George Thorne
Encyclopedia
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
singer and actor, best known for his performances in the comic baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, especially on tour and in the original New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
productions. He married D'Oyly Carte choristor Geraldine Thompson.
Life and career
George Tyrell Thorne was born in ChertseyChertsey
Chertsey is a town in Surrey, England, on the River Thames and its tributary rivers such as the River Bourne. It can be accessed by road from junction 11 of the M25 London orbital motorway. It shares borders with Staines, Laleham, Shepperton, Addlestone, Woking, Thorpe and Egham...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, England. His father was Richard Samuel Thorne, who managed the Surrey Theatre
Surrey Theatre
The Surrey Theatre began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided contemporary London entertainment of both horsemanship and drama...
. His elder brother, Thomas Thorne
Thomas Thorne
Thomas Thorne was an English actor and theatre manager. Thomas Thorne was one the founding managers of London's Vaudeville Theatre, along with David James and Henry James Montague, and performed leading roles in many of the productions there. His father was Richard Samuel Thorne, who managed the...
, was an actor and theatre manager
Actor-manager
An actor-manager is a leading actor who sets up their own permanent theatrical company and manages the company's business and financial arrangements, sometimes taking over the management of a theatre, to perform plays of their own choice and in which they will usually star...
, best known as a founding manager of London's Vaudeville Theatre
Vaudeville Theatre
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on The Strand in the City of Westminster. As the name suggests, the theatre held mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. It opened in 1870 and was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous...
. His nephew was the actor Frank Gillmore
Frank Gillmore
Frank Gillmore was an English American playwright and a stage and early film actor...
, and his great-nieces were the actresses Ruth Gillmore
Ruth Gillmore
Ruth Emily Gillmore was an English American stage actress.Gillmore was the daughter of Frank Gillmore, former president of Actors' Equity, and the actress Laura MacGillivray, and the sister of actress Margalo Gillmore...
and Margalo Gillmore
Margalo Gillmore
Margaret Lorraine "Margalo" Gillmore was an English American film, stage and television actress....
.
Early career
Thorne began his stage career at the age of two, when he was carried on at the Theatre Royal, MargateMargate
-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
, in the burlesque Medea. Early engagements followed with his sister, Sarah Thorne
Sarah Thorne
Sarah Thorne was a British actress and actor-manager of the nineteenth century who managed the Theatre Royal at Margate for many years and who ran a School for Acting there widely regarded as Britain's first formal drama school...
's, company, (1870–73); John Coleman's stock company in Leeds (1873); the Covent Garden pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
(1874–75); and at the Corinthian Theatre, Calcutta, where he reportedly played 104 parts in six months in 1876.
D'Oyly Carte years
Billee Taylor
Billee Taylor, or The Reward of Virtue is "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens.The piece was first produced at the Imperial Theatre in London on 30 October 1880, starring Arthur Williams as Sir Mincing Lane and Frederick Rivers as Billee. It...
. Later in 1881, back in England, he toured as Reginald Bunthorne in Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
. In 1882–83, he toured as Blood-red Bill in Edward Solomon
Edward Solomon
Edward Solomon was a prolific English composer, as well as a conductor, orchestrator and pianist. Though he died before his fortieth birthday, he wrote dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, such as The Nautch Girl, among others.-Early...
and Henry Pottinger Stephens
Henry Pottinger Stephens
Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp , was an English dramatist and journalist. With a variety of partners, he wrote burlesques, comic operas and musical comedies that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem.-Life and career:"Pot" Stephens was born in Barrow-on-Soar,...
's Claude Duval
Claude Duval (opera)
Claude Duval – or Love and Larceny is a comic opera with music by Edward Solomon to a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens. The plot is loosely based on supposed events in the life of the eighteenth century highwayman, Claude Duval....
and then as Bunthorne. In 1883, Thorne married actress Beatrice Thomas, who toured with Thorne as a chorister in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company under the stage name Geraldine Thompson. In 1884, Thorne appeared as Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
, Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, and Bunthorne, with a D'Oyly Carte touring company, adding the roles of Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
and Ko-Ko in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
in 1885.
In 1885, Thorne traveled to New York to present The Mikado at the Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre was a Broadway theatre in New York City in the United States located at 31 West 28th Street and Broadway. It was demolished in 1939....
, where the company played until 1886. This production also included Geraldine Ulmar
Geraldine Ulmar
Geraldine Ulmar was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:...
as Yum-Yum, Courtice Pounds
Courtice Pounds
Charles Courtice Pounds , better known by the stage name Courtice Pounds, was an English singer and actor known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his later roles in Shakespeare plays and Edwardian musical comedies.As a young member...
as Nanki-Poo, and Fred Billington
Fred Billington
Fred Billington was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...
as Pooh-Bah. While in New York, Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
wrote a special comic orchestration for Thorne (stressing the bassoon part) as an encore to "The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring" (preserved in Sullivan's autograph score), performed in pantomime. Later, other D'Oyly Carte artists performed a pantomime encore.
Returning from America in 1886, Thorne toured the British provinces and Europe as Sir Joseph and Ko-Ko until 1887. He then returned to England to rehearse the new opera, Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
. He gave two matinee performances as Robin Oakapple at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
and then traveled to New York again to play Robin there with substantially the same troupe that had played in The Mikado in New York in 1885-86. From 1887 to 1890 (with a break in late 1889 to early 1890, when he contracted typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
), he toured playing Bunthorne, Ko-Ko, Sir Joseph, and later the Major General and Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
. Thorne originated the tragic ending for that character, which was later adopted by most portrayers of the role. He said that Point was his favourite of the roles.
From 1890 to 1896, Thorne was the principal comedian with a D'Oyly Carte touring company, playing John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
, Sir Joseph, the Major General, Bunthorne, the Lord Chancellor, King Gama in Princess Ida
Princess Ida
Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on January 5, 1884, for a run of 246 performances...
, Ko-Ko, Jack Point, and the Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances , closing on 30 June 1891...
. He also played Bumbo in The Nautch Girl
The Nautch Girl
thumb|right|250px|Solomon , with Gilbert and Sullivan irate at his success at the SavoyThe Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore is a comic opera in two acts, with a book by George Dance, lyrics by Dance and Frank Desprez and music by Edward Solomon...
(1892). From 1896 to 1897, he was on the first D'Oyly Carte tour of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, playing his usual roles, as well as Scaphio in Utopia Limited and Rudolph in The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel, is the final Savoy Opera written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, their fourteenth and last opera together. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on March 7, 1896, and ran for 123 performances...
. He then toured in Britain in 1898 to 1899.
Thorne died in Edlesborough
Edlesborough
Edlesborough is a village and is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is adjacent to the village of Eaton Bray over the county boundary in Bedfordshire, about three miles WSW of Dunstable....
, Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
, England at the age of 66.
Playwright and author
Thorne wrote several pantomimes, some burlesques, two comic operas, and adaptations of several of Charles DickensCharles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
's novels for the stage. He also wrote a volume of reminiscences, entitled Jots.
Film
- Thorne appeared in Tit Willow (1907) British (B&W), a short film directed by John Morland. It was distributed by Walturdaw Company in standard 35mm spherical 1.37:1 format, using the cinematophone Sound-on-discSound-on-discThe term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...
sound system (synchronized phonograph recording). This was one of twelve separate films of twelve songs from The Mikado.
External links
- George Thorne at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte
- 1895 review of Thorne's Lord Chancellor
- Short film of "Tit Willow"