The tenor Baragli: size counts ...

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Baragli? Who? Well, I'd passed by his name on occasion, over the years, in my wanderings through the C19th opera world, without taking any particular notice, until yesterday when this rather nice photo surfaced on ebay .. It caught my eye because ... well, it looks exactly like my friend, Jack Marshall, in fancy 1860s dress ... and I thought, let's look him up.

Oh. He's not in Kutsch & Riemans. In fact, he doesn't feature in anything I have on my shelves, not even Kellogg's imaginative autobiography, excepting an appearance in that excellent Dudley Cheke biography of Joséphine and Emilie (the Demérics). So, we start from scratch. Which is always the way I do things, anyway. Though a cribsheet/checklist is sometimes nice!

Well, the history of Signor Ranieri Baragli turned out to be quite a jolly story, and quite a strange one.  The young fellow pictured above -- at age about 24 -- had a career of a quarter of a century as a primo tenore. During those 25 years, he must have had -- repeatedly -- some of the most awful notices known to tenordom. Yet he carried on, cast in leading roles opposite first-class prime donne, gathering more and more ghastly press ...
Yes, he was tall and handsome. Yes, he was an excellent actor. Yes, his pretty tenor voice had been beautifully trained. But ... it was tiny. Time and again, critics complained that his singing didn't reach the back of the opera house, that he was drowned out by the orchestra; time and again adjectives the equivalent, in five languages, of 'weak', 'feeble', 'thin', 'trembling' ... featured in the reviews ... yet Signor Baragli was hired and hired again for some of the world's biggest opera houses. And, occasionally, he was found to be delicious ... if small. So, how did it happen?

Well, a good start in life always helps. And a good start can be hugely helped by getting into the company of celebrated and influential people. In Baragli's case, the first and greatest of these was his singing teacher, the former tenor and composer turned agent and impresario, Antonio Ronzi (1813-1873). Yes, the brother of the even more celebrated Guiseppina Ronzi, sometime Mrs de Begnis, and of Luigi Ronzi (baritone), with whom he combined in the agency-production company of the Fratelli Ronzi. The Ronzi brothers, as was the custom of the time, took various Italian theatres for a 'season' -- carnevale, autunno, quaresima -- and put in a company to play operas for that season. The choice of operas was naturally dictated by criteria not always as artistic as financial, and the choice of artists was, also, very often dictated by the desire to use agency clients. Apparently the agency took up to 50% commission to get/give you a job. But it was an understood thing at the time and place that you had to pay in some way for a 'debut' and sometimes that paying went on for a decade.

Enter young Signor Baragli from Arezzo. And his little sister, Caterina, a singing pupil at the Firenze Conservatoire. The young Ranieri evidently began his musical life as a violinist, for I see him, in 1855, playing the fiddle at the Benefit of the tenor Sergardi at Montepulciano. Which would seem to signify that, like little sister, he was based in Firenze. Firenze was, of course, also the home base of the Ronzi operation.

I see it suggested that the very young tenor made his first singing appearance at the Firenze Pergola (managers: Fratelli Ronzi) in 1856. I think, rather, 1858. It is a little confusing, as the Fratelli were apparently also handing a 'primo tenore' by name Ranieri Bertazzi at the same time ... but primavera 1858 will do me. Amongst the company were bass Giuseppe Segri-Sagara, baritone Filippo Coletti, first tenor Giuseppe Villani, prima donna Enrichetta Weiser ... young Sig Baragli was the 'supplente', the comprimario (although billed as a 'primo tenore'), cast as Aaron in Mose and the pescatore in Guillaume Tell. Mose didn't go down very well, so Tell was hastened on ... The journal Il Piovano Arlotto published a vast review. The critic was thrilled that the Ronzis had taken on such a work, and had but few reservations ... he didn't care for Madame Weiser's Mathilde, and 'we would have chosen another Pescatore...'. 'Il pescatore Baragli riesce a pescare, con indignazione e scandalo pubblico, per quanto non se ne trovi ne'torrenti, certi negozi che in zoologia furono battezzati col nome honesto di 'fistularia tubulosa'.  Well, it might have been the first, but it would not, by a long way, the worst of many such horrid notices. And it wasn't about to stop.

The Ronzis had taken on the Teatro Grande at Trieste 'for three years', and for the autunno season of 1858 they opened there with a company headed by the French prime donne, Charton-Demeur (later Eugénie Julienne-Déjean), and a good handful of tenors, notably, Villani. The season, from September to December, announced six operas (Lucia di Lammermoor, Guglielmo Tell, L'Ebreo, La Sonnambula, I Puritani, La Traviata), of which I have found our tenor listed only in a repeat of his crucified Pescatore, alongside Villani, Giovanni Guicciardi and the faded Elisa Biscaccianti. The production was 'un completo naufragio'. The carnevale season which followed apparently got into tenor trouble, and at one stage, in February, it seemed that the 'supplente' might have had to go on in a lead role. But the Ronzis hired Antonio Alaimo for Traviata and, when he got snooty, they then sent on Ettore Irfré for Ernani and Trovatore and the new I Moschettieri -- Baragli doesn't feature in the cast list of this one -- the history of the Theatre and the press of the time don't quite agree (the press was probably faking), but, anyway, if Sig Baragli didn't go on, he was at least allowed, in one paper, to 'possede voce gradevole ma di piccolo volume'.

When the season closed at Trieste, I lose our man for a bit. And when he does turn up, it is back in Firenze. Where he may have been all the time. I see him at the Ronzis' Teatro Pergola singing Elvino to the Amina of Rosina Laborde (17 February 1860) and the Count of baritone Massera. Laborde had a 'nuovo trionfo' and the men were allowed to be 'bravi artisti'.

It is December when I spot him next, and he's now in Germany. Leading tenor with one of those 'Italian Opera Company' groups which flitted around the European provinces playing a week or two here and there. This one was under the management of the experienced Lasina brothers and it boasted a genuine star at its head: the end-of-career Jeanne Castellan. It opened in December at Hannover playing Lucia di Lammermoor, I Puritani and La Sonnambula and the press reported 'Die Gesellschaft ist in der That, wenn wir ein einzige Mitglied -- Sigra Castellan -- ausnehmen, unbedeutend'.  However, one critic, maybe with sharper hearing reported of his Ernesto that he 's'est montré digne partenaire de la cantatrice'. Another took more than a couple of lines to analyse ‘eine wohlgeschulte Stimme von angenahmen, sympathischen Klange, aber ist leider so fein und dünn dass der Sanger um nur einigermassen steigern zu können den grossten Theil der Partie nur mezza voce singt; wo dann die Begleitung komplicirter und starker ist, wird die Stimme absolut unhörbar … '. 

The company moved on to Hamburg and to Mannheim ('Der Tenor, ein jugendlicher mit einer sehr ansprechenden Stimme begabter Sänger von ebenfalls guter Schüle..') and then to Berlin, as the Lasinas and another of the touring managagements, Lorini, joined forces. Castellan seemed to have vanished (one paper killed her off!) from one company, and the tenor Carrion had not materialised for the other, so Baragli ended up as primo tenore of a sort of combo, first at the Viktoria Theater singing opposite another senior diva, Rosine Laborde (La Sonnambula 'ein schöner lyrische tenor mit hübscher Schule, die er aber mitunder no recht unbeholfen verwendet') then, from Easter Monday at the openair Krolls Theater. One paper allowed him a 'hübsche weiche Stimme' another firmly pronounced 'The only good singer is the once famous Madame Laborde'. But Baragli got to join the prima donna (and pianist von Bulow) in a concert at the royal palace, before they set off to dates in Stettin and Milan. And, apparently Russia. For in August, the press reported than Ronzi, accompanied by his pupil Baragli had returned thence to Germany ..

Since he didn't come back to Berlin a lot, I imagine that some time in the past year was when our photo was taken ..

I have no proof, but I am certain that Sig Baragli's next job was due, also, to the ever-supportive Ronzi. On 16 October 1861 he opened as Alfredo in La Traviata at Lisbon's Theatro San Carlo . 'Sehr gefallen'. Don Pasquale, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L'Elisir d'amore and La Figlia del Reggimento followed. Fraschini took Ernani and Un ballo in maschera, and Tagliazucchi Rigoletto. Things seemed to be going decidedly well after all. So he pressed on. Through into 1862 ...

Gaetano Fraschini

Fraschini in Ballo in maschera

29 July he made what seems to have been a first appearance in Paris. The venue was the Château des Maison, the occasion a charity concert hosted by the Lablache family. 'Un jeune ténor qui doit débuter aux Italiens ...' claimed the music press. Indeed? Well, why not. The régisseur at the Italian opera of Paris was ... Monsieur Ronzi. He sang 'avec beaucoup d charme, la romance de Martha, et très brillament l'air célèbre du Pirate .' 'Ce ténor de premier ordre vient de Lisbonne; il a un organe admirable, une méthode élevée, et beaucoup de delicatesse ...'. The reort was picked up further afield: 'a young but unknown tenor [who] sang Rubini's well-known aria in Il Pirata with great effect..'

The Italiens was not for yet, however. Only, its manager, Bagier, who also had the concession for Madrid. And it was to the Teatro Oriente of Madrid that Mons Baragli duly headed to share the duties of primo tenore with Geremia Bettini. Bettini sang Il Trovatore with Carozzi Zucchi and Deméric Lablache to open the season, and the piece was a vast success, Bettini sang Lucrezia Borgia and  Norma with Anna Lagrange, Bettini sang Lionel in Martha with Mesdames Lagrange and Lablache, Bettini sang Les Huguenots, Fraschini came in to do Lucia, Rigoletto, Ballo in maschera. La Forza del destino and Poliuto, but Sig Baragli was there, and in the shadow of the great hits of the season -- Trovatore, Martha and especially Norma, which was such a hit that the Madrilenes erected a statue of Lagrange in the character in the foyer -- he apparently got to sing Il Barbiere, La Sonnambula, Don Pasquale, Linda di Chamonix, and second to Bettini in Zampa. And then Bettini had some sort of 'illness' and had to have an operation on his arm. He was off almost till the end of the season. So it was Baragli who got to sing I Puritani with Mme Lagrange. When the Poiniatowski opera Pie[t]ro de Medici (5 April 1863) was produced he is said to have taken part, though the reviews don't mention him. Fraschini was the tenor.  The season's summaries lauded Bettini and Fraschini. Baragli was listed in the fair-enoughs along with ... Padilla!

Padilla

Lagrange

He travelled to London. Oberon was set for later in the season, so he was lined up to sing Edgardo to the Lucia di Lammermoor of Titiens. But come the date, it was postponed. Giuglini stepped in. Then again. Finally nearly three weeks late (26 May 1862) Baragli appeared as Edgardo on the stage of Her Majesty's Theatre. And flopped. Some of the papers were gentle: 'He possesses considerable dramatic feeling, but his voice by no means corresponds to his aesthetical views, and at time it was really difficult to hear him distinctly. Perhaps he was nervous'.

The critic did not get much of a chance to judge. Ranieri Baragli made one-and-a-half more operatic appearances at the Italian opera -- a Figlia di reggimento with a past-it Piccolomini (30 May, 'appeared to greater advantage in the music of Tonio than of Edgardo'), and a cheap nights repeat of Lucia (29 July). Sims Reeves was brought in to give a magnificent Sir Huon, and rumours that he would sing Rigoletto with Mme Volpini and delle Sedie proved to be nothing but a face saver. While Berlin and Paris reported his London success in traditional music-journal fashion, the London papers dealt the wholesome truth. 'He made no effect'. 'He seems to be another failure'. 'Signor Baragli did not please ... he was entrusted with no other part ...'. 'Signor Baragli, the over-much extolled tenor, will hardly be regretted'. Too much, too soon: any hope of a British career was gone for ever. He never returned.

Paris needed to be encouraged to believe in Baragli's 'success', for Messrs Ronzi and Bagier had already signed up the tenor for Paris's Italiens season. The German press sniffed 'Baragli wird als Almaviva im Barbier debutiren und vermuthlich einem ähnlichen Schicksale wie in London entgegensehen..'. Well, Paris wasn't quite as sudden-death as London. For in Paris the young man had the support and backing of his manager and his agent-director, who had an interest in making him a success. And they worked it hard. But you couldn't buy off every paper and magazine in Paris ... and, was it really sensible to put the young man forward as Almaviva, previously sung by Mario? Some were kind

'Un tenorino ... Au tant qu'on peut juger d'après le très mince filet de voix que la peur avait laissé a sa disposition, M Baragli ne manque ni de goût ni d'habilété'

'Le ténor Baragli est un beau cavalier qui plaït par son extérieur, et qui charme autant par le timbre efféminée de sa voix que par la liesse de son style..'

'Baragli qui vocalise comme un ange, n'a pas de voix'

'Die Stimmen Sterbinis und Baraglis sind nicht von grossem'

'Quelque succès: sa voix est minche, mais d'une grande flexibilité; il vocalise à merveille; c'est un fort agréable ténorino...'

'M Baragli ne manque ni de talent, ni de goût, il chante bien, vocalise avec facilié, joue gentiment et porte un plysqieu assez agréable. Mais sa voix est si petite et si blanche! Le medium manque de timbre. Dans les ensembles on cherche vainement Almaviva. Il a disparu dans la foule comme le Petit Poucet au milieu de ses frères'

The technique was splendid. The voice was tiny. And Fraschini and Mario and Nicolini were on the Italiens books ... but Baragli got to sing La Sonnambula and Cenerentola and the results were just the same:

'Fort agréable de sa personne, [il] est un tenorino dont la voix nous a paru d'abord interceptée par la brouillard. C'est du moins une vois des plus minces...'

'M Baragli n'a qu'un petit filet de voix. Presque imperceptible. Passe encore s'il donnait franchement le peu dont nature l'a gratifiée..'

'Le ténorino treblant de M Baragli lorsqu'il enfource la note, me représente un cavalier qui, avant perdu les étriers ...'

'Sa voix est trop faible pour Elvino...'

'dont la voix passe difficilement la rampe'

But he would sing Elvino and Almaviva endless times in the next twenty years.

Baragli didn't have to look far for his next job. The boys were taking him back to Madrid with the rest of the Italiens tenori. .  and there, after sitting doing nothing while Mario, Fraschini et al did therir stuff, he gave more I Puritani with Lagrange (23 February 1864), Figlia di Reggimento with Charton-Demeur, Don Giovanni (20 April) with Lagrange, Borghi-Mamo ..

Erminia Borghi-Mamo

In June, he joined a company, rather like his previous 'Italian opera' for Germany, with Giuseppina Vitali 'from Bologna', Mme Deméric-Lablache, Tito Sterbini and Antonucci. They played 11 nights in Cologne, and some more at Frankfurt, and Baragli, prino tenore assoluto of this little bunch, rolled out his Almaviva, his Elvino, his Puritani ... before the new season's start at the Italiens.

Adelina Patti

He seems to have started with Don Pasquale, playing opposite Adelina Patti and the stalwart Scalese.

Scalese

 As usual, his notices were divergent. Depending on whether you thought size mattered. 'Baragli chante avec beaucoup d'âme et style le role d'Ernesto'. '[Il a] fait des progrès [mais sa voix est depourvue de timbre'. 'Le ténorinetto Baragli, pour vouloir trop bien faire peut-être, a manqué la chanson du dernier act', 'Baragli devrait bien tacher de surmonter [la peur]: ell lui fait tremblotter la voix au point de compromettre de trèes réelles qualités ...' 'Le tenorino Baragli n'a pas plus de voix que année dernière. On dirait qu'etre sa bouche ouverte et le public une main invisible vient placer un épais capiton'. When he and Patti repeated their Barbiere, it was the same old tune: 'Baragli a peu de voix et minaude en chantant, mais il vocalise toujours à ravir ...'.

Brignoli

He appeared in Don Giovanni once more, replaced Brignoli in Linda di Chamonix and Nicolini in Rigoletto then headed south to Madrid again (Barbiere, Sonnambula, Don Pasquale with Patti). And then out on another tour (manager: Ronzi) playing the usual repertoire (Barbiere, Sonnambula, Lucia and .. surely not! Il Trovatore) with Rosina Laborde and Sterbini. I see them at Leipzig ('mit seine allerdings wunderbaren Kehl- und Zungenfertigkeit aber mit seiner winzig kleinen und stark tremolirenden Stimme'), Prague, Breslavia ...

Amélie Deméric-Lablache

The 1865-6 season at the Italiens brought more of the same. Il Barbiere with Patti, Don Pasquale with Vitali ('chantait la sérénade du fond de la coulisse: c'était un peu loin pour l'entendre'), Don Bucefalo ('Baragli chante toujours avec inifiniment d'art et de facilité, mais sa voix est toujours de la plus mince category' 'perhaps he had a cold'). And, after a bit of guesting at Rouen and the Théâtre de la Monnaie at Brussels with the Ronzi/Bagier team, headed by Lagrange (Crispino e la comare, Il Barbiere, Semiramide, Don Giovanni, Linda di Chamonix), a first-time Gazza ladra with Patti.

In June he departed for Madrid. But the situation was a touch different. His management contract with the Ronzis had terminated, 30 March, and his reserved place in the Ronzi companies, which had provided a major part of his employment, was no longer guaranteed. He turned to the agency Verger, and got hired for ... America.

Clara Louise Kellogg

Signor Baragli made his first appearance in America for Maurice Grau and Max Maretzek 13 October 1866 at Brooklyn, giving his Elvino to the Amina of the young Minnie Hauck. The reaction was precisely what it had been everywhere else: 'a qualified success. His voice is of good quality, what there is of it ... His small voice was lost in the vastness of the Academy [of Music]. He hasn't the timbre for a primo tenore'.
The troupe moved on to Philadelphia (18 October) where the two company soprani, Hauck and Kellogg, were teamed in L'Etoile du nord and 'the tenor di grazia of Signor Baragli was at times hardly equal to the emergencies of Danilowitz, but on the whole it was acceptably rendered. His distinct enunciation, artistic style and fervent manner atoned in great measure for the lightness of his voice'. Philadelphia, like Boston, with no axe to grind, often had a knack of putting it in a nutshell.

Mazzoleni

L'Elisir d'amore with Antonietta Ronconi, the inevitable Il Barbiere ('a very gentlemanly count') with la Kellogg, and when it came to Trovatore he stepped aside for Mazzoleni. Unfortunately, 'Mazzoleni no longer sings, he shouts ... Baragli is far preferable; possessing a light voice, singing with feeling and executing unusually well. It is not often a tenore can trill on la above the staff..'. Petrella's La Carnival de Venice with Kellogg and with Baragli as Orestes, and he appeared in a number of concerts including a series at New York's Steinway Hall in June 1867 where he, as ever, delivered mainly operatic selections ('He does 'Il mio tesoro' in a manner so vastly superior to what we are accustomed, but his style is meretricious ..), but he came to grief when he joined Parepa in the Rossini Stabat Mater. He was 'drowned by the orchestra'.

Parepa

He sang with the Parepa concert party -- and actually gave an Abt song ('Good night, sleep well') amid his endeless arias --sang opera with the Ronconis for Maretzek, returned to New York with the Ronconis and Parepa, sang Don Bucefalo with Peralta, 'charmed the Philadelphians', 

Angiola Peralta

played Lucrezia Borgia with Marietta Gazzaniga ... and in March 1868 visited South America (Havana, Gran Teatro de Tacón) with a 'Gran Compania de Opera Italiana'. I see they gave Faust, La Traviata, La Favorita et doubtless al. Anyway, he survived the perils of Cuba and, by the winter, was back in Europe, engaged at ... Madrid.

Mélanie Reboux

I see him singing there (Naudin, Tiberini and Tamberlik were billed for the season as well) with the exciting Mélanie Reboux (Faust, Il Barbiere), Emmie Lagrua (La Favorita), and Rita Sonnieri (Martha, Lucia di Lammermoor), and playing Leopold in La Juive with Tamberlik and Reboux .. he apparently depped for Tiberini in Rigoletto 18 January 1870.

Following him around in the next few years is a bit hectic. He was one of the five tenors billed for the season at Cairo, in early 1870, which featured Mlle Sarolta (see my article 'the Sultan's Soprano Supper') and Naudin, where he is said to have played Faust and Crispino e la comare ...

Now, wee problem. Having completed my researches, I lit upon an Italian website which displays a partial chronology of Baragli's career. It misses quite a few of the engagements I've listed so far, but when we get to the 1870s it includes a considerable number that I have not, so far, found. And the first is no less than La Scala Milan, Corentin in Dinorah. January 1870. I hastened to the Gazzetta musicale di Milano. Oh, wow! The season had just opened with that Poniatowski opera he'd played at Madrid, so ... So, no. Both Piero di Medicis and Dinorah were played by Zaccometti. And anyway, Baragli was surely in Cairo?

For how long, I know not. But by October he is at the Teatro Communale of Bologna, where he is playing Dinorah, alongside Angelica Peralta and Enrico Storti and adjudged 'un valente interprete' who gained 'molti applausi'. Fraschini sang the other operas.

Angelica Peralta

13 April 1871, however, he is in Milan. It was the end of the Carnevale season at La Scala, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia was put on, seemingly for one performance, to mark the inauguration of a statue of Rossini in the theatre's foyer. The Belgian soprano Felicità Pernini was Rosina for the occasion, and Baragli was Almaviva, and it was judged 'mediocre'. When the Barbiere was brought back, later in the year, Barbara Marchisio and Pardini headed the cast.

Our Italian list (La voce antica) places him in May at Bilbao, at the end of 1871 and into 1872 at Taganrog and Kharkov in Russia (Rigoletto, Il Barbiere, La Traviata, I Lombardi), followed by Cremona (Il Barbiere, Don Pasquale) and La Coruna (Lucrezia Borgia, Il Barbiere). I am sure this is right, but I haven't picked up any of these. I catch up with him and the list in August 1872, opening the Teatro Circo, San Sebastian with Varvara and Mlle Llanes in La Favorita, and all his usual repertoire ... and, what? being dubbed a Chevalier of the Order of King Charles III of Spain!  The list posits Gibraltar in October (L'Elisir, Marta), and in November we find him back in Madrid giving Cenerentola with Fanny Vogri, Dinorah with Camille de Maesen, and La Juive with Marie Sass and Barbacini. The list says he popped off to Ancona for a bit (Sonnambula, Il Barbiere) but, in March, I see him back in Madrid, singing La Traviata with Carolina de Cepeda. The seasonal summary says he gave 35 performances in four roles.

In May 1873 he turned up playing Les Diamants de la couronne with the signore Tagliana and Cosmelli at the Milan Commedia: 'Al tenore Ranieri-Baragli non manca l'ingegno nè la frachezza scenica, nè il tono giusto:a lui però vien meno spesso la voce: non cade perchè sa cantare, ma sta in piedi come per miracolo'. Next came, says the List, May 1874, the T Balbo, Turin followed by the Politeama, Naples as Amenofis in Mose. I catch up 15 September 1874, when he can be seen in Rome singing Le Comte Ory with la Pernini at the Teatro Valle, and Dinorah with Mlle de Maesen at the Apollo. The List adds the Teatro Argentina (Le Pré aux clercs etc). He is said to have stayed in Rome till the end of the year, then moved to the Fenice, Venice for the Quaresima season. The repertoire there included Dinorah, Il Guarany, Lucia di Lammermoor and Poliuto, but Tamagno headed the tenor listings, and Baragli may have only sung his Corentin alongside Peralta, Capponi and Galassi.

Tamagno

Now the list really comes into its own: Lecce, Bari, the T Rossini, Rome, San Remo, Pola, Chieti, Monza, Sondrio, Cremona, 15 April 1876 at the opening of the Tearo Marrucino with Sofia Lorini, before my evidence catches up in Bastia in 1877. I see him giving his Almaviva alongside Miss Laura Woolwine ka Bellini as part of a largely Verdi season.

Apparently he went next to Fiume, and then to St Petersburg under the Ciampi management. Eight tenors were listed. What he sang there, I dont know. The List reckons it was Corentin, Jean de Leyden and Walther von Stolzing. The last two, I refuse flatly to believe. It seems that he appeared only as Laertes to the Amleto of Padilla and the Desdemona of Donadio. St Petersburg is always a problem. It doesn't seem to have been documented even by an American undergraduate.

Here, in the face of a tag end of career, I got a bit spotty in my searching, but The List ploughs valiantly on: Verona, more Rome at the Teatro Argentina ('Baraldi 'molto bene accolto' as Almaviva with Matilde Milani-Vela, Don Bucefalo) , Milan's Teatro Manzoni (Usiglio's Le Nozze in prigione), Cagliari (Fra Diavolo with Itala Fiorenza, 'un perfetto Fra Diavolo', L'Elisir d'amore with Angiola Vinea Paoletti), Torino, Alba, Massa Superiore (August 1884) when he sang at the inauguration of the local Teatro Cotogni. The critic judged that 'oggi a voce gli manca, a segno che dovra ritirarsi affato del teatro'. 'Oggi' was being kind. One Almaviva too many?

Cotogni

But it had been a long career for a man judged, from day one, to have 'pas de voix'.

He did make it to the pages one sort-of-reference-book. Les Théâtres en robe de chambre, published in 1866. A very informal glance at the singers of the day during Baragli's Italiens period:

'BARAGLI Celui que l-'on appelle le ténor transi, et sur lequel les critiques tombent à plume raccourcie. La voix, qui paraît au premier abord assez ample, ne va pas jusqu'au fond de la salle. Il a été engagé aux Italiens par un de ces commissionnaires en art dramatique ou lyrique qui font presque marché de viande humaine...'. He goes on to reveal the agency connection and the vast commission paid to the Ronzi Fratelli.

'Baragli fait beaucoup d'effet, dans un salon; à la scène, c'est un ténor insuffisant : il ne manque pas d'un certain style et de méthode, mais il est froid et il semble continuellement jouer sous l'impression fâcheuse d'une maladie qu'on appelle le choléra'.

There is little more to say, except that Ranieri Baragli retired to teach singing, and died, at the age of 63, in Milan, 5 February 1899. Sister Caterina, who had fulfilled a tidy career as a soprano, died in 1911, aged 70, at the Casa di Riposo Verdi.

A century ago on Broadway. If briefly.

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A glimpse back to three of perhaps not the best or best-known shows to tread the Brodway stage in the first decade of the 20th century ... prompted by the discovery of this little bundle of photos ... how splendid that they survive!

Sweet Marie (the title taken from a recently popular song) was a very shortlived musical comedy produced by Oscar Hammerstein at his Victoria Theatre 10 October 1901. It was initially credited to 'W Brown and R Jackson' as authors, but it was no secret that the real writer was the producer himself. The stars of the piece were two sketch artists known as the Russell Brothers who, here, played a pair of French sisters whisked off to Bombay, for reasons best known to Mr Hammerstein and the scenic designer, for the length of the second act. English vocalist Rhys Thomas (in brown-face) was cast as the Indian magician, Castafore. Since vaudeville singer-dancer Eleanor Falk appeared as someone named Nubiani, I preume that the lady here pictured is she, rather than one of the 'heroines'.

Sweet Marie seems to have been a 'filler' intended for no longer than its 28 performances, as the main participants were all booked into vaudeville dates for the week following its closure. Algeria, however, was definitely not. After an unimpressive first production (Broadway Theatre, 48 performances) it was actually revamped and tried again. But it had rather more craftsmanlike names attched to it. Book and lyrics by Glen McDonough, music by Victor Herbert, direction by George Marion, performers such as William Pruette, Ida Brooks Hunt and soubrette Harriet Burt as Millicent Madison M.D. Here is the last-named in olde Algiers with her troupe of trained nurses and what looks like Mr Pruette ...

From Rurarabia to Olde England. Someone thought it a good idea to drag out the very overused Peg Woffington tale for another round of the stage. William A Brady presented Grace George (Mrs Brady) as the lady in question at Bridgeton, NJ, 13 November 1902, and traipsed Pretty Peggy round the country, ending up 23 March 1903 at the Herald Square Theatre. Circus incidentals, miles of 'hokum', gimmickry and colourful staging kept the piece afloat until it returned to its natural habitat, on the road.

The 'big scene': rioters rush through the auditorium to sabotage Peg's play

The stage within the stage: Peg faints during As You Like It ...

The piece and its staging stayed alive (latterly without Miss George) for a number of years, and even peeked back into New York ...  well, let's face it, directors are still using the people-rushing-through-the-auditorium trick today, a century on ...

The Sisters Holman: 'dainty duettists and dancers'

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This photo caught my attention today. I don't know why. Perhaps it was the name 'Holman', which once played a part in American and Canadian musical theatre ... anyway, they have provided me with a few hours sport, and now they can have their five minutes in the limelight.

Yes, they were sisters. And, yes, their name actually was Holman. And they were a little supporting music-hall act for almost a quarter of a century. My first sighting of them is in 1897, 'tyrolean vocalists' at the People's Palace in Sunderland. My last is in 1920, at Derby ...  I would imagine this Mancunian photo was taken in the earliest days of the 20th century.

My first job was to find out who they actually were and whence they came. And that proved easier than it might have. Because on one of the rare occasions that they advertised in the trade press, to show off the fact that they had been playing the Babes in Babes in the Wood at Sunderland, they mentioned 'Mr John Holman' conductor (available) as well. Brother? No, father. Perhaps the John Holman RAM (!!) who was conducting at the Hartlepool Alhambra in 1893? So I went looking up around Durham way and ... 1906. John Holman, professor of music, 116 Granville Street, Grimsby ..

From there, it unrolled. Father, born Greenwich, 1849, son of a journeyman baker, married Eliza Sarah Collier from Camden Town 9 February 1869 and had ... twelve children. Four died, but six of the survivors were daughters ... Edith Ritta (b Holloway, 1872), Florence (b Swansea 10 August 1874), Gertrude (b Walsall 17 February 1878), Lillian (b Halifax 3 May 1880), Blanch[e] (b Leeds 1885) and Beatrice Cornelia (b Leeds 1886). Father clearly was a minstrel who wandered where the work was. 

Well, to cut this tale to its minima, our Sisters are the two youngest daughters. Blanch and Beatrice.  'Tyrolean vocalists'. At first, they -- as 'the three Sisters Holman -- were joined by Edith, working mostly as 'Ada Vest' 'ballad vocalist', but Edith eventually went back to her job as a tailoress cum machinist, and left to the little ones to carry on as a duo.

There isn't a lot to describe. 'Charming song and dance artists, ''Sing in pleasant style ... dance neatly'. The notices almost never say what they sang or danced (the Ramsbottom Observer of 1911 credits them with 'There Never was a Girl like you'), they didn't earn enought space for that. But they did what they did for more than 20 years, on the lower regions of bills at Hippodromes, Palaces and Empires from Exeter ('always heartily received in the West Country') to Dundee. They got their biggest press notice in Dundee, when Blanche got into a girlie dressing-room squabble, got a slap on the face from her victim's gentleman friend, and it all ended up in court. From where it was smartly kicked out.

Mostly, they appeared on bills made up of minor artists, performing pigs, dogs, acrobats, blackface comics, comedy jugglers, trick cyclists, progressively larger bits of cinematography, but I have spotted one or two familar names, from Harry Tate (1897) in kiddie days, to Walford Bodie and to Lydia Kyasht, Will Hays, Toby Claude, Daisie Irving and Marie Lloyd 'in her Paris gowns' during the war years ...

My last sighting so far is in 1920 at Birmingham.

I don't know what happened to the sisters after the act broke up. I've chased all of them ...

Edith went back to her sewing machine, married a plasterer's labourer from Bawtry, Notts (Alfred Marshall) and I see her last in 1911, in Balby with Hexthorpe, living with her sisters.

Florence also plied her sewing machine, married a Mr Oswald Desmond Mather, had a daughter, Dorothy (Newcastle 1906) lost him, and lasted through till the 1950s. 

Gertrude married a gent's outfitter from Chesterfield, Philip Sidney Smith. She too had children, of whom only a daughter, Margery (Chesterfield 15 August 1903) survived, and vanishes from my ken after 1911, when she is living with the Holmans and her husband is with his parents in Chesterfield. Doesn't look good.

Lilian strayed to Leeds to work as a waitress. She also strayed otherwise, too, and gave birth to three illegitimate babes before she married Harry Bowers, the father of the last two. Almost unfairly, she then had a long married life and died in Grimsby 24 December 1948. Harry lasted till the following year. Lillian's descendants have invested ancestry.com, so we actually have a photo of her ...

Blanche I quite simply lose after 1920 ... but the family also has a photo of her. Match it with our one ..?

As for Beatrice ... well, the family says she died, unmarried, aged 60 in Leeds. So, maybe she did. She'd clearly dropped the 'Cornelia' ...

And that's them. The Sisters Holman. One of the thousands of 'acts' which provided popular entertainment to the music-halls of England in their declining days ...

Can anyone add any more information about them?

The Macclesfield Diva: Fanny Ayton.

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My version of the tale of Fanny Ayton ...

AYTON, Fanny [AYTON, Frances] (b Macclesfield 27 December 1803; d 12 Park Street, Dover 21 May 1891)

Fanny Ayton wasn’t precisely a Victorian vocalist. She could have been. She should have been. But she didn’t make it. By the time Victoria came to the throne, Fanny had thrown it in. Thrown in a career which, at one early stage, had been prophesied as likely to be something quite startling.

Frances Ayton was born, or at least christened, in Macclesfield, Cheshire. She was never quite honest about the date, and Messrs Brown and Stratton’s erratic 19th-century work on British Musical Biography insists that it was in the year 1806. For yes, in a work which isn’t focused on vocalists and which, thus, leaves out from its pages the majority of the Victorian age’s best singers, Fanny Ayton actually gets an entry. She was like that. Messrs Kutsch and Riemans in their Grosser Sängerlexikon have largely copied the above article, with a couple of variations and an extra German phrase or two tacked in. For, yes, they who are indeed focussed on vocalists, but who nevertheless omit from their volumes many truly important English artists of the nineteenth century, have her in too. Born 1806. And now I’m including her, too. She somehow demands it. So, Fanny has been being handed down to posterity all right. But, alas, in a rather inaccurate and incomplete state.

For, of course, to start with, it wasn’t in 1806 that she was born. It was 1803. December the 27th. Parents, William Ayton Esq and his wife Sarah, ‘youngest daughter of John Thompson Esq of Chiswick’, who had been wed at Chiswick, 16 January 1802.

I, unfortunately, know nothing more of William Ayton (‘a commercial gentleman’ ‘of Macclesfield’), nor of his wife Sarah. However, there seem to have been some rather consequent London-banker-descended Aytons in that place at the turn of the 19th century, and a silk manufacturer of means, but the biographer of the British painter, Richard Westall (d 11 December 1836) – the artist of ‘Sappho in the Lesbian Shades Chanting the Hymn of Love’ and ‘Cardinal Wolsey Seeking Refuge in the Abbey of Leicester’ – and drawing master to the Princess Victoria, has come up with some details which may help me to get there in the end. For Westall’s correspondence reveals that he was related to the relevant Aytons – his mother was Mary née Ayton, his closest friend and maybe cousin was John Ayton (‘of Russell Place, Fitzroy Square’, who died 24 August 1829 aged 47 on the sands at Eastbourne), and Fanny – whom he apparently painted at least once in her brief heyday – was a relation of some undefined kind. A niece, maybe, or so says Leigh Hunt, referring to her as ‘Miss Fanny Ayton, who once made a great fuss and a good deal of money as an Italian cantatrice’, or even a great-niece. But it seems, in any case, that she was reasonably well connected. So, I imagine her father wasn't the William Ayton of Macclesfield, cotton spinner, who went bankrupt in 1808. But maybe was the William Ayton Esq of the Macclesfield School Board.

When she was in her teens, Fanny, ‘a pupil of [Giovanni] Liverati’, was sent to Italy to study music. Brown and Stratton say ‘with Manielli in Florence’, so maybe so. The results were apparently highly satisfactory, and the young soprano soon made her way on to the Italian operatic stage. B&S say it was in the title-role of Carlo Coccia’s Clotilde at La Fenice in 1825, K&R mentions the same opera, but insists on the venue being the Teatro Communale, Bologna, the following year. And, just to contradict them both, I proffer the original cast list of Pacini’s Temistocle, produced at Lucca’s Teatro del Giglio on 23 August 1823, which includes, alongside Tacchinardi in the title-role and Pisaroni as Xerxes, Roxane: Fanny Ayton. So, it seems that Venice and Bologna weren’t the first after all.

But I have, nevertheless, spotted her at the Teatro San Lucca, Venice, in autumn 1825 (‘eine nicht starke aber angenehme Stimme und eine gute Gesangsmethode’, ‘[she] has a voice of no great power, but of a very pleasing kind, and she shows an excellent school’) where she did indeed sing in Clotilde, and Chiara di Rosembergh, at the Teatro fu Obizzi in Padua in 1826, singing in Eliza e Claudio with Teresa Picchi, and I can confirm the Bologna appearance, also in 1826, with Clotilde – reported to the home press by an English diarist who found Fanny ‘a pretty girl who sings well [and who] seems to be a great favourite with the audience’ -- and with a piece named La gelosa vilane (‘Miss Ayton much pleased in this opera and the Ferranti gives us hope of her becoming an actress, as well as a singer far beyond the common stamp’). But another voyager of the time, who heard her in Italy, described her merely as ‘an agreeable singer, but nothing beyond mediocrity’ asserting ‘she was well received at Venice and elsewhere, as an exotic’.

In December 1826, the news came that she was headed for England: that ‘the impresario at Venice had ‘very reluctantly consented to spare her’ and that she had ‘overcome the great obstacles thrown in the way of her quitting Italy, where her fame had rapidly spread’.

It seems that the Venetian credit was, in any case, the one she considered the most important because, when the 23 year-old singer finally did come home, after some well-publicised adventures: (‘She was detained in Italy by the severity of the weather and, in crossing the Alps, narrowly escaped with her life. The letters from Venice, Mantua, Bologna, Turin and Milan, speak of her singing and acting in the same unqualified terms of admiration […] as of the inimitable Billington ...’) she had herself billed as ‘from La Fenice, Venice’. 

The Morning Post obliges with much pre-puffery

The bill in question was a decidedly surprising and important one, for it was for no less a holy place than the King’s Theatre: London’s high and mighty home of Italian opera. A theatre not noted for hiring young English girls as its star sopranos (‘A Macclesfield girl of one and twenty performing at our Italian theatre’ gasped the New Monthly Magazine). But Miss Fanny Ayton had made it.

The opera opened its season with a sure and established value, Rosalbina Caradori in Spontini’s La Vestale and Pacini’s La Schiava in Baghdad, and then – after a pause in the performances, due to the demise of the Duke of York -- on 3 February, Laporte launched his new prima donna, as Ninetta in Rossini’s La gazza ladra, with De Begnis, Zuchelli and Curioni in support and Eliza Vestris as Pippo. The Times reported ‘The first appearance of Mademoiselle Fanny Ayton, from the Theatre La Fenice at Venice, attracted on Saturday evening a crowded audience. The expectation of the musical portion of the public had been strongly excited with respect to the talent of this young lady. Mademoiselle Ayton is certainly a vocalist of ability – but not perhaps of that extensive ability that ought to be possessed by her who aspires to the situation of prima donna at the King’s Theatre. Her lower tones are deficient in strength, and her upper tones are emitted with too much effort, but her middle notes – decidedly the best part of her voice – are pleasing. She is mistress of much science, and possesses many personal attractions. Mademoiselle Ayton is of the middle size of women, and extremely well formed. Her countenance is handsome and intelligent, but better adapted we think to the expression of lively than of serious sensations… Throughout the whole evening she appeared to more advantage in the concerted pieces than in the solos, although her opening air ‘Di piacer mi balza il cor’ was encored. The most touching and delicate solo which she delivered in the course of the evening was that which occurs when Ninetta presses on her friend Pippo the acceptance of the cross which hangs from her neck … Her reception was extremely hospitable...’

This critic went back on the second night and allowed himself a second volley of reservations: ‘Mademoiselle Ayton is a very clever woman. She seems, as an actress, to be entirely alive to the scene; she feels, and very properly feels that, in the performance of an interesting operatic character, something beyond mere singing is necessary. Perhaps she carries this idea a little too far. In the impassioned scenes her energetic action was true to nature – it accorded with the scene – and, of course, it told well; but when, in matter of a more ordinary character, we still saw the outstretched arms and uplifted brow, we were inclined to think that Mademoiselle had studied a little too much in the school of art. The vocal abilities of Mademoiselle Ayton deserve no inconsiderable tribute of praise. Her style of singing, whether the movement be melancholy or lively, is perfectly in accordance with good taste. She evidently knows what ought to be done, but her voice does not second the desire of her mind. The voice of Mademoiselle Ayton is, undoubtedly, not of the best description. When mingled with the organs of others in a concerted piece, it aids, not inconsiderably, in producing a strong effect; but when left to its own resources, with in solo or in dialogue, it is thin, almost tiny, querulous and very frequently becomes unpleasant. Ninetta’s beautiful air ‘Di piacer’ was encored, and deserved to be…’

On 27 February, Laporte produced his next opera of the season, and Fanny was again cast in the leading role. The opera was Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, the role was that of the ‘heroine’, Fiorilla, and she was again teamed with Curioni, de Begnis and Zuchelli. This time, the Times man, who – like many another music and theatre scribe -- was spending incommensurate inches on his dissection of the talents of ‘Mademoiselle’ Ayton, started trying to rationalise his ideas of what was right and what was wrong with the new English prima donna, and he came up with what seems not a wholly coherent answer: ‘She displays great merit [in the part] though as a whole, especially as regards the vocal exertion, it is extremely unequal. The duet with Geronimo ‘Per piacere alla Signora’ in the first act, which by the way is a very difficult one, was deficient in that spirit of coquetry and elegant volubility Madame de Begnis used to display, but her portion of the celebrated quintet ‘Oh! guardate che accidente’ was charmingly sung, and he last air, ‘Ah se poco e il duol’, an effort of talent seldom surpassed on this or any other stage. It satisfied us, as it evidently did the audience, that Miss Ayton possesses the elements of a singer of the first rank; and that with such taste, precision and grace as she displayed in that song, time and cultivation, by improving her powers and establishing her self-possession, must advance her rapidly in the profession she has chosen. Her voice was often thin and weak and occasionally, when strained, harsh, but the correctness of her ear, which caused her notes to blend well with the harmony, made these defects less perceptible in her than they would have been in almost any other singer. It is unusual for a voice of that quality to tell so well as that of Miss Ayton does in the concerted pieces. Her conception of the character was good but very much under-acted…’

The next production at the King’s was Pietro l’eremita which served to introduce another newcomer, Giacinta Toso, who followed up in Ricciardo e Zoraide and Maria Stuart regina di Scozia, and finally Giuditta Pasta came in to sing Semiramide, Meyer’s Medea [in Corinto] and Mercadante’s Didone. In mid-season the bass Vincenzo Galli arrived from Paris and succeeded to the role of the heroine’s father in La gazza ladra, and the Times gentleman took a third bite at Fanny’s Ninetta: ‘Mademoiselle Ayton impersonated Ninetta in a manner not far removed from mediocrity. This lady attempts to do too much. Were she to be less ambitious she would please more. She is fond of ornament to a faulty excess, for by introducing it she frequently destroys the sentiment the composer meant to express. More than once on Saturday evening, passages intended to convey the idea of deep grief were made to assume quite a contrary character by a misplaced display of execution. Her opening air ‘Di piacer’ met with some interruption. It was encored, but not without considerable opposition’. She repeated the role on 19 July for her Benefit, and, maybe for that reason, the gentleman’s fourth bite was tastier: ‘... she very judiciously selected [the piece] for her Benefit because, in the character of Ninetta, she appears to more advantage than she does in any other part which she has essayed […] Madmoiselle Ayton sustained the character of Ninetta with much ability. She gave the admirable air ‘Di piacer’ with great skill… Her interview with her father and her rejection of the advances of the vile magistrate were marked by many proofs of talent … Mademoiselle Ayton led the sestetto commencing ‘Mi sento opprimere’ exceedingly well. This was, perhaps, her best effort during the evening. It was a ‘strain soft and melancholy’ and the sensations which Rossini’s music are here calculated to excite were not marred by any ill-judged effort to produce what is called a striking effect... Mademoiselle Ayton played and sang with feeling. Her performance was greatly applauded throughout the evening.’

More applauded, however, was the second part of the entertainment, he last act of Romeo e Giulietta, performed by Pasta (Romeo) and Caradori (Juliet).

In the meantime, while Toso (unsuccessfully) and Pasta (successfully) prima-donna-ed at the King’s Theatre, Fanny had not been idle. First of all, she turned up at no less a venue than the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. A new young writer by the name of Michael Rophino Lacy had fabricated an English opera out of Il Turco in Italia, under the title The Turkish Lovers or the Faithful Infidel, and Mr Price mounted it with the resident John Braham, Rosalie Geesin, Horn, Harley and Fanny Kelly, and with a guest prima donna: Miss Fanny Ayton in ‘her first appearance on the English stage’ (1 May 1827).

‘In this piece Miss Fanny Ayton, whose ‘native talent’ was a sin in the ears of the connoisseurs in the Haymarket, made an appearance and played off her foreign airs with éclat. She is a perfect prima donna in miniature – a pretty little English girl, with a thin fluty voice, and much clearness and gaiety, who has caught with singular aptitude the style and manner of the Italian school of singing and acting…’, judged one critic, while another wrote: ‘Her manner as an actress was pleasing and ladylike, but her voice in speaking was frequently inaudible and far from pleasing in its tone, while her songs for the most part were feeble and ill-executed. Some allowance must however be made for the novelty of the situation and the embarrassment of performing in a language to which she is unaccustomed in stage representations, though her native one. Her reception, as usual on such occasions, was kind and encouraging.’

This critic was even harder on the piece, for which he predicted a quick extinction, but I see that both it and Fanny were still there on 30 May when The Turkish Lovers was given its 9th performance. And it even reached its 10th on 23 June. It was dragged back for some makeweight performances, slimmed as a pantomime forepiece, the next season, but Fanny hadn't waited around for those.

During the season, Fanny also appeared on the concert platform. In May and the early days of June, she can be spotted singing in a number of matinees and soirees, notably at the one given at the Argyll Rooms by the singer Tomasso Rovedino and her singing teacher, Giovanni Liverati (8 June). Fanny gave her ‘original cast’ showpiece from Temistocle, ‘Tacete ohimè quei cantici’, joined de Begnis in a new duet by Liverati, and took part in a finale from the same gentleman’s opera, The Choice. Elsewhere, she was seen in Miss Stephens’ Benefit a Drury Lane, with the other 'Italians' at the Marquis of Hertford's soiree at Hertford House (10 April, Temistocle), in the concert for a New Musical Fund, in Bochsa’s concert, Linley's concert ('Ah! se poco il duol'), Mori's concert ('Di piacer' 'to much applause'), at Madame Cittadini's and at nine year-old Camillo Sivori’s performance, at the Academic Concerts, and almost always on bills where she was the only or a rare native artist.

When the London season was over, Fanny (‘prima donna of the King’s Theatre’) set out on the road, in the company of de Begnis, Torri, De Angeli, Giubilei, Rubbi and other artists from the King’s Theatre, and equipped with a King’s Theatre repertoire including Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Il Turco in Italia, La Gazza ladra, Don Giovanni and Il Fanatico per la musica, playing her way through Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh.

Manchester was all agog at the thought of a Macclesfield prima donna, and, if the local press found more to enthuse about in the performances of Torri, Giubelei and de Begnis, they were not disappointed in their Rosina. 'In singing she articulates distinctly, and there is much purity in her intonation: her style is truly Italian. The cavatina of 'Una voce' was warbled with much sweetness ...'

In Edinburgh, it appears, she encountered Sir Walter Scott who recorded in his diary: ‘December 21 [1827] A very sweet, pretty-looking young lady, the Prima Donna of the Italian Opera, now performing here, by name Miss Ayton came to breakfast this morning, with her father (a bore, after the manner of all fathers, mothers, aunts, and other chaperons of pretty actresses)! Miss Ayton talks very prettily, and, I dare say, sings beautifully, though too much in the Italian manner, I fear, to be a great favourite of mine.’

Back in London, Fanny returned not to the King’s Theatre but to Drury Lane (25 April 1828), to team once again with John Braham, this time in an English ‘opera’. The Times, of course, was half-fig, half-raisin about the exercise. ‘Miss Ayton appeared last night in Guy Mannering’, wrote the critic ‘as Lucy Bertram. It is the first time that she has undertaken a part the music of which professes to be unmixed with the foreign school, and we must say her Italian habits were rather too conspicuous throughout her singing. Scotch and English music of the character which is introduced in the opera will not bear florid ornament; it strikes the ear at once as being out of place. Nevertheless, Miss Ayton went through her part in a manner which rendered it highly interesting. We look upon this lady as an extremely valuable acquisition to any theatre; and although the Italian opera is far best suited to her talents, and we should have preferred seeing her there, it is a matter for congratulation to all theatrical visitors that she has not altogether ceased to grace the stage with her appearance’.

During the course of the season, Fanny essayed several further English roles. First came Love in a Village (Rosetta) with Braham, Dowton and with Miss Love playing Young Meadows, and then, on 14 May, to a number of raised eyebrows, she appeared as Katharine to the Petruchio of Wallack in The Taming of the Shrew. The response was surprising: ‘her acting was excellent throughout and the selection made of her to represent that difficult part has evinced just discrimination on the part of the managers. Besides the spirit and dramatic interest which she infused into the part, the vocal share which she had to sustain, with it, received justice at her hands, which reflected high credit on her musical talents’, or ‘Miss Fanny Ayton played Katherine most delightfully. This lady does not at first win upon us: a short period, however, elapses ere we discover in her a spirited and sensible actress and if not a first-rate at least a very efficient singer’. It appears indeed that the ‘great vocal additions’ (in a rather Rossinian style) had been made to the play by Messrs Braham and T Cooke, and Braham, cast as Hortensio, and Fanny took the bulk of it. Fanny’s share included Cooke’s ‘Wilt thou have music?’ and ‘Love and Music’, Braham’s ‘True Love is an ever fixed mark’ duet, sung with the composer, ‘On a Day’, and a Mercadante piece arranged by Cooke as ‘If Love Hath Lent you Twenty Thousand Tongues’.

When the Benefit season came round, several other pieces were given a showing and Fanny appeared as Kathleen in The Poor Soldier, as Morna in the ballad opera Malvina, as Jane, Countess of Brittany in The English Fleet and, at her own evening on 18 June, she played Lilla in The Siege of Belgrade alongside Braham, Cooper, Harley and Mrs Geesin. The Benefits were also an occasion for concert giving, and Fanny rendered ‘Bid me discourse’, ‘The soldier tir’d’, ‘Crazy Jane’, ‘La Biondina’ (inevitably, with variations by Paer), ‘Di piacer’, ‘The Mocking Bird’ and joined in many a duet and trio, notably ‘Echo in a sportive mood’ (with Braham and Miss Love) and, on the occasion of her own Benefit, duets with each of the other main members of the company – ‘When thy bosom heaves a sigh’ with Braham, ‘Tell me where is fancy bred’ with Miss Love, ‘Do you think by this to teaze me?’ and ‘When a little farm we keep’ with Harley – as well as a piece by Mayer with the Italian opera’s baritone, Pellegrini.

Come September 1828, Fanny again went to the country, this time playing her ‘English’ repertoire – Guy Mannering, Love in a Village, No Song No Supper and so forth – and in November, when she returned to town, an announcement went forth to the effect that she would be returning to Drury Lane as leading vocalist and that an English version of Le Comte Ory would be produced for her.

She didn’t and it wasn’t. In fact, as far as I can see, she didn’t get back into a London theatre proper for some two years. I spot her during 1829 singing at the Choral Fund Benefit (February 27) with Braham, the Knyvetts, the Phillipses and others of less note, playing a month’s engagement at the Vauxhall Gardens singing Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1 June) and Cenerentola (17 June) with some of the lesser lights from the Italian opera house, and singing at a Benefit concert at the Argyll Rooms in good company (De Begnis, Donzelli, Mlle Blasis, Nina Sontag &c). So, what happened?

Here, Westall’s biographer has, again, come up with an interesting letter. Westall writes to an associate in September 1829: ‘… Fanny is undoubtedly a perfect mistress of her art, but it would be far better that her knowledge that she is so, should be kept from the public eye … I will undoubtedly communicate the substance of your remarks to her; and I wish to have your permission to make an extract from your letter to show her because I am sure that your opinions cannot be conveyed in so forcible a way if anything is altered. I will of course take care she shall have no idea of the author.’ It rather sounds as if Fanny has been ‘pulling the prima donna string a bit tightly’ and making herself less than popular.

But Fanny did win one splendid engagement in 1829. She was engaged for October’s Birmingham Musical Festival, a distinctly prestigious affair, featuring largely an area – English oratorio -- into which she had not heretofore ventured. And which also featured Maria Malibran, Mary Ann Paton, Mademoiselle Blasis and Deborah Knyvett as well as old colleagues John Braham and de Begnis. It seems, however, that Fanny fouled up. Her friend on The Times reported on the performance of The Messiah on day two: ‘We cannot help noticing an instance of wretched taste in the allotment of the air ‘He shall feed his flock’ to Miss F Ayton, who, as if on purpose to place herself in the worst possible position, came into the orchestra too late for the first part of the song which was therefore sung by Miss Paton. Miss F Ayton, disdaining to take a lesson in the performance of Handel’s song from that lady, gave to the latter half of it her own reading, and nothing could be worse in every respect. We advise her never again to commit herself, and insult her hearers, by such an exhibition’. And he came back, in his summary of the event, to hammer that ‘her musical education could not have qualified her’ to sing Handel in the fashion required by an English provincial festival.

However, The Times festival critic didn’t bother to report on the dreadfully secular opera concerts which also made up part of the Festival, and he thus missed an event. One item was a selection from Rossini’s La donna del lago, in which Fanny took part. She shared a duet with a 19 year-old Italian who had been sent across by the composer Zingarelli to conduct the scheduled premiere of his cantata. The lofty Brums wouldn’t allow such a thing, but they allowed the young man to sing. The Times was not impressed ‘Signor Costa did not shine in his performance of Haydn’s ‘Gratias agimus’. He has the vice of many Italian artists, incorrect intonation, to a painful degree... while Curioni and Begrez were in England, there could be no need to bring from Naples a person so much their inferior.’ Signor Costa, who was reckoned, thus, along with Fanny as the other disaster of the Festival, remained in England, but he didn’t sing, he conducted, and he ended up as Sir Michael Costa, musical supremo of the Italian opera and a very mighty man.

Costa

Fanny spent much of 1830 in the provinces, and I see her, over Christmas 1829 and January 1830, guesting at the Theatre Royal, Dublin playing, in tandem with Braham, in The Poor Soldier, and as the Countess Sterloff in a new piece called Love in Wrinkles, Eudiga in Charles XII and Zelinda in The Slave. The Dublin press was not wholly convinced and she pulled bad press until the last named piece, when the critic allowed 'Miss Ayton wants melody, but her scientific and skilful management of a naturally slender voice, is perhaps unequalled. She was loudly encored in 'The Mocking Bird'. In Charles XII: 'Miss Ayton also pleased us much on this occasion. She sang 'Hide, gentle moon' sweetly and was encored twice -- in our opinion, once would have been quite enough'. 'In No Song, No Supper, Miss Ayton played Margaretta very creditably, and sang with much sweetness and splendid execution and skill 'The Merry Swiss Maid' and 'With Lowly Suit and Plaintive Ditty'. At the end of the season, the same critic apostrophised Miss Ayton: 'you are meritorious, but you are in too exalted a position', before concluding 'Miss Ayton's action, as an actress, is miserable; a cockatoo shake of the head - a dealing about of the arms -- her countenance exhibiting nothing but archness ... Miss Ayton's singing, like her acting, would be very well is she confined herself to a simple song, and delighted not in those cadences and flourishes, where her want of volume of tone is so apparent... In conclusion, we must most benevolently suggest, that she would be an agreeable and sprightly performer in parts of vivacity not requiring much expression or power'.

From Dublin, she proceeded to Belfast (Love in a Village, Turn Out &c) and to Glasgow where the report was that she was 'rapturously encored, beyond all praise' in 'Una voce' and the Echo Song, and made a perfect hit with her arch comedy…' and, in April and May, to the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. In August she was at Derby, in October at Leicester then Sheffield and in November at the Theatre Royal, Liverpool in The Slave, No Song No Supper, Charles XII, Englishmen in India and comedies such as A Husband at Sight.

In February 1831, however, she turned up again in perhaps the last place one would have expected. London’s Italian opera. When the prospectus went out, there she was ‘her first appearance at this theatre these three years’ amongst the soprani, alongside Madame Vespermann ‘from Munich’ and Madame Rubini, both making their English debuts, Mlle Beck from Paris, Castelli, Filiani and the big names, Madame Méric Lalande and Gulietta Pasta.

What Laporte had planned for Fanny, one cannot know. Whatever it was, it was not what she got. For, in the very first days of the season, emergency hit. On 8 February 1831, Katharina Vespermann was scheduled for Rosina in Barbiere, but she called in ‘sick’. Her replacement was Fanny Ayton. The following week, the same lady was to have taken the lead in a revival of Ricciardo e Zoraide, but she was still being sick. Again, Fanny went on. Even The Times was appreciative: ‘This young lady has made considerable progress as a singer and an actress since we had last seen her, There was no evidence of hasty preparation in her performance on Saturday, and, as on the preceding occasion, she played with considerable vivacity and sang with much spirit’. With the tenor, David, making his first appearance in London as Ricciardo, and Curioni and Mlle Beck in support, the performance turned out quite an occasion.

On 26 February Fanny came out in her third opera of the season. The occasion was a revival of Il Marimonio segreto with Lablache in the role of Geronimo. Vespermann was Carolina, Mlle Filiani took Fidalma and Fanny was Elisetta, and The Times did a sort of volte face: ‘Miss Ayton was an active, clever and bustling little Lisetta. The histrionic powers of this young lady are so superior to her vocal ones, that we should think the English stage would suit her better than the Italian.’

It was in May, with the arrival of Pasta, that Fanny got her fourth and last opportunity. Mayer’s Medea was brought back (12 May) for the star, and Fanny was cast, alongside Rubini, Curioni and Lablache, in the second soprano role of Creusa, previously sung by Caradori ('Caro albergo'). Performances of Medea, varied with concerts and Benefits (one of which at Drury Lane, for William Farren), kept Fanny occupied to the end of the season, but the end of the season at the Italian opera was no ending for Fanny. Days after the curtain fell on the last performance of Medea, on August 16, Fanny was up on the stage again. But on the other side of the river.

No Pastas and Lablaches here. This was the Surrey Theatre, the home of the transpontine melodrama, and their newest production was an old ‘operatic vaudeville’ entitled The Savoyarde. Star: Miss Fanny Ayton. And her co-workers were Mr C Hill, Mr Edwin, and two lasses who had graduated from the theatre’s kiddie shows, Miss Somerville and the little Miss Mattley who would one day find more fame than any of them as the music-halls’ Mrs Caulfield. The Savoyarde was followed by A Husband at Sight (Catherine) and The Sonnambulist (Ernestine) during the three week engagement, after which Fanny crossed back to the City side, and took up a like run of roles at the City of London Theatre: Donna Isidora in the comic opera Brother and Sister, Guy Mannering in which she ‘introduced a variety of favourite songs besides those belonging to the opera and was encored in several’, the musical farce Of Age Tomorrow, and Eudiga in Charles the Twelfth.

If it seemed that Fanny had found a new niche as a megastar of the minor theatres, that illusion was quickly dispelled. For, in February, she returned to town and to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The occasion was the production of a first English version of Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable given as The Daemon or The Mystic Branch (20 February 1832). A cast worthy of the Lane was assembled for what was left of the opera in this particular ‘adaptation’. Henry Phillips took Bertram, Joseph Wood (Robert) and John Templeton (Raimbault) were the tenors, and Mrs Wood (late Miss Paton) was Alice, with Fanny in the role of Isabella. She ‘sang so sadly out of tune and time, that the effect of the music was entirely destroyed. We never remembered to have felt so distressed at listening to any singer and the audience failed not to mark their disapprobation’ reported The Drama, and another referred to her ‘sharp face and sharp voice’ or, more kindly, ‘a pretty lively actress but she has no ear – she sings most outrageously sharp’. ‘Miss Ayton sang most wickedly out of time and was hissed accordingly, a hint which we trust will not be thrown away upon her against her next appearance’ agreed The Times.

But he was not going to get a chance to have another go at her. For there was no next appearance. Not in London.

Messrs Brown and Stratton simply report her playing in The Daemon and comment ‘the date of her death remains in doubt’. Herren Kutsch and Riemans gloss out with words to the effect that details of her subsequent life and career are lost. But they aren’t.

I spot her playing at the Manchester Theatre Royal 2 February 1833 for a week, in Nell Gwynne, The Rendezvous, Charles the Twelfth and her preferred comic entertainment A Husband at Sight; at the Theatre Royal Leeds for three nights 25 March in ‘musical dramas’, at the Liver Theatre from 8 April (six nights, Tit for Tat, or How to Gain 3000 Pounds, Cupid the God of Love, The Kiss or, Pay to my Order, Water Witch, Peccadilloes ‘La biondina in gondoletta’, ‘Through the wood and the bower’ ‘What a merry, merry life’, ‘Under the rose’), the Adelphi Theatre Edinburgh 25 May 1833, playing in a petite comedy The Bride of Ludgate ‘in which she will introduce several ballads’, Sweethearts and wives, John of Paris, Charles the Second, Nell Gwynne (‘exquisite simplicity and archness’), Abon Hassan and Wilhelmina in The Waterman, Caroline in My Cousin (‘Should he upbraid etc), Donna Isidora in Brother and Sister and Margaretta in No Song, No Supper opposite the rising John Frazer. And a fortnight later she became a wife.

Fanny Ayton didn’t fade away at all. She left the stage to get married, and the name of the man married she married was James Wilson Barlow, who, having been born in Islington, 5 May 1808 was, at 25, four years younger than herself. The couple were wed in his home-town of Liverpool on 12 July 1833, and the following year, on 18 April 1834, in Wigan, Lancs, Fanny gave birth to a daughter, Adela Fanny Barlow. In 1845, Mrs James Barlow (late Miss Fanny Ayton of Her Majesty’s Theatre) was advertising for singing pupils from 19 Clifford Street, Bond Street.

James, according to the bankruptcy reports, was at that time a coal merchant, by the time of the 1861 census, he was an agent for Normandy’s Patent Aerated Fresh Water Company (Limited), the manufacturer of an internationally reputed condensing apparatus invented by a certain Dr Normandy for making fresh water out of sea water.

James Barlow died in 1862, but Fanny lived on, with her unmarried daughter, until 1891. She died, ‘suddenly’, at Dover on the 21 May of that year. Fanny Barlow ‘formerly of 8 Meath Street, Battersea, now at 12 Park Street’ left in her will the sum of about seventy pounds. Adela lived on in Dover and died there in 1910.

Fanny’s short career was a strange one. As one contemporary mused, she was constantly expected to do something splendid in music and the theatre, but, somehow, she never fulfilled those expectations. Henry Chorley, in his not always reliable memoirs, spent more than a page giving his version of the reason. ‘She might’ he proposes ‘have done good service to the stage had not her natural powers, at first barely sufficient, prematurely given way’. He speaks of her as ‘Fanny Ayton, who was more in the form and order of an Italian singer from comic opera than any of my countrywomen whom I have since heard or seen attempt it. Her voice had been trained by good masters: it was a weak voice – not unlike that of Mlle Piccolomini, but more supple and flexible, and it had a certain sprightly life in it. She had considerable execution, a certain piquancy and taste of her own, and – what English artists generally lack – accent. Her appearance was pleasing; if it was not distinguished, not vulgar. Were such a singer as she was to appear now, I can imagine her succeeding in a certain range of parts. But the young girl had the misfortune to arrive here at the time when the great foreign artists were the rule … The new Rosina and Fiorilla excited some attention and a little wonderment by her clever ease on the stage, and her fluent Italian, but this was merely for the moment. Her voice had small charm and she had hardly sung here for three months ere its intonation gave way at once and for ever, the tone becoming at last too painful to be endured. She struggled on for a second season in what then passed for paraphrased foreign Opera on the English stage; she went down with Italian companies (in those days rarities) into our provincial towns, she fought up courageously against disappointment and the failure of means for a year or two, and then passed out of public sight.’

But, somehow, she still interests people today. She has even made it, in a rather skinny form, to Wikipedia.

An old showbiz photo: "Famous funny juggling folk" (1904)

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This came up on ebay today. Who were they, I wondered ...

Well, it wasn't too tricky. Faintly, on the verso, was scribbled Radford & Valentine. Yes, but I was still none the wiser. I had to go a-delving.

Radford and Valentine trod the music-hall stages of Britain (and, regularly, the Continent) for a quarter of a century, and they were considered good value as an amusing middle to bottom of the bill act. And their act ... basically, they were jugglers. I think he might have started out as a 'character comedian' (spotted at the People's Hall, Oldham in 1895) and she as a song-and-dance juvenile, but they were established as a pair by 1904, when 'Valentine' was fifteen, and they purveyed their act as 'the jolly festive jugglers' right through till to ... well, I spot them last performing in Bristol at the end of 1928 ('the jolly juggling jesters').

Who were they? Well, finally, they were a married couple. The wed in 1913, after nine years as a team. 'Valentine' was Miss Eva Brilliant (b New Cross 10 May 1890), the daughter of a Polish tailor. 'Harry' was ... well, we don't really know. He married as Henri (sic) C Radford. He died under that name, too. He even joined the Freemasons in 1905 under that name, and enrolled as a voter in the 1930s under that name. But no man of that name appears in the British birth records, nor in the censi of 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911. Was he foreign, or was 'Henri' (he was known as 'Harry') just an affectation? I have no answer. Except that the Paris press referred to him in 1910 as the 'celèbre fantaisiste américain'. When he died, in 1938, at Southwark (annoyingly, just before the 1939 census!), he was registered as 57 years of age. Henri Charles Randolph. 

So, the career? In 1904 see them at Nottingham (billed as 'famous' already!) and Manchester's Ardwick Green, in May 1905 and again in 1906 at Barrasford's Alhambra Paris ('Avec Radford et Valentine l'emballement est à son comble, rire davantage est impossible') and at Toulouse Bijou Concert, in 1906 again at Manchester, and 1907 at the Oxford Music Hall and the South London. In 1908, Nottingham reported 'appearing at the foot of the bill . some clever juggling, the manipulation of indiarubber balls being especially skilful, while the pair manage to create a great deal of mirth in thecourse of an act which has the merit of originality'. That year they appeared again in Paris, on a bill which featured a sketch by Les Seymour Hicks.

In London, they played the Pavilion, under Wilkie Bard, and the Metropolitan, the Paris Alhambra called them again in 1910 ... and so it went on. The 'maniacs of mirth' ... 'they introduce some neat juggling with humour as a prominent note, whilst the stage noises and effects are unique' ...

In 1920 I spot them at the Bristol Empire under Cecilia Loftus, at the Paris Olympia under Raquel Meller, in 1923 he is 'Happy Harry Radford', in 1924 they are in summer season at Bridlington ... in 1928 they are creeping to the lowest parts of the bill. Old hat, maybe, but still good value.

In the 1930s,after a long and full career, they retired to Spelthorne. Harry seems to have died there. Eva, if I am not mistaken, lived fifty further years: surviving to the age of 98, and died only 1989.

Addendum: Joe Carl White has come up with evidence of Harry and Eva performing in the USA in 1907... accompanied by a certain amount of American-style publicity and gimmicks. I wonder where else they got to ...

Strangely, this mocked-up photo is dated as 1904 ... 

American Musical Theatre hits Denmark!

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Well, it might have taken a long while .. but look at this!  I wonder, was The Belle of New York the first American 'farce-operetta' to be played in Denmark. And when. And in what state the piece was in by the time its Danish version hit the boards ... I spot that awful word 'bearbeitet' in the credits ...

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