James Henry Mapleson
Encyclopedia
James Henry Mapleson (4 May 1830 – 14 November 1901) was an English opera impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
, probably the leading figure instrumental in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and 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...
in the second half of the 19th century.
Life and career
Mapleson was born in London, England. He studied first as a singer and violinist at the Royal Academy of MusicRoyal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in London and served in the army.
Early years
In 1849, Mapleson organized a tour of the British provinces with a concert company that included Henriette SontagHenriette Sontag
Henriette Sontag was a German operatic soprano of great international renown. She possessed a sweet-toned, lyrical voice and was a brilliant exponent of florid singing.-Life:...
, Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish heritage. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.-Biography:Luigi Lablache was born in...
and pianist Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
. In 1850, he led another concert company, including mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. He wrote as a music critic for The Atlas.
In the early 1850s, Mapleson travelled to Italy to study. In 1854 he sang in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
under the name Enrico Mariani. Returning to London in 1854, he gave concerts but soon developed vocal difficulty requiring an operation that destroyed his voice. In 1856, he founded the first musical agency in London, and produced the first adaptation of Michael William 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 The Bohemian Girl
The Bohemian Girl
The Bohemian Girl is an opera composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn. The plot is loosely based on a Cervantes tale, La Gitanilla.The opera was first produced in London at the Drury Lane Theatre on November 27, 1843...
in London. In 1858 he became an assistant to E. T. Smith, manager of the opera at the Haymarket Theatre
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
until 1861 when Smith retired from the promotion of Italian opera.
Mapleson took over management of the Lyceum Theatre, in his first year presenting 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...
and bringing out the English premiere of 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...
, both with Thérèse Tietjens, who performed with his companies for the rest of her career. One of Mapleson's early stars was Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
. From 1862-67 he managed Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, presenting Italian, French and also German opera, and promoting such singers as De Murska
Ema Pukšec
Ema Pukšec , also known as Ilma de Murska, as well as Ilma di Murska, was a famous 19th century soprano opera singer from Croatia.-Life:...
, Mario
Mario (tenor)
Giovanni Matteo "Mario" was an Italian opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London.-Early life:...
, Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
and Christina Nilsson
Christina Nilsson
Christina Nilsson, Countess de Casa Miranda, was a Swedish operatic soprano. She possessed a brilliant bel canto technique and was considered a rival to the Victorian era's most famous diva, Adelina Patti...
. Her Majesty's burnt down in 1868, sending Mapleson to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, where he introduced, among others, Italo Campanini
Italo Campanini
Italo Campanini was a leading Italian operatic tenor, whose career reached its height in London in the 1870s and in New York in the 1880s and 1890s...
, who became a Mapleson regular for many years. In the following two years there was a collaboration or coalition between the Drury Lane and Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
companies, in partnership with Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye was an English businessman and opera manager who for many years ran what is now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.-Life:...
.
Later years
In 1871 to 1876 Mapleson resumed operations at Drury Lane. In 1875 he began work on a 2,000-seat National Opera House on the Thames embankment. By 1877, the building was well under way, but funds ran out, and Mapleson had to abandon the project. Eventually, the Metropolitan Police bought the site and built Scotland YardScotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
there in 1887. Mapleson transferred again to Her Majesty's Theatre, which he rebuilt in 1877, producing opera there until 1881 and also in 1887 and 1889, and at Covent Garden until his last seasons in 1885 and 1887. At the same time, he brought an impressive company to New York City, promoting opera seasons at the Academy of Music
Academy of Music (Manhattan)
The Academy of Music was a New York City opera house, located at East 14th Street and Irving Place in Manhattan. The 4,000-seat hall opened on October 2, 1854. The New York Times review declared it to be an acoustical "triumph", but "In every other aspect .....
there, beginning with Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, and presenting many American premieres, between 1878 and 1886, and he also made tours of other cities in the United States with his company during that time. Mapleson's fortunes began to decline after 1881, and in 1883 the Metropolitan Opera House opened. Mapleson faced strong competition from the new company, forcing him to raise singers' salaries and incur other increased expenses. Mapleson's losses mounted, forcing him into bankruptcy by 1887.
Mapleson was married to opera singer Marie Roze
Marie Roze
Marie Rôze , , was a French operatic soprano.She was born in Paris. At the age of 12, she was sent to be educated in England for two years. She then studied with Mocker and Auber at the Paris Conservatoire, where she received the first prize in singing in 1865...
(Marie-Hippolyte Ponsin) (1846-1926). He was the brother of Alfred Mapleson, music secretary and librarian to Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
; and uncle of Lionel Mapleson (1865-1937), violinist and Librarian of the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, New York, who created the Mapleson Cylinders
Mapleson Cylinders
The Mapleson Cylinders are a group of more than 100 phonograph cylinders recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera, primarily in the years 1901–1903, by the Met librarian Lionel Mapleson ....
.
Mapleson published his memoirs, The Mapleson Memoirs, 1848-1888, in 1888 (Belford, Clarke & Co., New York).
He died of from blood poisoning related to Bright's disease
Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....
in London.
Sources
- H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (London, 1974 printing).
- Charles SantleyCharles SantleySir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...
, Student and Singer (London 1892). - J. H. Mapleson, ed. H. Rosenthal, The Mapleson Memoirs (London 1966).
- Cone, John Frederick, First Rival of the Metropolitan Opera, Columbia University Press, New York (1983).
- Obituary: Colonel Mapleson, The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 42, No. 706 (Dec. 1, 1901), p. 827.