Blanche Cole
Encyclopedia
Blanche Cole was an English soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. Showing promise as a child, Cole went on to have a successful opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic career, during which she sang 21 roles in English versions of operas in London and the British provinces. She died at the age of 37.
Early years
Cole was born in PortsmouthPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, England, to a musical family. In 1858, at the age of seven, she took part in a concert in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, winning a favourable review from The Glasgow Herald. In 1860 she took part in a concert at London's St. James's Hall presented by the Vocal Association. According to The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
, "the delightful silvery quality of her voice brought her prominently to the front... her name has been amongst the first of English operatic singers".
In 1867, Cole sang Zerlina in Fra Diavolo
Fra Diavolo
Fra Diavolo , is the popular name given to Michele Pezza, a famous Neapolitan guerrilla leader who resisted the French occupation of Naples, proving an “inspirational practicioner of popular insurrection”. Pezza figures prominently in folk lore and fiction...
, Amina in La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
, and Marguerite in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
with Rosenthal's English Opera Company. In 1868, she sang Oscar in Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
at the Theatre Royal in Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
and Leonora in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
in London, in a production conducted by Meyer Lutz
Meyer Lutz
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....
. The same year, she married Sidney Naylor, a noted organist and accompanist of the day. He acted as conductor to her company in 1875 in William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace was an Irish composer and musician.-Early life:Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both parents were Irish, his father, of County Mayo, was a regimental bandmaster....
's Lurline.
Later years
In 1869, Cole was praised by The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
for her singing in Acis and Galatea in London and made her debut at the Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
as Amina in Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
with George Perren
George Perren
George Perren was an English tenor active in both concert and opera. He was born in Camberwell, a district of London. After concert appearances in the provinces he studied in Milan with Lamperti and on his return to England made his debut in The Surrey Theatre on 28 May 1855 in Faust and...
and Richard Temple, conducted by August Manns
August Manns
Sir August Friedrich Manns was a German-born conductor who made his career in England. After serving as a military bandmaster in Germany, he moved to England and soon became director of music at London's Crystal Palace. He increased the resident band to full symphonic strength and for more than...
. In 1872, she sang the role of Maid Marian in a concert version of G. A. Macfarren's opera Robin Hood at the Crystal Palace. The Musical Standard wrote of her "sweet cultivated voice" and opined that "the artistic intelligence which she brings to her work renders her performance very enjoyable, and thoroughly enlists the sympathies of the audience". She appeared at the Adelphi Theatre
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
with the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...
in 1878 as Senta in The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....
and as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
. From time to time she presented her own opera company. On other occasions she appeared under the management of Richard Temple with Rose Hersee
Rose Hersee
Rose Hersee was an English operatic soprano. She was a founder-member of the Carl Rosa Opera Company and later formed and performed in the Rose Hersee Opera Company.-Biography:...
's company in Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
and Il trovatore. She also appeared with much success as Mary Wolf in Balfe
Michael William Balfe
Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best-remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl.After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed 38 operas, almost 250 songs and other works...
's opera The Puritan's Daughter, produced by the Carl Rosa Company
In 1887 she sang Donna Anna in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. In 1888, The Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
commented that her fine voice seemed entirely to pervade the great space of the Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
with its piercing and sympathetic quality. The Musical Times wrote: "She was everywhere known for her graceful acting, which, apart even from the careful manipulation of her pure and beautiful voice, had always made her a favourite with opera-goers." During her career, Cole sang 21 roles.
Cole died of dropsy at age 37 at her London home.
Sources
- Aldephi Theatre Calendar 1806 - 1900
- Baker, Theodore, A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Read Books, 2008, p. 416. ISBN 1443728470
- The Musical World, 11 January 1868, p. 21.
- Sherson, Erroll, London's lost theatres of the nineteenth century, Ayer Publishing, 1925, p. 230. ISBN 0405089694