put in evidence on several occasions in important positions in the London operatic stage.

 In 1837 and 1838, the Alban Crofts – baritone and soprano – turn up togetherr in a number of London concerts. The first of these I have noticed is Mr Kellner’s (April 1837) where they performed Donizetti’s Torquato Tasso duet ‘Colei Sofronia Olinda egli si appella’ together and The Times commented: ‘the lady and gentleman have both very powerful voices and are possessed of good taste’. They gave concerts of their own in both years, appeared at the Hanover Square Rooms, and in 1838 I see Mrs Croft taking part in a concert at the Surrey Theatre alongside several Italian opera vocalists. And it was paragraphed in the press that the couple were to star in a new English opera, by Rooke.

 

On 9 March 1839, however, Elinor found herself thoroughly among the Italians, for the young singer was hired by Laporte for the Italian opera, and launched (‘Madame Croft her first appearance on the stage’) at the opening of his season as Antonina in Belisario. The occasion was evidently something of a disaster. This time, The Times found nothing to like: ‘an Englishwoman we presume from he pronunciation of the National anthem’ ‘without the slightest pretensions to the position, her voice is weak, her intonation most defective, and her acting inanimate...’. ‘Could not sing in tune’ dismissed another critic.

 

The Crofts returned to the concert world, but, before the year was out, Mrs Croft was given a second theatrical chance, this time in English opera at Drury Lane. She appeared as the Fairy Queen to the Cinderella of Miss Delcy (‘Mrs Alban Croft came out well as the Fairy Queen, her voice is powerful but the part is too small to allow of a decided opinion 'a fine quality of voice and indications of good natural taste'). A few days later, however, she was put up as Polly Peachum, alongside Mr Frazer and Mrs Waylett, and the same paper which had damned her so roundly at Her Majesty’s Theatre wrote: ‘Her voice is of singular power, completely filling the house, and in the higher passages, which so much predominate in the part of Polly, she displays a compass even equal to her power. Nature already having given her so much power, there is no occasion for her to force her voice, which she sometimes does, and thus produces a sound deficient in sweetness. For ornament she has too great predilection ... she buries the native melody beneath a load of adornments. This was last night the more disappointing, as she invariably began her songs exceedingly well, proceeding tastefully and evenly until she at once dissipated the charm by a heterogenous flourish or a note artificially sustained ... we recommend her to prefer simplicity in the singing of an old English melody to a perpetual display. With her fine voice, pleasing person, and her agreeable notion of acting, it is completely in her power to take a good position on the stage, and if she des not attain this, it will be her own fault…’

 

She followed up as Rosetta in Love in a Village (‘graceful singing of the airs and the fine expression of a countenance which lights up with musical intelligence and beauty’ ‘a very pleasing representative of the supposed village maid’) with Frazer, Leffler, Mrs Waylett and Miss Betts, as Lucy Bertram in Guy Mannering, Diana Vernon in Rob Roy ('with considerable taste and effect'), Lisette in an English version of Boieldieu's Le Nouveau Seigneur du Village (My Lord is not my Lord) with Henry Phillips, and as Aeolia in The Mountain Sylph (‘The quality of Mrs Albin Croft’s voice is really excellent, combining the richest tones with great pathos and purity of expression ..’), before Mr Hammond, the manager, went broke, owing her £36.13.4d

 

Mrs Croft repeated her Mountain Sylph (with her husband as Hela) and The Beggar's Opera at the Surrey Theatre, and they played extensively in the British provinces (Der Freischütz, My Lord is not my Lord, Guy Mannering, La Sonnambula, Fra Diavolo, No!, Rob Roy, Rosina, No Song no Supper etc) most often in a threesome with tenor Shrivall, ending up in Dublin where Frazer was tenor and where Cinderella was produced. This time Elinor took the title-role. They also played The Mountain Sylph, Amilie, La Sonnambula, Fra Diavolo, The Slave, Lucia di Lammermoor &c as they continued around Britain. Oddly, the London census of 1841 shows Elinor and Alban in John Street, Charing Cross, with theri three children, (and there were more to follow ) but it was not until the beginning of 1843 that she surfaced for a third time on the London stage, this time at the Princess’s Theatre, where she was apparently engaged to cover prima donna Eugenia Garcia as La Sonnambula. 

During the season, she was cast in the leading role in Mrs Gilbert a’Beckett’s opera Little Red Riding Hood, and the metropolitan press delivered a third verdict: ‘Having improved vastly since she was last before a London public she is now a very pleasing and interesting vocalist with the advantage of considerable personal attractions. There is no great feeling in her singing, there is nothing that approaches an inspiration, but her style is good, her execution neat and in the distribution of light and shade she evinces a calculated taste and judgement. The command over her voice, which is perfect in most instances, fails her occasionally in the high notes...the finale, which is a piece to display the execution of the prima donna, like so many in the modern Italian operas, she achieved with great credit.’

However, this was her last London stage appearance. In the mid-1840s, Alban Croft took up a church engagement in Dublin, and thereafter he, his wife, and their family of musical children were seen only rarely in performance in England. Mrs Croft performed occasionally in opera – I have noticed her in Scotland and Liverpool (1845 La Sonnambula) with Sims Reeves, and playing in Lucia di Lammermoor in Ireland – but reserved her appearances, thereafter, largely to concerts and to church singing, mostly in Dublin, through until the 1860s.

 

Alban Croft held engagements at the University Church and at St Xavier’s Chapel, where his eldest son, Hamilton Croft (b 1834; d Dublin 4 August 1887), subsequently succeeded him. 

Daughters Marie (Mary), Celia and in particular Kate, also appeared as singers.

 

Croft also penned an amount of published music, of which a ‘My beautiful, my own’ (1842) -- sung by Mr and Mrs Croft and by Sims Reeves -- seems to have been the most performed. The words, by one Irish J Halford, were judged good, Croft's music 'indifferent', but Reeves gave it at the prestigious London Wednesday concerts, and plugged it solidly.