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Social Victorians/People/Carte

< Social Victorians | People

Also Known As

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  • Family name: Carte

Richard D'Oyly Carte

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  • D'Oyly is a forename, not a surname (per Jacobs).
  • Richard D'Oyly Carte
  • D'Olyly Carte

Helen Lenoir

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  • Helen Carte Boulter
  • Susan Helen Couper Black

Demographics

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  • Nationality: Helen Lenoir's: Scottish

Residences

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Family

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  • Richard D'Oyly Carte (3 May 1844 – 3 April 1901)
  • Blanche Julia Prowse (1853–1885)
  1. Lucas D'Oyly Carte (1872–1907)
  2. Rupert D'Oyly Carte (3 November 1876 – 12 September 1948)
  • Helen Lenoir (12 May 1852 – 5 May 1913)

Relations

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Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

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Acquaintances

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Friends

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Some of His Clients

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  • Charles Gounod
  • Jacques Offenbach
  • Adelina Patti
  • Mr. and Mrs. German Reed
  • George Grossmith
  • Matthew Arnold
  • James McNeill Whistler
  • Oscar Wilde

Some of His Employees

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  • August Escoffier, chef at the Savoy Hotel
  • César Ritz, manager of the Savoy Hotel

Organizations

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  • Comedy Opera Company, Ltd. (1876–)
  • D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (touring company Carte founded)
  • Savoy Hotel

Timeline

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1871, Carte conducted Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand's Cox and Box on tour, as well as a couple of Offenbach one-acts.

1876, Carte formed the Comedy Opera Company, Ltd., which produced operettas by Jacques Offenbach, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Charles Lecocq ("Carte").

1881, Carte built the art-deco Savoy Theatre for productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The first theatre to use electricity for the stage and the house, the Savoy was built to accommmodate the large crowds that Gilbert and Sullivan attracted. The popular G&S operas that were written during the 1880s after the Savoy was built are called the "Savoy Operas." Leslie Ayre describes the Carte's technical innovations with the Savoy:

The Savoy Theatre, built by Richard D'Oyly Carte with great consideration for the comfort of his patrons, was opened on October 10, 1881, with Patience, transferred from the Opera Comique where it had been running since April. In an early programme one finds the notice: "Although great care is taken by the management to prevent draughts in the auditorium, it is impossible to avoid their occasional occurrence; it is earnestly requested, therefore, that any person inconvenienced by a draught should communicate with the attendant, who will at once endeavour to remedy the evil." There were no cloakroom fees and programmes were free: "Any attendant detected in accepting money from visitors will be instantly dismissed. The public is therefore requested not to tempt the attendants by offering them gratuities." For his new theatre Carte chose a historic site, close to that on which had stood the Savoy Palace, where John of Gaunt and the Dukes of Lancaster had lived. But he was thoroughly up to date in his approach to his task. His theatre was the first in the world to be lit throughout by electricity -- and, to prove to his audience that there was no danger of fire from the newfangled lighting, he stood on the stage and smashed an electric-light bulb on the floor. But he also took the precaution of having a stand-by gas-lighting system. The theatre was built to the plans of C. J. Phipps, who was later concerned in designing Queen's Hall, and originally had its main frontage on the Thames Embankment side. Later, however, after the completion of the Savoy Hotel, the theatre entrance was moved to the Strand. In 1929 an extraordinarily rapid job of reconstruction was carried out to the plans of Frank A. Tugwell. Only the outer shell was left standing and the interior was completely redesigned and rebuilt (Ayre 401–402).

1887, Carte built the Royal English Opera House (now the Palace), "for which Sullivan wrote [the 1891] Ivanhoe" ("Carte").

1888, Carte and Helen Lenoir married.

Questions and Notes

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  1. Rupert D'Oyly Carte is the basis for the character Psmith in P.G. Wodehouse's novels.

Bibliography

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Carte's Productions

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  • 1877, The Sorcerer, by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
  • 1878, H.M.S. Pinafore, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1879, New York; 1880, London, The Pirates of Penzance, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1881, Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1882, Iolanthe, or the Peer and the Peri, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1884, Princess Ida, or Castel Adamant, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1885, The Mikado, or the Town of Titipu, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1887, Ruddigore, or the Witch's Curse, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1886, The Yeomen of the Guard, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1889, The Gondoliers, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1893, Utopia Limited, by Gilbert and Sullivan
  • 1896, The Grand Duke, by Gilbert and Sullivan

Secondary Sources

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