Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 208 pages
- Published by: Routledge
- Edition: 1st Edition August 22, 2003
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0415937507
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0415937504
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
- Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Review
This biography of a forgotten performer is doubly welcome as a reminder of the many other singers like her who have devoted their lives to pursuing the phantom of fame while bringing pleasure to their audiences..
–Joe K. Law, The Open QuarterlyThis biography of a forgotten performer is doubly welcome as a reminder of the many other singers like her who have devoted their lives to pursuing the phantom of fame while bringing pleasure to their audiences..
–Joe K. Law, The Open Quarterly
Product Description
Alice May is the archetype of the Gilbert and Sullivan prima donna. She ran away with her music teacher as a girl and landed in Australia, becoming that country's leading comic opera singer. As the head of her own company she toured Australia and New Zealand, eventually making her way to Britain via India, where she entered into successful partnerships and productions. Before she drank down the last of her last days in St. Louis--minus the music teacher--she had traveled oceans and brought down not a few houses. This biography brings it all within view, and helps fill-out the picture we have of a former period in musical theater.
Reader ReviewsI must start off by admitting that I came into contact with this book only briefly, having been drawn to it by the title, and that was some time ago. My general impression was that the book was a sound enough piece of work about a nearly forgotten figure of the Victorian-era stage. However, the title of the book, "Alice May: Gilbert & Sullivan's First Prima Donna," is basically misleading. Alice May performed the part of Aline in G&S's first successful full-length comic opera, "The Sorceror." Aline is a soprano, the romantic lead of the piece, a typical soubrette part. She is definitely not the prima donna of the show. That honor went to the then-most famous player in the cast, Mrs. Howard Paul, who portrayed Lady Sangazure, a mezzo-soprano part and the forerunner of all the series of middle-aged ladies that followed, including Little Buttercup in "H.M.S. Pinafore" and Katisha in "The Mikado." "The Sorceror" also provided starting points for the careers of real Victorian stars George Grossmith and Rutland Barrington, whose quickly growing fame rapidly overshadowed that of Mrs. Paul. Alice May was not included in the cast of the next G&S show, the international super-hit, "H.M.S. Pinafore," nor in any of the succeeding comic operas. Far from being G&S's "first prima donna," Alice May did not even rate inclusion in the index of Leslie Baily's magisterial "The Gilbert and Sullivan Book." An engraving of Ms. May as Aline does, however, appear in the book, although without mention of her name. In his autobiography, "A Society Clown," George Grossmith referred to her only as "Miss ------" when he wrote of his first major stage triumph.
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