An Irish Oratorio: 1824.

.
I am no longer a Collector. Oh, I was, once ... rabidly. When younger. Music, theatre programmes, libretti, photographs, ephemera, recordings ... all the stuff that went into the making of my early multi-volumes books. But then I stopped. And what had been 'Kurt Gänzl's British Musical Theatre Collection' now nestles, courtesy of Dr James Ward, in the Harvard University Theatre Library. Some twenty years later, I wonder if the whole lot is catalogued!

Anyway, all that as a prelude to saying that the urge to acquire doesn't wholly go away. Every so often, in a shop or, these days, on e-bay and its ilk, I spy a little gem. Usually something ancient, from the narrowest part of my area of expertise ... and just about nobody else's! ... and of which, thus, nobody else knows the significance. And, thus, nobody cares much about. Excepting myself. Well, this week it happened. Here is the item. I know. Only I would get shivers down my spine. But this belongs in a museum. Specifically, an Irish museum ..

So. What is it? It is a playbill from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Annual Oratorio season of 1824. Under the management of the Chevalier Bochsa. Bochsa, whatever else he might have been, was a fine musician and an enterprising entrepreneur ... just days previously he had given the first British performance of Stadler's Jerusalem Delivered, at Covent Garden's parallel series of sacred concerts, with the flower of British vocalists ... but this was something even more way out. An unpublished, unperformed oratorio by an unknown Irish, amateur composer which -- unbelievably -- used as its source Pope's The Messiah. Why? How?

Well, I have my theory. But it's only a theory. The young composer, arranger, 'author' of The Prophecy ... announced on the bill solely as 'an amateur' ... was a young Dubliner by the name of Joseph Augustine Wade. Esquire. I don't know if he really were an Esquire or not, but that's what he billed himself as. In the brief pieces devoted to him in various dictionaries, there seems to be a general consensus that he was born in 1796. He studied at Trinity College, medicine and then music, and took to writing poetry ... and along the way he met Sir John Stevenson, Mus Doc. (One day I must find out why this church singer was knighted; the Mus Doc was an 'honorary' degree). Wade supplied words for some of Stevenson's pieces, including the glee 'The Day-beam is over the sea' (1821), published as 'sung at the London, Bath and Dublin concerts', and ventured his own first songs and arrangements for the local Beefsteak Club, the Dublin concerts et al. He published a version of 'Robin Adair' decorated with embellishments said to be 'for Catalani'. None of this modest local work, however, prefigured an entire oratorio. I suspect the hand and/or influence of the knightly Mus Doc.

So, come 24 March. The premiere of The Prophecy. Those with long enough memories, might have remembered the oratorio of the same title from the pen of Dr Thomas Busby, Mus Doc, organist of St Mary's, Newington Butts, 'a pupil of Battishill', also built on Pope's eclogue, which had been played at the Haymarket Theatre 29 March 1799, to a touch of amazement at an Englishman's temerity in treading where Handel had trod. It was given again in 1801, but an effort to publish it by subscription seems to have failed. And now it was to have a second, Irish metamorphosis.

Wade's Prophecy made up only one-third of the programme and, as you can see, the singers for the whole concert were all billed in a lump, with no distinction. Thus, I don't know precisely who sang the work (apart from the Misses Paton and Venes) or for what voices it was written, for such reviews of the evening as I have found, so far, devote only a few and unspecific comments to what I imagine must have been the first Irish oratorio. However, those lines were not dismissive. If anything, they were favourable...

A 'selection from' the oratorio was given on 31 March at another of Bochsa's series, and even a third time on the penultimate night of the series, 7 April, along with an 'act' of Rossini.

And the summary of the series quoth

Three performances. Apparently, of a decreasing part of Wade's opus. It would actually be given once more. The Dublin press reported that because of its 'brilliant success' the oratorio would be again sung in London. But the advertisement for the occasion (10 June 1825) sounds rather grumpy: 'the first and only time in this country as originally composed by ...'  It sounds as if even the first performance had been of a cut-down version. Anyhow George Smart conducted again, Miss Paton and Braham and Phillips were there again, and that seems to have been the last time The Prophecy was ever given. Although, maybe it got a go in Ireland. Like Busby's work, it doesn't seem to have made it to the publishing desk.

However, we don't need to feel sad for Mr Wade. Although he would never again attempt anything on such a scale, and of such pretension, he was now established in the professional British music world as a Musician and a Composer and a Lyricist, and in the next twenty years songs would simply pour out of his plume on to the printing presses and  music-stands of Britain.

The first real song hit was a number fabricated from a Mozart waltz and set to his words as 'Morning around us is beaming'. The song was taken up by Joanna Goodall, who featured it beside her Handel and Rossini arias at the Argyll Rooms, at the Manchester and Winchester concerts, at York, at Portsmouth, at the Abingdon Grand Music Festival, indeed, to many of the places where she went, over several years.  'Rapturously applauded and encored', 'a very pleasing composition', 'a beautiful serenade'.

He also made inroads into the theatre. Mr Webb introduced his 'Liberty, Gallantry, Whisky and Love' into John Bull and The Wags of Windsor, John Braham interpolated his 'A Woodland Life' into Weber's score for Der Freischütz, while Vestris gave his 'Tis the best of all delights' plugging Vauxhaull Gardens Sapio rendered his Scottish ballad 'Will you with me, my lov'd Mary', and in 1826 he came out with a complete original score and libretto for a full-scale comic opera.

The piece was entitled The Two Houses of Grenada and it had a creaky plot with reminiscences of a happy-ending Romeo and Juliet. Mr Wade was, it seemed, not talented as a dramatist.

But his songs for the show were something better than his dramaturgy.  Miss Graddon scored with a  ballad

and what seems to be the whole score went into print ..

Braham's 'O, do you remember' and, especially, the duet 'I've wandered in dreams' outlasted the play by many years.

The Two Houses of Grenada was played eleven times, and also apparently found the stage in Dublin where it was quickly slimmed into an afterpiece, but its favourite songs lingered on ..  I see Kitty Stephens singing 'Love was once a Little Boy' at Braham's concert ...

Wade contributed songs to the theatre thereafter, including all the music for a well-liked little piece The Pupil of Da Vinci, at Braham's St James's Theatre, but again, he did not persist as a theatre composer. He wrote myriad published songs. but I see them published far more often than I see them performed in the better concerts.

Wade's biggest song success was 'Meet me by moonlight alone'. It has managed to survive two centuries to the Youtube age, in spite of being murtherously treated as a trad thwanging ballad by someone called the Carter Family. Here it is, with its virginity intact, sung as originally written, by Beret Arcaya, accompanied by guitar rather than piano or harp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9TO_YFFS2c

I don't know exactly when it was written and published, or where and when first performed. It wasn't, as far as I can see, plugged by such as Miss Goodall, Braham, Phillips or Sapio, although a copy in an Irish library is dubbed 'sung by madame Vestris' and dated 1827. My first sighting is in Leamington in late 1828, sung in a local concert by a Miss Sharpe, then -- already 'the favorite ballad' -- in Edinburgh by the better-known Miss Tunstall, sometime of Vauxhall. No mention of it being a 'new song', but I can't find Vestris either. In London, it was played at the Apollicon, and Mrs Waylett introduced it at the Tottenham Court Theatre, in what appears to have been a version of The Bride of Lammermoor entitled The Field of Forty Footsteps. Then Miss Stephens sang it a Drury Lane concert, Mrs Waylett in The Belle's Stratagem and at her Benefit, at Bath ... Miss Love came out with an answer 'Yes, I'll meet thee by moonlight alone' credited to Mr L Zerbini, it was arranged, rearranged, guitarred by Sola, often treated as 'trad' and with Wade's credit omitted ...

I have a long list of J A Wade songtitles, culled from advertisements and sheet-music, and from library catalogues. I have a very much smaller list of those reported in the press as having been sung in professional concerts, although a number of the music-sheets have 'sung by' with a favourite name attached, in the manner of the time. Mrs Waylett seems to have been a faithful purveyor of Augustine's songs -- I see she stuck one into the play The Yeoman's Daughter in 1834 -- but, it seems,  his market was mostly the drawing room piano

I'm going to leave Mr Wade there. There's plenty more on him and his work to be found if anyone wants to look. I'll just leave him, here, with the two-page (yes, TWO PAGE) obituary printed on his death, before the age of fifty, in The Musical World. It is far from impeccable -- for example, The Prophecy is forgotten and misdated -- but it is the most substantial piece on Wade I have seen.

The story of an Investigative Theatrical Carpet

.
The theatrical 'puzzles' are starting to pile up on my desktop. So maybe it's time for me to have a crack and one or two. I've been 'in France' all weekend, translating a big bundle of 200 year-old French poetry, so why not start with my French folder ...

A splendid little group of 1860s performers fell into my net last week, and I was well on the way to winkling out the odd identity when 1830s poetry intervened ... so here's what I have uncovered, and what still remains to be uncovered ...

The key photo in the bundle was this one

Yes, well, it's a wizard. So we are immediately plunged into the glorious world of the classic French féerie spectaculars. Plenty of candidates, but one outstanding one. Rothomago. Rothomago, produced at the Cirque in 1862, and transferred to the Châtelet ... The titular Rothomago is a wizard ...
The rôle was created by the actor Lebel, and although it was later played by others, this is he. How do I know that? Because Lebel had the goodness to sign a copy to a friend, and that copy has survived to this day.

Tissier

Now, pictures of the original Rothomago production can be found, but you've got to be wary. There is  a splendid set of Nadar photos in the French National Library. But they are from the 1877 revival. In which Lebel's role was played by the decidedly more rolypoly Tissier.

But. I'm pretty sure that a couple of my other 'catches' are from the same production. And, certainly, this one: Lebel's inseparable double-act partner, the 'idoles du publique', William[s]. Yes, born in Paris of English parents: Charles Addison Williams (1815-1883).  

He played the Prince in the affair ...

Why? LOOK AT THAT CARPET! It is surely the same photo session. In fact numbers two and four are pretty surely the same lass. Are they ALL the same lass? Surely not, the legs on number three are much less healthy...

But which lass?

Well, the 'principal boy' was 'Mademoiselle Milla' (née Laure Dordet, d 1900), replacing the Cirque's Judith Ferreyra, who would later return to her role, but who was soon to be prey to the rotting disease that would put an end to her career the following year and, ultimately, kill her, just after her thirtieth year.

Judith Ferreyra

Mlle Milla featured in the French plays in London 1867

The bad fairy was the actress known as Adèle Désiree .. perhaps a relation of the Madame Désirée Fieux of the Cirque cast -- well, it's not she, is it ..

The ingénue was my favourite Ernestine Esclozas. She played a peasant girl, so it's hardly she. But what's this ...?  SAME CARPET! I must check the ins and outs of the plot!

That's surely she. And nos 2 and 4 of the who? lot ..

But what is this other name, billed large alongside Mlle Milla. 'Maria Bellamy' (ossia Belamy)? To play the Princess. The daughter of La Fée Rageuse? Originally played by Coraly Geoffroy. 

Well, I just happen to have a photo labelled 'Bellamy'. It's from the Châtelet's later production, Marengo.

Yes? Could be. But the lady in my photos doesn't look very Princesse-ly, does she? This would be more what I'd expect

Maria Bellamy ('très jolie, très fine, très mignonne') came to the Châtelet from the Gaîté and the Folies-Dramatiques (Comme on gâte sa vie, Le voyage à Vienne, Galopin in Les écoliers en vacances) and became a favourite soubrette on the new stage. After Rothomago, she appeared in La Prise de Pékin, as Mary the maid in Le Secret de Miss Aurore, and as the drummer boy in Marengo before her death, still in her twenties, 'from a cold bath' in August 1863.

There were plenty of other lassies in the cast, of course. Mlles Caroline and Anna and Mme Lacran in small parts, and then the ladies of the ballet who represented the hours of the Magic Clock which was central to the show's story. Mlles Victorine (l'heure du coucher), Clémence (l'heure de la prière), Lagrange (l'heure de minuit), Esther (l'heure du dîner), Elisa Bellamy (L'heure du bal), Agnès (l'heure de la liberté), Jenny Pazza (l'heure du travail), Caroline (l'heure du lever), Hélène (l'heure du déjeuner), Maria (l'heure du jeu), Bonnet (l'heure du plaisir), Octavie (l'Heure du berger), Gabrielle, Robert,  ...  and for the Lace Ballet, Mlles Henecart, Elisa Piron, Letourneur, Octavie Berger and Anna Buisseret, later Mlles Badernac, Laurençon, Petit ...

 

Anaïs Letourneur

  

These were not all just dispensable chorines. I have before me a cast list for the Châtelet's 1866 end-of-year revue and, alongside Mlles Milla and Esclozas, the names of Elisa Bellamy and Mlle Esther still appear in the lists. Elisa apparently stayed at the theatre for ten years, according to Lyonnet ... who unfortunately equates her with Maria! Esther, well, she rather looks as she would have been worth a ten-year contract! Dinnertime, indeed!

Is that the famous carpet again?

Death was unkind to another star member of the cast of Rothomago, as well. Colbrun, the little comic actor who appeared in the principal male role of Blaisinet died, before the age of forty, in 1866.

So, it seems as if we have here photos of the cast of the musical féerie spectacular which opened the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1862 ...

Or some of them. I'm still not sure about the one with the less healthy legs. And I suppose I'd better go looking for that carpet ...

ARGH! THE CARPET ....! 

For the sake of reference, the original Cirque cast of Rothomago was, in its principal cast, identical to that at the Châtelet, with the exception of the replacement of Judith Ferreyra (apparently a little lost in the large auditorium) and that of Mme Geoffroy by Maria Bellamy (previously Béllami). However, a number of the supporting ladies were seemingly recast. Voici the names of the original featured dancers from the Hours and the Lace Ballet:

Madame Coustou (Spanish lace), Mlles Anais Letourneur (English lace), Anna Buisseret (Dutch lace), Pety (Malines lace), Adèle Ferrus (Venetian lace), Guerboroglio (Parisian lace), Lagrange (l'heure de minuit), Jeanne Pazza (l'heure de travail), Mlle Clémence (l'heure de prière), Mlles Kelly (l'heure de l'ennui), Ricard (l'heure de la liberté), Maria (l'heure du jeu), Bonnet (l'heure du plaisir), Thérèse (l'heure du bal), Octavie (l'heure du berger), Caroline (l'heure du lever), Esther (l'heure du dîner), plus Mlles Chatenay, Marzetti, Juliette, Hélène, Wall, Robert, Lhéman etc.

Anais Letourneur as English Lace, dances her 'gigue anglaise'

The other supporting ladies were Mlle Marguerite, Désirée Fieux, Jenny Kid and Mlle Moreau. Plus sixty corps de ballet...

At the moment, most of these are just names to me, although the paper L'Orchestre describes some of the dancers. But I am looking.

Ah! Jenny Kid 'the Queen of the Théâtre Féerique' an open-air entertainment in the Champs Elysées ..

And here is the cast of Les Sept Châteux du diable at the Châtelet in 1864 - Elisa Bellamy, Lagrange, Ferrus, Letourneur, Buisseret, Berger, Genty all still there and featured .. behind the great Esclozas and Lise Tautin ...

Ah! Anna Buisseret. Her sister, also a dancer at the Châtelet, was involved in a nasty affair of anonymous letters in 1874, then mixed with the law again in 1876 when one ex-lover killed another in a duel. She was described in court as 'une très vulgaire pècheresse dont le corps de ballet d'un thèâtre des féeries utilisait très récemment les mérites choréographiques'. How nasty! She had been, for more than a decade, a 'bien gentille' slightly featured dancer at the Châtelet and the Gaîté! And sister Anna was, by this time, no less than star dancer at the Gaîté. Anyway, in the course of proceedings the sister admitted to 35 years of age and christian name of Adrienne. So, presumably she was the lady who danced as 'Mademoiselle Adrienne'. And I doubt that Buisseret was their real name anyhow: the choreographer who, around this time, worked as 'Buisseret' was actually Etienne Morlet. Anna was to remain a star dancer for a goodly number of years. Adrienne vanished, allegedly, to 'marry an English Lord'.

Adèle Ferrus, 'la grande coquette', who had been a baby ballerina alongside Anna Buisseret at the Brussels Théâtre de la Monnaie in the 1850s, was the wife of 'Valentin' (de Waerghenare), sometime sous-chef d'orchestre at the Châtelet. He died at the age of 35 in 1874. She seems to have had a sister too. Ferrus I and Ferrus II played Pride and Envy in the Châtelet's Les Sept Châteaux du diable in 1864. Maybe the Antonia Ferrus who sppeared in Brussels and Toulon?

Mlle Letourneur, 'la soubrette du Châtelet', 'admirablement sculptée dans ses petits proportions ... à la fois chaste et provocante', who seems to have been a superior dancer, went on to, amongst other, be première danseuse in the Châtelet's Le Naufrage de la Méduse (1864), Les Filbustiers de la Sonore (1864, with Buisseret, Vernet and Ferrus), in the Théâtre Déjazet's Cendrillon (1866) burlesque,  La Poudre de Perlinpinpin (1869), later delivering a snake-dance at the Alcazar (1869), and continuing on into the 1870s when she turns up at the Folies-Bèrgere (1870) and in 1876 in America, dancing for the Kiralfys in Around the World in 80 Days. If she is the same 'Mlle Letourneur' who was dancing already at the Porte Saint-Martin in 1852, and a coryphée at the Opéra 1853-4  ... but, there, 'Letourneur' is a predestined name for a dancer, and there were, over the years, several! But wait! 1874 'Mlle Letourneur la coqueluche des titis, l'ange du paradis' quitte le Châtelet ...'. The 'darling of the Gods' ... it seems that it is indeed the same one. Anais Letourneur ...

Anais Letourneur

Madame Coustou is another who seems to have had a long active life: in 1853 she danced in Le Consulat et l'Empire, alongside Lebel, at the Ancien Cirque, where two years later she can be seen in Les Pilules du diable; in 1875, she is principal dancer at the Théâtre Historique.

Back to carpet hunting ...

Post scriptum. I am beginning to wonder if they produced that carpet by the kilometre. Also, in how many shows that little flyaway headdress was worn ...  but surely I've seen that stripey costume before ... Voyage à la lune?

Lebel in La Poule aux oeufs d'or ...

Rothomago '77