Sir George Power, 7th Baronet
Sir George Power, 7th Baronet (24 December 1846 – 17 October 1928) was an operatic tenor known for his performances in early Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, most famously creating the roles in London of Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance (1880).
He later became a noted voice teacher and continued to perform. On the death of his elder brother, in 1903, he became the seventh baronet of Kilfane.
Early years
Power was born in Dublin, the fourth son of Sir John Power of Kilfane, Kilkenny, and Frances Elizabeth, née Wade. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Dublin, and studied voice in Milan and Florence, 1873–76.[1]
In 1876, Power first appeared on stage at the Teatro Manoel in Malta, singing Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. He made his London stage debut in 1877 at Her Majesty's Theatre playing the tenor role in Thomas Haynes Bayly's English version of Adolphe Adam's opera The Swiss Cottage.[2]
Power joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy-Opera Company in February 1878 at the Opera Comique in London, succeeding George Bentham in the role of Alexis in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Sorcerer. From March to April 1878 Power played the Defendant in Trial by Jury when that companion piece was added to the bill at the Opera Comique.[3] He created the role of Ralph Rackstraw in the next Gilbert and Sullivan opera, H.M.S. Pinafore, playing the character from May 1878 to February 1880. The Daily News wrote that Power "displayed a light tenor voice of very agreeable quality, and acted the part of the sentimental lover well", although The Times found his intonation "a little uncertain".[4]
When The Pirates of Penzance premiered in London, Power sang the role of Frederic.[5][6] Power received warm reviews for this role from the London press. The Times said that his "sympathetic tenor voice was heard to great advantage in the sentimental music", and The Standard wrote that he "acts ... just in that simple-minded way that brings out most strongly the absurdity of the character, and he sings exceedingly well."[7] A critic from The New York Times, however, commented: "Temple has been a member of the Gilbert-Sullivan company from the first. Mr George Power has not: and his "thin" style is a material drawback. As an actor, he is weak, as a man he is not interesting, as a tenor he is small. Once or twice he sang sweetly, and he was always in tune. As a concert singer he would probably be very successful in sentimental ballads; as Frederic he is unsatisfactory."[8]
During the run of Pirates, Power took part in some Sunday matinée performances of new operettas along with Rutland Barrington, and on one occasion acted in a non-musical play, L'Aventurière, given in the original French by a cast headed by Herbert Beerbohm Tree.[9] Power played Frederic until October 1880, when he left the D'Oyly Carte company.
Later years
In July 1881, Power played Lieut. de Blanc Mange in a short operetta Out of Sight, by Frederick Clay and B. C. Stephenson.[10] In August 1881, he created the role of Charles Lorrimore in the Edward Solomon and Henry Pottinger Stephens comic opera Claude Duval at the Olympic Theatre. The production ran for only 54 performances, and Power left the production three days before it closed in October.[11] He then became a teacher of singing,[12] continuing to make occasional appearances on the stage during the next twenty years.[5] In 1885 he played Colonel Sylvester in a new operetta, When One Door Shuts Another Opens by Harriet Young and Charles Thomas.[13] His students included the popular Russian tenor, Vladimir Rosing.
When his elder brother Sir Adam Clayton Power (1844–1903) died, Power succeeded to his family's hereditary baronetcy as the seventh baronet of Kilfane.[14] Together with Jessie Bond, Leonora Braham and Julia Gwynne, he was one of four artistes of the original D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who attended a reunion at the Savoy Hotel in 1914. The four then posed for a group photograph beside Arthur Sullivan's monument in the Victoria Embankment Gardens.
On 2 September 1915, Power married Eva Gertrude Boulton (1864–1952), the daughter of Sir Samuel Bagster Boulton and Sophia Louisa Cooper. There were no children, and the Power baronetcy ended on his death in 1928.[14]
Power died in Kensington, London, aged 81.
Notes
- ↑ "Power, Sir George", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 28 June 2010
- ↑ The Morning Post, 25 December 1877, p. 4
- ↑ "The London Theatres", The Era, 31 March 1878, p. 12
- ↑ Allen, p. 77.
- 1 2 Stone, David. George Power at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (1875–1982), The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 27 August 2001, accessed 27 July 2010
- ↑ Power and HMS Pinafore at the Theatre History website
- ↑ Allen, p. 109.
- ↑ "The Pirates in London". The New York Times, 20 April 1880, p. 2.
- ↑ "The Examiner of Plays", The Examiner, 15 May 1880, p. 609
- ↑ "Out of Sight", The Era, 9 July 1881, p. 7
- ↑ The Standard, 26 October 1881; p. 4
- ↑ Fitz-Gerald, S. J. Adair. "The Story of the Savoy Opera in Gilbert and Sullivan Days", p. 41, London: Stanley Paul & Co. (1924)
- ↑ "A New Operetta", The Era, 31 October 1885, p. 17
- 1 2 Power on The Peerage.com
References
- Allen, Reginald (1975). The First Night Gilbert and Sullivan. London: Chappell & Co. Ltd.