Pauline Rita
Encyclopedia
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...
and actress. During her early career, she was best known known for her performances in operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s and comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
s at the Opera Comique and was associated with impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
. Later, she married flautist John Radcliff, and the two performed together for many years.
Oratorio and operetta
In 1872, Rita took part in a joint recital with Charles SantleyCharles Santley
Sir 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...
at St James's Hall
St James's Hall
St. James's Hall was a concert hall in London that opened on 25 March 1858, designed by architect and artist Owen Jones, who had decorated the interior of the Crystal Palace. It was situated between the Quadrant in Regent Street and Piccadilly, and Vine Street and George Court. There was a...
, London. In the same year she sang in Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's oratorio Athalia 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...
, where the local critic was unimpressed: "Mdlle. Rita has a voice nearly always in tune, but of a shrill and unsympathetic quality, and she indulges from time to time in that fatal vibrato to which we have so often objected." In 1874, she performed in Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
's light opera company at the Opera Comique
Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
, in The Broken Branch, an English version of Gaston Serpette
Gaston Serpette
Henri Charles Antoine Gaston Serpette was a French composer, best known for his operettas. After winning the prestigious Prix de Rome as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, he was expected to pursue a career in serious music. Instead, he turned to operetta, writing more than twenty full-length...
's La branch cassée, in which she received better notices: "Madame Pauline Rita has achieved a triumph in her first appearance on the stage. She possesses a voice of singular flexibility, acts well, and looks attractive." In December 1874 she played the lead role of the Prince de Conti in Charles Lecocq's Les Prés St. Gervais at the Criterion Theatre
Criterion Theatre
The Criterion Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the City of Westminster, and is a Grade II* listed building. It has an official capacity of 588.-Building the theatre:...
. The following year, she starred in the title role, Clairette Angot, in a revival of Lecocq's La fille de Madame Angot
La fille de Madame Angot
La fille de Madame Angot is an opéra comique in three acts by Charles Lecocq. The French text was by Clairville, Paul Siraudin and Victor Koning.-Performance history:...
at the Opera Comique, which replaced La Périchole
La Périchole
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French-language libretto based on the 1829 one act play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived on 13 March 1850 at the Théâtre-Français...
on the bill with Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
. In October of that year she appeared as Barbara in Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and...
's The Tower of London at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
.
In January 1876 at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
, she appeared under Carte's management as Gustave Muller in The Duke's Daughter. On 5 May 1876, Rita was the beneficiary of a special matinée at the Princess's Theatre at which Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro was an English singer, actress, theatre manager and writer. During a career in operetta and other forms of musical theatre, she managed several of her own opera companies and raised four children as a single mother...
, Mrs. Howard Paul, Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...
and many others contributed, and Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and...
conducted his operetta Dora's Dream
Dora's Dream
Dora's Dream is a one-act operetta, with music composed by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by Arthur Cecil.The piece was first performed at the Royal Gallery of Illustration on 3 July 1873, with Fanny Holland and Arthur Cecil starring in the two roles...
. That summer, she repeated her roles of Gustave Miller and also played the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury on tour with Carte's Opera Bouffe Company (with Carte himself as musical director). In 1877, at a benefit performance for Henry Compton
Henry Compton (actor)
Henry Compton was an English actor best known for his Shakespearean comic roles.-Biography:...
, described by The Era
The Era (newspaper)
The Era was a British weekly paper, published from 1838 to 1939. Originally a general newspaper, it became noted for its sports coverage, and later for its theatrical content.-History:...
as "undeniably the greatest event known in the annals of the Stage", Rita played the Plaintiff in a star-studded performance of Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
, conducted by 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...
, with W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
as the Associate, Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...
as the Usher, W. H. Cummings as the Defendant, and famous performers such as George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
, W. S. Penley
W. S. Penley
William Sydney Penley was an English actor, singer and comedian best remembered as producer and star of the phenomenally successful 1892 Brandon Thomas farce, Charley's Aunt and as the Reverend Robert Spalding in many productions of The Private Secretary.-Life and career:Penley was born at...
, Kate Bishop
Kate Bishop (actress)
Kate Bishop was an English actress from Bristol, a member of a theatrical family. Her brother and daughter were also successful actors. Her greatest success was in Our Boys, which ran for more than four years in London...
and Marion Terry
Marion Terry
Marion Bessie Terry was an English actress. In a career spanning half a century, she played leading roles in more than 125 plays. Always in the shadow of her more famous sister Ellen, Terry nevertheless achieved considerable success in the plays of W. S...
in the chorus.
Apart from the Plaintiff, Rita played two Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
roles – one for D'Oyly Carte and one not. She played Aline 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...
on tour in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
in March 1878, and in September 1879 she played Josephine 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...
in the production mounted by Carte's former partners in the Comedy Opera Company after he had separated from them. She never returned to D'Oyly Carte management. During the late 1870s, Rita performed with Charles Morton
Charles Morton
Charles Morton , was an American actor.-Career:Born in Illinois, Charles Morton spent his adolescence in Madison, Wisconsin; receiving his education at Madison High School and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.He made his first stage appearance at the age of seven and later appeared in vaudeville,...
's opera company at the Opera Comique.
Later years
In 1881, Rita's voice suffered from overwork, and she moved to Australia to rest and stay with family. In January 1884, she married the celebrated flautistFlautist
A flautist or flutist is a musician who plays an instrument in the flute family. See List of flautists.The choice of "flautist" versus "flutist" is the source of dispute among players of the instrument...
, John Radcliff (1842–1917), to whom she had become engaged in London in 1881. Together, they organised a successful three-year tour through Australia and New Zealand in 1884–86. Returning to Britain, they continued to give the programme they had perfected on tour: "Flutes of All Ages: Mr Radcliff ... playing on twenty different instruments selections from the music of all countries and all times. The entertainment was varied by songs, rendered with finished vocal ability, by Madame Pauline Rita." They then developed this show as Pan to Pinafore and presented it around Britain for several years with great success.
Rita undertook some vocal teaching, her success being noted in the press. In later years, she became blind. She died at her home in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, London, after a long illness.