Biography
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company emerged in July 1879 when British impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844-1901) broke from the Comedy Opera Company to realize his artistic aims. Across more than one hundred and twenty years the ensemble has sustained its position among the foremost exponents of operettas by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Carte guided the company until his death in 1901; his widow and longtime assistant Helen Lenoir then assumed direction and continued until her own death in 1913.
Monetary pressures forced closure in 1982, yet the organization was reconstituted three years later following receipt of a one-million-pound bequest from Dame Bridget. Activity resumed in 1988 with national tours of Iolanthe and The Yeomen Of The Guard; subsequent new productions encompassed Gilbert and Sullivan titles such as The Pirates Of Penzance, The Mikado, Trial By Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Gondolas. The first presentation outside the Gilbert and Sullivan canon occurred in 1993, after which the company mounted Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus In The Underworld and La Vie Parisienne, Johann Strauss's Die Fladermaus and Franz Lehar's The Count of Luxembourg.
Son of flute player and Rudall, Carte and Company partner Richard Carte, the impresario left school in 1861 to concentrate on music. Although he wrote and issued songs and instrumental works, among them the opera Dr. Ambrosias: His Secret that opened at St. George's Opera House in 1868, his chief accomplishments lay behind the scenes. Establishing a concert booking agency in Charing Cross, he directed the careers of British artists including Carlotti Patti, Adelina Patti and Edward Lloyd.
Carte proposed that the Royalty Theater mount Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial By Fire in 1875, commencing a prolonged collaboration with the composers. He formed a syndicate with Comedy-Opera Company, Ltd. directors to present H.M.S. Pinafore at the Opera Comique and on national tour in 1878. After parting from the syndicate he credited the same-cast production to Mr. D'Oyly Carte's Opera Company.
The directors attempted a rival staging yet withdrew within three months. Having secured rights to Gilbert and Sullivan material, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made its home at the Savoy Theatre, the first London playhouse equipped with electric lighting, remaining there until 1982.
Carte's partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan amassed a fortune. Upon his death in 1901 he left nearly one quarter of a million pounds, twice the sum Gilbert possessed and four times the amount Sullivan held at their deaths.
Based in the British Midlands for most of the 1990s, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company returned to London in 1998. It continues to maintain a residency in Kennington, South London.
Monetary pressures forced closure in 1982, yet the organization was reconstituted three years later following receipt of a one-million-pound bequest from Dame Bridget. Activity resumed in 1988 with national tours of Iolanthe and The Yeomen Of The Guard; subsequent new productions encompassed Gilbert and Sullivan titles such as The Pirates Of Penzance, The Mikado, Trial By Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Gondolas. The first presentation outside the Gilbert and Sullivan canon occurred in 1993, after which the company mounted Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus In The Underworld and La Vie Parisienne, Johann Strauss's Die Fladermaus and Franz Lehar's The Count of Luxembourg.
Son of flute player and Rudall, Carte and Company partner Richard Carte, the impresario left school in 1861 to concentrate on music. Although he wrote and issued songs and instrumental works, among them the opera Dr. Ambrosias: His Secret that opened at St. George's Opera House in 1868, his chief accomplishments lay behind the scenes. Establishing a concert booking agency in Charing Cross, he directed the careers of British artists including Carlotti Patti, Adelina Patti and Edward Lloyd.
Carte proposed that the Royalty Theater mount Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial By Fire in 1875, commencing a prolonged collaboration with the composers. He formed a syndicate with Comedy-Opera Company, Ltd. directors to present H.M.S. Pinafore at the Opera Comique and on national tour in 1878. After parting from the syndicate he credited the same-cast production to Mr. D'Oyly Carte's Opera Company.
The directors attempted a rival staging yet withdrew within three months. Having secured rights to Gilbert and Sullivan material, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made its home at the Savoy Theatre, the first London playhouse equipped with electric lighting, remaining there until 1982.
Carte's partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan amassed a fortune. Upon his death in 1901 he left nearly one quarter of a million pounds, twice the sum Gilbert possessed and four times the amount Sullivan held at their deaths.
Based in the British Midlands for most of the 1990s, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company returned to London in 1998. It continues to maintain a residency in Kennington, South London.
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