Her Majesty's Theatre
Encyclopedia
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. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premières by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw
, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward
and J. B. Priestley
. Since World War I, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has specialised in hosting musicals
. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the World War I sensation Chu Chin Chow
and the current production, Andrew Lloyd Webber
's The Phantom of the Opera
, which has played continuously at Her Majesty's since 1986.
The theatre was established by architect and playwright John Vanbrugh
, in 1705, as the Queen's Theatre. Legitimate drama
unaccompanied by music was prohibited by law in all but the two London patent theatre
s, and so this theatre quickly became an opera house
. Between 1711 and 1739, more than 25 operas by George Frederick Handel premièred here. In the early 19th century, the theatre hosted the opera company that was to move to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1847, and presented the first London performances of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
, Così fan tutte
and Don Giovanni
. It also hosted the Ballet of her Majesty's Theatre in the mid-19th century, before returning to hosting the London premières of such famous operas as Bizet's Carmen
and Wagner's Ring Cycle.
The name of the theatre changes with the sex of the monarch. It first became the King's Theatre in 1714 on the accession of George I
. It was renamed Her Majesty's Theatre in 1837. Most recently, the theatre was known as His Majesty's Theatre from 1901 to 1952, and it became Her Majesty's on the accession of Elizabeth II
. The theatre's capacity is 1,216 seats, and the building was Grade II* listed by English Heritage
in January 1970. Really Useful Group Theatres
has owned the theatre building since 2000. The land beneath it is on a long-term lease from the Crown Estate
.
The end of the 17th century was a period of intense rivalry amongst London's actors, and in 1695 there was a split in the United Company
, who had a monopoly on the performance of drama at their two theatres. Dramatist and architect John Vanbrugh
saw this as an opportunity to break the duopoly of the patent theatre
s, and in 1703 he acquired a former stable yard, at a cost of £2000, for the construction of a new theatre on the Haymarket. In the new business, he hoped to improve the share of profits that would go to playwrights and actors. He raised the money by subscription, probably amongst members of the Kit-Cat Club
:
and an actors' co-operative led by Thomas Betterton
.
The theatre provided the first alternative to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, built in 1663 and the Lincoln's Inn
, founded in 1660 (forerunner of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, built in 1728). The theatre's site is the second oldest such site in London that remains in use. These three post-interregnum
theatres defined the shape and use of modern theatres.
. Building was delayed by the necessity of acquiring the street frontage, and a three bay entrance led to a brick shell 130 feet (39.6 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) wide. Colley Cibber
described the audience fittings as lavish but the facilities for playing poor.
Vanbrugh and Congreve received Queen Anne
's authority to form a Company of Comedians on 14 December 1704, and the theatre opened as The Queen's Theatre on 9 April 1705 with imported Italian singers in Gli amori d'Ergasto (The Loves of Ergasto), an opera by Giacomo Greber, with an epilogue by Congreve. This was the first Italian opera performed in London. The opera failed, and the season struggled on through May, with revivals of plays and operas. The first new play performed was The Conquest of Spain by Mary Pix
. The theatre proved too large for actors' voices to carry across the auditorium, and the first season was a failure. Congreve departed, Vanbrugh bought out his other partners, and the actors reopened the Lincoln's Inn Fields' theatre in the summer. Although early productions combined spoken dialogue with incidental music, a taste was growing amongst the nobility for Italian opera
, which was completely sung, and the theatre became devoted to opera. As he became progressively more involved in the construction of Blenheim Palace
, Vanbrugh's management of the theatre became increasingly chaotic, showing "numerous signs of confusion, inefficiency, missed opportunities, and bad judgement". On 7 May 1707, experiencing mounting losses and running costs, Vanbrugh was forced to sell a lease on the theatre for fourteen years to Owen Swiny
at a considerable loss. In December of that year, the Lord Chamberlain's Office
ordered that "all Operas and other Musicall presentments be performed for the future only at Her Majesty's Theatre in the Hay Market" and forbade the performance of further non-musical plays there.
After 1709, the theatre was devoted to Italian opera and was sometimes known informally as The Haymarket Opera House. Young George Frederick Handel was produced his English début, Rinaldo
, on 24 February 1711 at the theatre, featuring the two leading castrati
of the era, Nicolo Grimaldi and Valentino Urbani
. This was the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. The work was well received, and Handel was appointed resident composer for the theatre, but losses continued, and Swiney fled abroad to escape his creditors. John James Heidegger
took over the management of the theatre and, from 1719, began to extend the stage through arches into the houses to the south of the theatre. A "Royal Academy of Music" was formed by subscription from wealthy sponsors, including the Prince of Wales
, to support Handel's productions at the theatre. Under this sponsorship, Handel conducted a series of more than 25 of his original operas, continuing until 1739 Handel was also a partner in the management with Heidegger from 1729 to 1734, and he contributed to incidental music for theatre, including for a revival of Ben Jonson
's The Alchemist
, opening on 14 January 1710.
On the accession of George I
in 1714, the theatre was renamed the King's Theatre and remained so named during a succession of male monarchs who occupied the throne. At this time only the two patent theatre
s were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking Letters patent
, the theatre remained associated with opera. In 1762, Johann Christian Bach
travelled to London to première three operas at the theatre, including Orione on 19 February 1763. This established his reputation in England, and he became music master to Queen Charlotte.
In 1778, the lease for the theatre was transferred from James Brook
to Thomas Harris
, stage manager of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and to the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan
for £22,000. They paid for the remodelling of the interior by Robert Adam
in the same year. In November 1778, The Morning Chronicle reported that Harris and Sheridan had
The expense of the improvements was not matched by the box office receipts, and the partnership dissolved, with Sheridan buying out his partner with a mortgage on the theatre of £12,000 obtained from the banker Henry Hoare
.
One member of the company, Giovanni Gallini
, had made his début at the theatre in 1753 and had risen to the position of dancing master, gaining an international reputation. Gallini had tried to buy Harris' share but had been rebuffed. He now purchased the mortgage. Sheridan quickly became bankrupt after placing the financial affairs of the theatre in the hands of William Taylor
, a lawyer. The next few years saw a struggle for control of the theatre, and Taylor bought Sheridan's interest in 1781. In 1782 the theatre was remodelled by Michael Novosielski, formerly a scene painter at the theatre. In May 1783, Taylor was arrested by his creditors, and a forced sale ensued, with Harris purchasing the lease and much of the effects. Further legal action transferred the interests in the theatre to a board of trustees, including Novosielski. The trustees acted with a flagrant disregard for the needs of the theatre or other creditors, seeking only to enrich themselves, and in August 1785 the Lord Chamberlain took over the running of the enterprise, in the interests of the creditors. Gallini, meanwhile, had become manager. In 1788, the Lord Chancellor
observed "that there appeared in all the proceedings respecting this business, a wish of distressing the property, and that it would probably be consumed in that very court to which ... [the interested parties] seemed to apply for relief". Performances suffered, with the box receipts taken by Novosielski, rather than given to Gallini to run the house. Money continued to be squandered on endless litigation or was misappropriated. Gallini tried to keep the theatre going, but he was forced to employ amateur performers. The World described a performance as follows: "... the dance, if such it can be called was like the movements of heavy cavalry. It was hissed very abundantly." At other times, Gallini had to defend himself against a dissatisfied audience who charged the stage and destroyed the fittings, as the company ran for their lives.
The theatre burnt down on 17 June 1789 during evening rehearsals, and the dancers fled the building as beams fell onto the stage. The fire had been deliberately set on the roof, and Gallini offered a reward of £300 for capture of the culprit. With the theatre destroyed, each group laid their own plans for a replacement. Gallini obtained a licence from the Lord Chamberlain to perform opera at the nearby Little Theatre
, and he entered into a partnership with R. B. O'Reilly to obtain land in Leicester Fields
for a new building, which too would require a licence. The two quarrelled, and each then planned to wrest control of the venture from the other. The authorities refused to grant either of them a patent for Leicester Fields, but O'Reilly was granted a licence for four years to put on opera at the Oxford Street
Pantheon
. This too, would burn to the ground in 1792. Meanwhile, Taylor reached an agreement with the creditors of the King's Theatre and attempted to purchase the remainder of the lease from Edward Vanbrugh, but this was now promised to O'Reilly. A further complication arose as the theatre needed to expand onto adjacent land that now came into the possession of a Taylor supporter. The scene was set for a further war of attrition between the lessees, but at this point O'Reilly's first season at the Pantheon failed miserably, and he fled to Paris to avoid his creditors.
By 1720, Vanbrugh's direct connection with the theatre had been terminated, but the leases and rents had been transferred to both his own family and that of his wife's through a series of trusts and benefices, with Vanbrugh himself building a new home in Greenwich
. After the fire, the Vanbrugh family's long association with the theatre was terminated, and all their leases were surrendered by 1792.
Taylor completed a new theatre on the site in 1791. Michael Novosielski had again been chosen as architect for the theatre on an enlarged site, but the building was described by Malcolm in 1807 as
The Lord Chamberlain, a supporter of O'Reilly, refused a performing licence to Taylor. The theatre opened on 26 March 1791 with a private performance of song and dance entertainment, but was not allowed to open to the public. The new theatre was heavily indebted and spanned separate plots of land that were leased to Taylor by four different owners on differing terms of revision. As a later manager of the theatre wrote, "In the history of property, there has probably been no parallel instance wherein the legal labyrinth has been so difficult to thread." Meetings were held at Carlton House and Bedford House attempting to reconcile the parties. On 24 August 1792 a General Opera Trust Deed was signed by the parties. The general management of the theatre was to be entrusted to a committee of noblemen, appointed by the Prince of Wales
, who would then appoint a general manager. Funds would be disbursed from the profits to compensate the creditors of both the King's Theatre and the Pantheon. The committee never met, and management devolved to Taylor.
company while that company's home theatre was itself rebuilt between 1791–94.
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From 1793, seven small houses at the east side of the theatre fronting on the Haymarket were demolished and replaced by a large concert room. It was in this room that Joseph Haydn
gave a series of concerts, under the sponsorship of Johann Peter Salomon
, on his second visit to London in 1794–95. He presented his own symphonies, conducted by himself, and was paid £50 each for 20 concerts, including the première of the Military Symphony. He was feted in London and returned to Vienna in May 1795 with 12,000 florins.
With the departure of the Drury Lane company in 1794, the theatre returned to opera, hosting the first London performances of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
in 1806, Così fan tutte
and Die Zauberflöte
in 1811, and Don Giovanni
in 1816. Between 1816 and 1818, John Nash
and George Repton made alterations to the façade and increased the capacity of the auditorium to 2,500. They also added a shopping arcade, called the Royal Opera Arcade, which has survived fires and renovations and still exists. It runs along the rear of the theatre. In 1818–20, the British premières of Gioachino Rossini's operas Il barbiere di Siviglia
, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
, L'italiana in Algeri
, La Cenerentola
and Tancredi
took place, and the theatre became known as the Italian Opera House, Haymarket by the 1820s.
In 1797, he was elected as member of Parliament for Leominster
, a position that gave him immunity from his creditors. When that parliament dissolved in 1802, he fled to France. Later, he returned, and was member of Parliament for Barnstaple
from 1806 to 1812 while continuing his association with the theatre. Taylor paid little of the agreed receipts to performers, or composers, and lived for much of his period of management in the King's Bench
, a debtors' prison in Southwark
. Here he maintained an apartment next to Lady Hamilton and lived in some luxury, entertaining lavishly.
John Ebers
, a bookseller, took over the management of the theatre in 1821, and seven more London premieres of Rossini operas (La gazza ladra
, Il turco in Italia
, Mosè in Egitto
, Otello
, La donna del lago
, Matilde di Shabran
and Ricciardo e Zoraide
) took place there in the following three years. Ebers sublet the theatre to Giambattista Benelli in 1824, and Rossini was invited to conduct, remaining for a five-month season, with his wife Isabella Colbran
performing. Two more of his operas, Zelmira
and Semiramide
, received their British premières during the season, but the theatre sustained huge losses, and Benelli absconded without paying either the composer or the artists. Ebers engaged Giuditta Pasta
for the 1825 season, but he became involved in lawsuits which, combined with a large increase in the rent of the theatre, forced him into bankruptcy, after which he returned to his bookselling business.
and Le siège de Corinthe
) had their British premières at the theatre during this period, and Laporte was also the first to introduce the operas of Vincenzo Bellini
(La sonnambula
, Norma
and I puritani
) and Gaetano Donizetti
(Anna Bolena
, Lucia di Lammermoor
and Lucrezia Borgia
) to the British public. Under Laporte, singers such as Giulia Grisi
, Pauline Viardot, Giovanni Battista Rubini
, Luigi Lablache
and Mario
made their London stage debuts at the theatre. Among the musical directors of this period was Nicolas Bochsa, the celebrated and eccentric French harpist. He was appointed in 1827 and remained for six years at this position. When Queen Victoria
ascended the throne in 1837, the name of the theatre was changed to Her Majesty's Theatre, Italian Opera House. In the same year, Samuel Phelps
made his London début as Shylock
in The Merchant of Venice
at the theatre, also playing in other Shakespearean plays here.
Over the course of the 1840s, Dion Boucicault
had five plays produced here: The Bastile [sic], an "after-piece" (1842), Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844), The School for Scheming (1847), Confidence (1848), and The Knight Arva (1848). In 1853, Robert Browning
's Colombe's Birthday played at the theatre.
In 1841, disputes arose over Laporte's decision to replace the baritone
Antonio Tamburini
with a new singer, Colletti. The audience stormed the stage, and the performers formed a 'revolutionary conspiracy'.
Laporte died suddenly, and Benjamin Lumley
took over the management in 1842, introducing London audiences to Donizetti's late operas, Don Pasquale
and La fille du régiment
. Initially, relations between Lumley and Michael Costa
, the principal conductor at Her Majesty's were good. Verdi's Ernani
, Nabucco
and I Lombardi received their British premières in 1845–46, and Lumley commissioned I masnadieri
from the composer. This opera received its world première on 22 July 1847, with the Swedish operatic diva Jenny Lind
in the role of Amalia, and the British premières of two more Verdi operas, I due Foscari
and Attila
, followed in 1847–48. Meanwhile, the performers had continued to feel neglected and the disputes continued. In 1847, Costa finally transferred his opera company to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
, and the theatre relinquished the sobriquet, 'Italian Opera House', to assume its present title, Her Majesty's Theatre.
Lumley engaged Michael Balfe
to lead the orchestra and entered negotiations with Felix Mendelssohn
for a new opera. Jenny Lind had made her English début on 4 May 1847 in the role of Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer
's Robert le Diable
, in the presence of the Royal family and the composer Felix Mendelssohn
. Such was the press of people around the theatre that many "arrived at last with dresses crushed and torn, and coats hanging in shreds, having suffered bruises and blows in the struggle". She performed for a number of acclaimed seasons at the theatre, interspersed with national tours, becoming known as the Swedish Nightingale. The secession of the orchestra to Covent Garden was a blow, and the theatre closed in 1852, re-opening in 1856, when a fire closed its rival. After the reopening, Lumley presented two more British premières of Verdi operas: La traviata
in 1856 and Luisa Miller
in 1858.
From the early 1830s until the late 1840s, Her Majesty's Theatre played host to the heyday of the era of the romantic ballet
, in which the ballet company, known as the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre, was the most renowned troupe in Europe aside from the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. The great ballet master Jules Perrot
began staging ballet at the theatre in 1830. Lumley engaged him as Premier Maître de Ballet (chief choreographer) to the theatre in 1842. Among the works of ballet that he staged were Ondine, ou La Naïade (1843), La Esmeralda
(1844), and Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit
(1846), as well as the celebrated divertissement
Pas de Quatre
(1845). Other ballet masters created works for the ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre throughout the period of the romantic ballet, most notably Paul Taglioni (son of Filippo Taglioni
), who staged ballets including Coralia, ou Le Chevalier inconstant (1847) and Electra (1849, the first production of a ballet to make use of electric lighting). Arthur Saint-Léon
staged such works as La Vivandière (1844), Le Violin du Diable (1849), and Le Jugement de Pâris (1850), which was considered a sequel of sorts to Pas de Quatre.
The Italian composer Cesare Pugni
was appointed Composer of the Ballet Music to the theatre in 1843, a position created for him by Lumley. From 1843 until 1850, and he composed nearly every new ballet presented at the theatre. Pugni remains the most prolific composer of the genre, having composed more than 100 original ballets, as well as composing numerous divertissements and incidental dances that were often performed as diversions during the intermissions of opera performances at the theatre. Throughout the era of the romantic ballet, the theatre presented performances by notable ballerina
s, including Marie Taglioni
, Carlotta Grisi
, Fanny Elssler
, Lucile Grahn
, and Fanny Cerrito
, performing in the works of Perrot, Taglioni and Saint-Léon.
From 1862 to 1867, the theatre was managed by James Henry Mapleson
, presenting Italian, French and German opera, including the British premières of La forza del destino
, Médée
, Faust
and The Merry Wives of Windsor
, and promoting such singers as Mario, Giulia Grisi, De Murska
, Therese Tietjens, Antonio Giuglini
, Charles Santley
and Christine Nilsson. On the night of 6 December 1867, the theatre was destroyed by fire, thought to have been caused by an overheated stove. Only the bare walls of the theatre remained, and most of the adjacent shops in Pall Mall, and the Clergy Club hotel in Charles Street, suffered damage of varying severity. The Royal Opera Arcade, on the western side, survived with only superficial damage. With the destruction of the theatre, Mapleson took his company to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
.
By the 1850s, with the era of the romantic ballet at an end, the principal personalities of the ballet, such as Perrot, Saint-Léon, Taglioni, and the composer Pugni, joined the Tsar's
Imperial Ballet
of St. Petersburg, Russia. Ballet in London went through a considerable decline beginning with the fire at Her Majesty's Theatre, a decline that lasted until the end of the 19th century. Ballet in London was not resurrected until the early 20th century, when such dancers as Adeline Genée
began performing. The theatre's ballet company found a new home at the Old Vic
and soon took on the name of the Vic-Wells Ballet. Later, relocating primarily to the Sadler's Wells Theatre
, the company became known as the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Eventually the troupe began performing at the Royal Opera House
and became the Royal Ballet
, as it is known today.
A third building was constructed in 1868 at a cost of £50,000, within the shell of the old theatre, for Lord Dudley
. It was designed by Charles Lee and Sons and their partner, William Pain. They had taken over John Nash
's practice on his retirement. The new theatre used materials such as concrete and ironwork to reduce the future risk of fire. The auditorium had four tiers, with a stage large enough for the greatest spectaculars. For opera, the theatre seated 1,890, and for plays, with the orchestra pit removed, 2,500. As a result of a dispute over the rent between Dudley and Mapleson, and a decline in the popularity of ballet, the theatre remained dark until 1874, when it was sold to a Revivalist Christian group for £31,000.
Mapleson returned to Her Majesty's in 1877 and 1878, after a disastrous attempt to build a 2,000-seat National Opera House on a site subsequently used for the building of Scotland Yard
. On the return of the company, all the fittings of the theatre had been removed, including the seats, carpets and even the wallpaper. £6,000 was spent on fitting out the theatre, and on 28 April 1877 the building returned to theatrical use with the opening of Vincenzo Bellini
's opera Norma
. The London première of Bizet's Carmen
occurred here on 22 June 1878, and in subsequent seasons the theatre hosted the Carl Rosa Opera Company
(Rosa's wife, Euphrosyne Parepa
, had made her name in opera partly at Her Majesty's) and a programme of French plays and light opera. The company was the first to produce Carmen in English, at the theatre in February 1879, starring Selina Dolaro
in the title role and Durward Lely
as Don José. In 1882, the theatre hosted the London premières of Wagner's Ring cycle.
Mapleson returned in 1887 and 1889, but The Times
commented that the repertoire comprised "works that had long ceased to attract a large public, the singers were exclusively of second-rate quality, and the standard of performance was extremely low". Rigoletto
, on 25 May 1889, was the last operatic performance given in the house.
With the rapid advances in theatre technology made during this period, the 1868 theatre quickly became outmoded, and the sub-lease of the theatre, still held by the Dudley family, was due to expire in 1891. The Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues (forerunners of the Crown Estate
) desired the entire block on which the theatre stood to be rebuilt, except for the Royal Arcade, where the lease did not expire until 1912. Problems were encountered in obtaining all the buildings and in financing the scheme, but the theatre and surrounding buildings were demolished in 1892. Plans were commissioned from architect Charles J. Phipps for a theatre and a hotel. In February 1896 an agreement was reached with Herbert Beerbohm Tree
for the erection of the theatre at a cost of £55,000. The plans were approved in February 1897, and on 16 July 1896, the foundation stone of the new theatre was laid. Phipps died in 1897, and the theatre was his last work.
The theatre was designed as a symmetrical pair with the Carlton Hotel
and restaurant on the adjacent site, now occupied by New Zealand House. The frontage formed three parts, each of nine bays. The hotel occupied two parts, the theatre one, and the two buildings were unified by a cornice above the ground floor. The buildings rose to four storeys, with attic floors above, surmounted by large squared domes in a style inspired by the French Renaissance
. The theatre has a Corinthian
colonnade at the first floor, rising to the second, forming a loggia in front of the circle foyer. This is above a canopy over the main ground floor entrances. The theatre lies on an east–west axis. The stage at the western end was 49 feet (14.9 m) deep and 69.5 feet (21.2 m) wide, and reputedly the first to be flat, rather than raked. The interior was designed by the consulting architect, W. H. Romaine-Walker
(1854–1940), after the Opera at Versailles
by Gabriel
. Stalls and the pit were entered at ground level, with two partly cantilevered tiers above accommodating dress and family circles on the first level, and upper circle, amphitheatre and gallery on the tier above. In all, there were 1,319 seats. Contemporary opinion was critical of the project. Edwin Sachs wrote in his 1897 guide to theatres, "The treatment is considered to be in the French Renaissance style and stone has been used throughout. The detail cannot, however, be termed satisfactory, nor does the exterior architecturally express the purpose of the building."
Modern opinion of the theatre is more generous, with English Heritage
describing the building as both Phipps' finest work and one of the best planned theatres in London. The building was Grade II* listed in January 1970. Appreciation of the buildings came too late to save the adjacent hotel from redevelopment as the new High Commission for New Zealand, completed in 1963 by British architects Robert Matthew
, Johnson Marshall and Partners, who also designed the Commonwealth Institute
. In 1995, this too was Grade II listed as a fine example of 1960s architecture. The 200-year-old Royal Opera Arcade, built by Nash and Repton, is all that survives of the second theatre and is the earliest example of a London arcade.
The current theatre opened on 28 April 1897. Herbert Beerbohm Tree built the theatre with profits from his tremendous success at the Haymarket Theatre
, and he owned, managed and lived in the theatre from its construction until his death in 1917. For his personal use, he had a banqueting hall and living room installed in the massive, central, square French-style dome. This building did not specialise in opera, although there were some operatic performances in its early years. The theatre opened with a dramatisation of Gilbert Parker
's The Seats of the Mighty. Adaptations of novels by Dickens, Tolstoy
, and others formed a significant part of the repertoire, along with classical works from Molière
and Shakespeare. The theatre also hosted the world première of J. M. Synge's The Tinker's Wedding
on 11 November 1909 and George Bernard Shaw
's Pygmalion
, with Tree as Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell
as Eliza, in 1914. Tree's productions were known for their elaborate and spectacular scenery and effects, often including live animals and real grass. These remained both popular and profitable, but in his last decade, Tree's acting style was seen as increasingly outmoded, and many of his plays received bad reviews. Tree defended himself from critical censure, demonstrating his continuing popularity at the box office until his death.
In 1904, Tree founded the Academy of Dramatic Art (later RADA
), which spent a year based in the theatre before moving in 1905 to Gower Street
in Bloomsbury
. Tree continued to take graduates of the Academy into his company at His Majesty's, employing some 40 actors in this way by 1911.
The facilities of the theatre naturally lent themselves to the new genre of musical theatre
. Chu Chin Chow
opened in 1916 and ran for an astonishing world record 2,235 performances (almost twice as long as the previous record for musical theatre – a record that it held until surpassed by Salad Days in 1955). Major productions of plays with large casts were also performed at His Majesty's. George
and Ira Gershwin
's Oh, Kay!
had its London première on 21 September 1927. This starred Gertrude Lawrence
and John Kirby
, and ran for 213 performances. Noël Coward
's operetta Bitter Sweet
enjoyed a run of 697 performances beginning 18 July 1929. J. B. Priestley
's theatrical adaptation of his own The Good Companions
premièred on 14 May 1931.
Musicals continued to dominate at the theatre in the post-World War II period, including transfers of the successful Broadway
productions Follow the Girls
(1945; 572 performances) and the Lerner and Loewe
musicals Brigadoon (1949; 685 performances) and Paint Your Wagon (1953; 478 performances). Leonard Bernstein
's West Side Story opened in December 1958 for a run of 1,039 performances, transferring from Broadway via the Manchester Opera House
. The London première of Fiddler on the Roof
was on 16 February 1967, starring Chaim Topol
, and the production ran at Her Majesty's for 2,030 performances. Forty years after the original stage adaptation, André Previn
's musical adaptation of The Good Companions
premièred on 11 July 1974, followed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
and Alan Ayckbourn
's initially unsuccessful collaboration, Jeeves
, on 22 April 1975, which has since enjoyed considerable success.
John Cleese
organised A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick)
as a benefit for Amnesty International
at the theatre in 1976, and it was broadcast as Pleasure at Her Majesty's
. This was the first of The Secret Policeman's Balls
, organised by and starring such performers as Peter Cook
, Graham Chapman
, and Rowan Atkinson
. The venue was also the setting for the popular ITV
variety series Live From Her Majesty's
, which ran on television from 1982 to 1985. It was on this programme that Tommy Cooper
collapsed and died on stage in 1984.
The Phantom of the Opera
had its world première on 9 October 1986 at the theatre, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Musical
and featuring Sarah Brightman
and Michael Crawford
, who won an Olivier award for his performance in the title role. The piece is still playing at Her Majesty's, celebrating its 25th anniversary in October 2011 and surpassing 10,000 performances in October 2010. It is the second longest-running West End musical in history (after Les Misérables
). In a sign of its continuing popularity, Phantom ranked second in a 2006 BBC Radio 2
listener poll
of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals". The musical is also the longest-running show on Broadway
, was made into a film in 2004 and had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities in 27 countries and grossed more than £3.2bn ($5bn) by 2011, the most successful entertainment project in history.
Her Majesty's Theatre's "grand exterior" and "luxurious interior, with its three tiers of boxes and gold statuary around the stage", as well as French Renaissance design, "make it an ideal site for this Gothic tale" set at the Opéra Garnier. The original Victorian
stage machinery remains beneath the stage of the theatre. Designer Maria Björnson found a way to use it "to show the Phantom travelling across the lake as if floating on a sea of mist and fire", in a key scene from the musical. On 5 May 2008, for the first time in the run, the show closed for three days. This allowed the installation of an improved sound system at the theatre, consisting of over 6 miles (10 km) of cabling and the siting of 120 auditorium speakers.
The theatre's capacity is 1,216 seats on four levels. It is owned by Really Useful Group Theatres
, which purchased it in January 2000 with nine other London theatres formerly owned by the Stoll-Moss Group
. Between 1990 and 1993, renovation and improvements were made by the H.L.M. and C. G. Twelves partnership.
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
, in Haymarket, City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
, London
Greater London
Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...
. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...
at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premières by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
and J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
. Since World War I, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has specialised in hosting musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the World War I sensation Chu Chin Chow
Chu Chin Chow
Chu Chin Chow is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves...
and the current production, Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
's The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
, which has played continuously at Her Majesty's since 1986.
The theatre was established by architect and playwright John Vanbrugh
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
, in 1705, as the Queen's Theatre. Legitimate drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
unaccompanied by music was prohibited by law in all but the two London patent theatre
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
s, and so this theatre quickly became an opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
. Between 1711 and 1739, more than 25 operas by George Frederick Handel premièred here. In the early 19th century, the theatre hosted the opera company that was to move to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1847, and presented the first London performances of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
, Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
and Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. It also hosted the Ballet of her Majesty's Theatre in the mid-19th century, before returning to hosting the London premières of such famous operas as Bizet'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 Wagner's Ring Cycle.
The name of the theatre changes with the sex of the monarch. It first became the King's Theatre in 1714 on the accession of George I
George I of Great Britain
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698....
. It was renamed Her Majesty's Theatre in 1837. Most recently, the theatre was known as His Majesty's Theatre from 1901 to 1952, and it became Her Majesty's on the accession of Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
. The theatre's capacity is 1,216 seats, and the building was Grade II* listed by English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
in January 1970. Really Useful Group Theatres
Really Useful Group
The Really Useful Group Ltd. is an international company set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is involved in theatre, film, television, video and concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing...
has owned the theatre building since 2000. The land beneath it is on a long-term lease from the Crown Estate
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
.
History
United Company
The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company.Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81...
, who had a monopoly on the performance of drama at their two theatres. Dramatist and architect John Vanbrugh
John Vanbrugh
Sir John Vanbrugh – 26 March 1726) was an English architect and dramatist, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, The Relapse and The Provoked Wife , which have become enduring stage favourites...
saw this as an opportunity to break the duopoly of the patent theatre
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
s, and in 1703 he acquired a former stable yard, at a cost of £2000, for the construction of a new theatre on the Haymarket. In the new business, he hoped to improve the share of profits that would go to playwrights and actors. He raised the money by subscription, probably amongst members of the Kit-Cat Club
Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club was an early 18th century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives, meeting at the Trumpet tavern in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.The first meetings were held at a tavern in...
:
He was joined in the enterprise by his principal associate and manager William CongreveTo recover them [that is, Thomas Betterton
Thomas BettertonThomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
's company], therefore, to their due Estimation, a new Project was form'd of building them a stately theatre in the Hay-Market, by Sir John Vanbrugh, for which he raised a Subscription of thirty Persons of Quality, at one hundred Pounds each, in Consideration whereof every Subscriber, for his own Life, was to be admitted to whatever Entertainments should be publickly perform'd there, without farther Payment for his Entrance.—John Vanbrugh's notice of subscription for the new theatre
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
and an actors' co-operative led by Thomas Betterton
Thomas Betterton
Thomas Patrick Betterton , English actor, son of an under-cook to King Charles I, was born in London.-Apprentice and actor:...
.
The theatre provided the first alternative 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,...
, built in 1663 and the Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
, founded in 1660 (forerunner of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, built in 1728). The theatre's site is the second oldest such site in London that remains in use. These three post-interregnum
English Interregnum
The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the Commonwealth of England after the English Civil War...
theatres defined the shape and use of modern theatres.
Vanbrugh's theatre: 1705–1789
The land for the theatre was held on a lease renewable in 1740 and was ultimately owned, as it is today, by the Crown EstateCrown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
. Building was delayed by the necessity of acquiring the street frontage, and a three bay entrance led to a brick shell 130 feet (39.6 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) wide. Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
described the audience fittings as lavish but the facilities for playing poor.
Vanbrugh and Congreve received Queen Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
's authority to form a Company of Comedians on 14 December 1704, and the theatre opened as The Queen's Theatre on 9 April 1705 with imported Italian singers in Gli amori d'Ergasto (The Loves of Ergasto), an opera by Giacomo Greber, with an epilogue by Congreve. This was the first Italian opera performed in London. The opera failed, and the season struggled on through May, with revivals of plays and operas. The first new play performed was The Conquest of Spain by Mary Pix
Mary Pix
Mary Pix was an English novelist and playwright. Church records indicate that she lived in London, marrying George Pix, a merchant tailor from Hawkhurst, Kent in 1684. Baptismal records reveal that she had two sons, George and William...
. The theatre proved too large for actors' voices to carry across the auditorium, and the first season was a failure. Congreve departed, Vanbrugh bought out his other partners, and the actors reopened the Lincoln's Inn Fields' theatre in the summer. Although early productions combined spoken dialogue with incidental music, a taste was growing amongst the nobility for Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...
, which was completely sung, and the theatre became devoted to opera. As he became progressively more involved in the construction of Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace is a monumental country house situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, residence of the dukes of Marlborough. It is the only non-royal non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between...
, Vanbrugh's management of the theatre became increasingly chaotic, showing "numerous signs of confusion, inefficiency, missed opportunities, and bad judgement". On 7 May 1707, experiencing mounting losses and running costs, Vanbrugh was forced to sell a lease on the theatre for fourteen years to Owen Swiny
Owen Swiny
Owen Swiny was an Irish theatre impressario and art dealer active in London.-Life:Having attended Trinity College, Dublin from 1694, he was working at the Drury Lane Theatre by spring 1703 with Christopher Rich. He also adapted Molière's L'amour médecin as The Quacks, putting it on at the Drury...
at a considerable loss. In December of that year, the Lord Chamberlain's Office
Lord Chamberlain's Office
The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. It is presently concerned with matters such as protocol, state visits, investitures, garden parties, the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings and funerals. For example, in April 2005 it organised the wedding of...
ordered that "all Operas and other Musicall presentments be performed for the future only at Her Majesty's Theatre in the Hay Market" and forbade the performance of further non-musical plays there.
Rinaldo (opera)
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's...
, on 24 February 1711 at the theatre, featuring the two leading castrati
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
of the era, Nicolo Grimaldi and Valentino Urbani
Valentino Urbani
Valentino Urbani was an Italian alto castrato who sang for the composer George Frideric Handel in the 18th century. He sang the role of Eustazio at the premiere of Handel's Rinaldo, the role of Silvio at the premiere of Il pastor fido, and the role of Egeo at the first performance of Teseo...
. This was the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. The work was well received, and Handel was appointed resident composer for the theatre, but losses continued, and Swiney fled abroad to escape his creditors. John James Heidegger
John James Heidegger
John James Heidegger was a Swiss count and leading impresario of masquerades in the early part of the 18th century....
took over the management of the theatre and, from 1719, began to extend the stage through arches into the houses to the south of the theatre. A "Royal Academy of Music" was formed by subscription from wealthy sponsors, including the Prince of Wales
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...
, to support Handel's productions at the theatre. Under this sponsorship, Handel conducted a series of more than 25 of his original operas, continuing until 1739 Handel was also a partner in the management with Heidegger from 1729 to 1734, and he contributed to incidental music for theatre, including for a revival of Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
's The Alchemist
The Alchemist (play)
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature...
, opening on 14 January 1710.
On the accession of George I
George I of Great Britain
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698....
in 1714, the theatre was renamed the King's Theatre and remained so named during a succession of male monarchs who occupied the throne. At this time only the two patent theatre
Patent theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama...
s were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking Letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
, the theatre remained associated with opera. In 1762, Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
travelled to London to première three operas at the theatre, including Orione on 19 February 1763. This established his reputation in England, and he became music master to Queen Charlotte.
James Brook
James William Brook was an English first-class cricketer, who played one match for Yorkshire against Glamorgan at Bramall Lane, Sheffield in 1923....
to Thomas Harris
Thomas Harris
Thomas Harris is an American author and screenwriter, best known for a series of suspense novels about his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter...
, stage manager of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and to the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
for £22,000. They paid for the remodelling of the interior by Robert Adam
Robert Adam
Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...
in the same year. In November 1778, The Morning Chronicle reported that Harris and Sheridan had
... at a considerable expence, almost entirely new built the audience part of the house, and made a great variety of alterations, part of which are calculated for the rendering the theatre more light, elegant, and pleasant, and part for the ease and convenience of the company. The sides of the frontispiece are decorated with two figures painted by Gainsborough
Thomas GainsboroughThomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, which are remarkably picturesque and beautiful; the heavy columns which gave the house so gloomy an aspect that it rather resembled a large mausoleum or a place for funeral dirges, than a theatre, are removed.—November 1778, The Morning Chronicle
The expense of the improvements was not matched by the box office receipts, and the partnership dissolved, with Sheridan buying out his partner with a mortgage on the theatre of £12,000 obtained from the banker Henry Hoare
Henry Hoare
Henry Hoare II , known as Henry the Magnificent, was an English banker and garden owner-designer.-Career:Born the son of Henry Hoare I and educated at Westminster School, Henry Hoare dominated the Hoare family through his wealth and personal charisma. Henry was a partner for nearly 60 years in C...
.
One member of the company, Giovanni Gallini
Giovanni Gallini
Giovanni Andrea Battista Gallini , later known as Sir John Andrew Gallini, was an Italian dancer, choreographer and impresario who was made a " Knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope " following a successful performance.He was the grandson of Domenico Gallini, his father was Luca Gallini and his...
, had made his début at the theatre in 1753 and had risen to the position of dancing master, gaining an international reputation. Gallini had tried to buy Harris' share but had been rebuffed. He now purchased the mortgage. Sheridan quickly became bankrupt after placing the financial affairs of the theatre in the hands of William Taylor
William Taylor
William Taylor was a British scholar, polyglot, and translator of German romantic literature.-Early life:He was born in Norwich, East Anglia, England on 7 November 1765, the only child of William Taylor , a wealthy Norwich merchant with European trade connections, by his wife Sarah , second...
, a lawyer. The next few years saw a struggle for control of the theatre, and Taylor bought Sheridan's interest in 1781. In 1782 the theatre was remodelled by Michael Novosielski, formerly a scene painter at the theatre. In May 1783, Taylor was arrested by his creditors, and a forced sale ensued, with Harris purchasing the lease and much of the effects. Further legal action transferred the interests in the theatre to a board of trustees, including Novosielski. The trustees acted with a flagrant disregard for the needs of the theatre or other creditors, seeking only to enrich themselves, and in August 1785 the Lord Chamberlain took over the running of the enterprise, in the interests of the creditors. Gallini, meanwhile, had become manager. In 1788, the Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
observed "that there appeared in all the proceedings respecting this business, a wish of distressing the property, and that it would probably be consumed in that very court to which ... [the interested parties] seemed to apply for relief". Performances suffered, with the box receipts taken by Novosielski, rather than given to Gallini to run the house. Money continued to be squandered on endless litigation or was misappropriated. Gallini tried to keep the theatre going, but he was forced to employ amateur performers. The World described a performance as follows: "... the dance, if such it can be called was like the movements of heavy cavalry. It was hissed very abundantly." At other times, Gallini had to defend himself against a dissatisfied audience who charged the stage and destroyed the fittings, as the company ran for their lives.
The theatre burnt down on 17 June 1789 during evening rehearsals, and the dancers fled the building as beams fell onto the stage. The fire had been deliberately set on the roof, and Gallini offered a reward of £300 for capture of the culprit. With the theatre destroyed, each group laid their own plans for a replacement. Gallini obtained a licence from the Lord Chamberlain to perform opera at the nearby Little 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...
, and he entered into a partnership with R. B. O'Reilly to obtain land in Leicester Fields
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
for a new building, which too would require a licence. The two quarrelled, and each then planned to wrest control of the venture from the other. The authorities refused to grant either of them a patent for Leicester Fields, but O'Reilly was granted a licence for four years to put on opera at the Oxford Street
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
Pantheon
Pantheon, London
The Pantheon, was a place of public entertainment on the south side of Oxford Street, London, England. It was designed by James Wyatt and opened in 1772. The main rotunda was one of the largest rooms built in England up to that time and had a central dome somewhat reminiscent of the celebrated...
. This too, would burn to the ground in 1792. Meanwhile, Taylor reached an agreement with the creditors of the King's Theatre and attempted to purchase the remainder of the lease from Edward Vanbrugh, but this was now promised to O'Reilly. A further complication arose as the theatre needed to expand onto adjacent land that now came into the possession of a Taylor supporter. The scene was set for a further war of attrition between the lessees, but at this point O'Reilly's first season at the Pantheon failed miserably, and he fled to Paris to avoid his creditors.
By 1720, Vanbrugh's direct connection with the theatre had been terminated, but the leases and rents had been transferred to both his own family and that of his wife's through a series of trusts and benefices, with Vanbrugh himself building a new home in Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
. After the fire, the Vanbrugh family's long association with the theatre was terminated, and all their leases were surrendered by 1792.
Second theatre: 1791–1867
...fronted by a stone basement in rustic work, with the commencement of a very superb building of the Doric order, consisting of three pillars, two windows, an entablature, pediment, and balustrade. This, if it had been continued, would have contributed considerably to the splendour of London; but the unlucky fragment is fated to stand as a foil to the vile and absurd edifice of brick pieced to it, which I have not patience to describe.—The critic Malcolm, quoted in Old and New London (1878)
The Lord Chamberlain, a supporter of O'Reilly, refused a performing licence to Taylor. The theatre opened on 26 March 1791 with a private performance of song and dance entertainment, but was not allowed to open to the public. The new theatre was heavily indebted and spanned separate plots of land that were leased to Taylor by four different owners on differing terms of revision. As a later manager of the theatre wrote, "In the history of property, there has probably been no parallel instance wherein the legal labyrinth has been so difficult to thread." Meetings were held at Carlton House and Bedford House attempting to reconcile the parties. On 24 August 1792 a General Opera Trust Deed was signed by the parties. The general management of the theatre was to be entrusted to a committee of noblemen, appointed by the Prince of Wales
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
, who would then appoint a general manager. Funds would be disbursed from the profits to compensate the creditors of both the King's Theatre and the Pantheon. The committee never met, and management devolved to Taylor.
William Taylor
The first public performance of opera in the new theatre took place on 26 January 1793, the dispute with the Lord Chamberlain over the licence having been settled. This theatre was, at that time, the largest in England, and it became the home of the Theatre Royal, Drury LaneTheatre 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,...
company while that company's home theatre was itself rebuilt between 1791–94.
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
gave a series of concerts, under the sponsorship of Johann Peter Salomon
Johann Peter Salomon
Johann Peter Salomon was a German violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario.-Life:...
, on his second visit to London in 1794–95. He presented his own symphonies, conducted by himself, and was paid £50 each for 20 concerts, including the première of the Military Symphony. He was feted in London and returned to Vienna in May 1795 with 12,000 florins.
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
in 1806, Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
and Die Zauberflöte
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
in 1811, and Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
in 1816. Between 1816 and 1818, John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
and George Repton made alterations to the façade and increased the capacity of the auditorium to 2,500. They also added a shopping arcade, called the Royal Opera Arcade, which has survived fires and renovations and still exists. It runs along the rear of the theatre. In 1818–20, the British premières of Gioachino Rossini's operas Il barbiere di Siviglia
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra
Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, is a dramma per musica or opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, from the play The Page of Leicester by Carlo Federici...
, L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
, La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
and Tancredi
Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...
took place, and the theatre became known as the Italian Opera House, Haymarket by the 1820s.
In 1797, he was elected as member of Parliament for Leominster
Leominster
Leominster is a market town in Herefordshire, England, located approximately north of the city of Hereford and south of Ludlow, at...
, a position that gave him immunity from his creditors. When that parliament dissolved in 1802, he fled to France. Later, he returned, and was member of Parliament for Barnstaple
Barnstaple (UK Parliament constituency)
Barnstaple was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Barnstaple in Devon, in the South West of England. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1885, when its representation was reduced to one member.The constituency...
from 1806 to 1812 while continuing his association with the theatre. Taylor paid little of the agreed receipts to performers, or composers, and lived for much of his period of management in the King's Bench
King's Bench Prison
The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, from medieval times until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were heard; as such, the prison was often used as a debtor's prison...
, a debtors' prison in Southwark
Southwark
Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...
. Here he maintained an apartment next to Lady Hamilton and lived in some luxury, entertaining lavishly.
John Ebers
John Ebers
John Ebers was an English operatic manager, notable for his promotion of Italian opera in London in the 1820s.-Early life:Ebers was the son of German parents, was born in London about 1785...
, a bookseller, took over the management of the theatre in 1821, and seven more London premieres of Rossini operas (La gazza ladra
La gazza ladra
La gazza ladra is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was by Giovanni Gherardini after La pie voleuse by JMT Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez....
, Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani...
, Mosè in Egitto
Mosè in Egitto
Mosè in Egitto is a three-act opera written by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on a play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride, of 1760....
, Otello
Otello (Rossini)
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....
, La donna del lago
La donna del lago
La donna del lago is an opera by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on The Lady of the Lake, a poem by Sir Walter Scott.This opera was the first to be based on Scott's romantic works...
, Matilde di Shabran
Matilde di Shabran
Matilde di Shabran , ossia Bellezza, e cuor di ferro , is a melodramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti after François-Benoît Hoffman’s libretto for Méhul’s Euphrosine and J. M. Boutet de Monvel's play Mathilde...
and Ricciardo e Zoraide
Ricciardo e Zoraide
Ricciardo e Zoraide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio de Salsa...
) took place there in the following three years. Ebers sublet the theatre to Giambattista Benelli in 1824, and Rossini was invited to conduct, remaining for a five-month season, with his wife Isabella Colbran
Isabella Colbran
Isabella Colbran was a Spanish opera singer, who was known in her native country as Isabel Colbrandt. Many sources note her as a dramatic coloratura soprano but, some believe that she was a mezzo-soprano with a high extension, a soprano sfogato...
performing. Two more of his operas, Zelmira
Zelmira
Zelmira is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, Zelmire by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas...
and Semiramide
Semiramide
Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini.The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon...
, received their British premières during the season, but the theatre sustained huge losses, and Benelli absconded without paying either the composer or the artists. Ebers engaged Giuditta Pasta
Giuditta Pasta
Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...
for the 1825 season, but he became involved in lawsuits which, combined with a large increase in the rent of the theatre, forced him into bankruptcy, after which he returned to his bookselling business.
Pierre François Laporte
In 1828, Ebers was succeeded as theatre manager by Pierre François Laporte, who held the position (with a brief gap in 1831–33) until his death in 1841. Two of Rossini's Paris operas (Le comte OryLe comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
and Le siège de Corinthe
Le siège de Corinthe
Le siège de Corinthe is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet, based on Maometto II by Cesare della Valle...
) had their British premières at the theatre during this period, and Laporte was also the first to introduce the operas of Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
(La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
, Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
and I puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
) and Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
(Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
and Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (opera)
Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...
) to the British public. Under Laporte, singers such as Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
, Pauline Viardot, Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast...
, 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 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:...
made their London stage debuts at the theatre. Among the musical directors of this period was Nicolas Bochsa, the celebrated and eccentric French harpist. He was appointed in 1827 and remained for six years at this position. When 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....
ascended the throne in 1837, the name of the theatre was changed to Her Majesty's Theatre, Italian Opera House. In the same year, Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps
Samuel Phelps was an English actor and theatre manager...
made his London début as Shylock
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.-In the play:In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh...
in The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
at the theatre, also playing in other Shakespearean plays here.
Over the course of the 1840s, Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
had five plays produced here: The Bastile [sic], an "after-piece" (1842), Old Heads and Young Hearts (1844), The School for Scheming (1847), Confidence (1848), and The Knight Arva (1848). In 1853, Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
's Colombe's Birthday played at the theatre.
In 1841, disputes arose over Laporte's decision to replace the baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini was an Italian operatic baritone.Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in La contessa di colle erbose . He went on to become one of the...
with a new singer, Colletti. The audience stormed the stage, and the performers formed a 'revolutionary conspiracy'.
Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley, opera manager and solicitor, was born Benjamin Levy, in 1811, the son of a Jewish merchant Louis Levy, and died 17 March 1875 in London.-Beginnings at His Majesty's Theatre:...
took over the management in 1842, introducing London audiences to Donizetti's late operas, Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
and La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
. Initially, relations between Lumley and Michael Costa
Michael Costa (conductor)
Sir Michael Andrew Angus Costa was an Italian-born conductor and composer who achieved success in England.-Biography:He was born in Naples as Michaele Andrea Agniello Costa, to a family, according to some, of Sephardic stock...
, the principal conductor at Her Majesty's were good. Verdi's Ernani
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
, Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
and I Lombardi received their British premières in 1845–46, and Lumley commissioned I masnadieri
I masnadieri
I masnadieri is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller....
from the composer. This opera received its world première on 22 July 1847, with the Swedish operatic diva Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
in the role of Amalia, and the British premières of two more Verdi operas, I due Foscari
I due Foscari
I due Foscari is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on a historical play, The Two Foscari by Lord Byron....
and Attila
Attila (opera)
Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the play Attila, König der Hunnen by Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner. Initially, Verdi had enlisted Francesco Maria Piave to prepare the libretto, after Verdi's own scenario...
, followed in 1847–48. Meanwhile, the performers had continued to feel neglected and the disputes continued. In 1847, Costa finally transferred his opera company to the Theatre Royal, 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...
, and the theatre relinquished the sobriquet, 'Italian Opera House', to assume its present title, Her Majesty's Theatre.
Lumley engaged Michael 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...
to lead the orchestra and entered negotiations with Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
for a new opera. Jenny Lind had made her English début on 4 May 1847 in the role of Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's Robert le Diable
Robert le diable (opera)
Robert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...
, in the presence of the Royal family and the composer Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. Such was the press of people around the theatre that many "arrived at last with dresses crushed and torn, and coats hanging in shreds, having suffered bruises and blows in the struggle". She performed for a number of acclaimed seasons at the theatre, interspersed with national tours, becoming known as the Swedish Nightingale. The secession of the orchestra to Covent Garden was a blow, and the theatre closed in 1852, re-opening in 1856, when a fire closed its rival. After the reopening, Lumley presented two more British premières of Verdi operas: La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
in 1856 and Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
in 1858.
Romantic ballet
The Romantic ballet is defined primarily by an era in ballet in which the ideas of Romanticism in art and literature influenced the creation of ballets. The era occurred during the early to mid 19th century primarily at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique of the Paris Opera Ballet and Her...
, in which the ballet company, known as the Ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre, was the most renowned troupe in Europe aside from the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. The great ballet master Jules Perrot
Jules Perrot
Jules-Joseph Perrot was a dancer and choreographer who later became Balletmaster of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia...
began staging ballet at the theatre in 1830. Lumley engaged him as Premier Maître de Ballet (chief choreographer) to the theatre in 1842. Among the works of ballet that he staged were Ondine, ou La Naïade (1843), La Esmeralda
La Esmeralda (ballet)
La Esmeralda is a ballet in 3 acts, 5 scenes, inspired by Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, originally choreographed by Jules Perrot; with music by Cesare Pugni and design by William Grieve , D. Sloman , Mme...
(1844), and Catarina, ou La Fille du Bandit
Catarina or La Fille du Bandit
Catarina or La Fille du Bandit is a ballet in 3 Acts-4 Scenes, with choreography by Jules Perrot, and music by Cesare Pugni. Libretto by Jules Perrot, based on an incident in the life of the Italian painter Salvatore Rosa....
(1846), as well as the celebrated divertissement
Divertissement
Divertissement is used, in a similar sense to the Italian 'divertimento', for a light piece of music for a small group of players, however the French term has additional meanings....
Pas de Quatre
Pas de Quatre
Pas de Quatre is a ballet divertissement choreographed by Jules Perrot in 1845, on the suggestion of Benjamin Lumley, Director at His Majestys Theatre to music composed by Cesare Pugni....
(1845). Other ballet masters created works for the ballet of Her Majesty's Theatre throughout the period of the romantic ballet, most notably Paul Taglioni (son of Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni
Filippo Taglioni was an Italian dancer and choreographer and personal teacher to his own daughter, the famous Romantic ballerina Marie Taglioni. He is the son of Carlo and father of both Marie and Paul...
), who staged ballets including Coralia, ou Le Chevalier inconstant (1847) and Electra (1849, the first production of a ballet to make use of electric lighting). Arthur Saint-Léon
Arthur Saint-Leon
Arthur Saint-Léon was the Maître de Ballet of St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet from 1859 until 1869 and is famous for creating the choreography of the ballet Coppélia.-Biography:...
staged such works as La Vivandière (1844), Le Violin du Diable (1849), and Le Jugement de Pâris (1850), which was considered a sequel of sorts to Pas de Quatre.
The Italian composer Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
was appointed Composer of the Ballet Music to the theatre in 1843, a position created for him by Lumley. From 1843 until 1850, and he composed nearly every new ballet presented at the theatre. Pugni remains the most prolific composer of the genre, having composed more than 100 original ballets, as well as composing numerous divertissements and incidental dances that were often performed as diversions during the intermissions of opera performances at the theatre. Throughout the era of the romantic ballet, the theatre presented performances by notable ballerina
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
s, including Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni
Marie Taglioni was a famous Italian/Swedish ballerina of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.-Biography:...
, Carlotta Grisi
Carlotta Grisi
Carlotta Grisi, real name Caronne Adele Josephine Marie Grisi was an Italian ballet dancer born in Visinada, Istria . She was trained at the ballet school of Teatro alla Scala in Milan and later with dancer/balletmaster Jules Perrot...
, Fanny Elssler
Fanny Elssler
Fanny Elssler - 27 November 1884), born Franziska Elßler, was an Austrian ballerina of the 'Romantic Period'.- Life :Daughter of Johann Florian Elssler, a second generation employee of Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt. Both Johann and his brother Josef were employed as copyists to the Prince's...
, Lucile Grahn
Lucile Grahn
Lucile Alexia Grahn was the first internationally renowned Danish ballerina and one of the popular dancers of the Romantic ballet era....
, and Fanny Cerrito
Fanny Cerrito
Fanny Cerrito, originally Francesca Cerrito , was an Italian ballet dancer and choreographer.Born in Naples, she studied under Carlo Blasis and the French choreographers Jules Perrot and Arthur Saint-Léon, to the latter of whom she was married from 1845–1851. Notable roles included Ondine and a...
, performing in the works of Perrot, Taglioni and Saint-Léon.
J. H. Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson was an English opera impresario, probably the leading figure instrumental in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York City in the second half of the 19th century.-Life and career:Mapleson was born in London, England...
, presenting Italian, French and German opera, including the British premières of La forza del destino
La forza del destino
La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...
, Médée
Médée (Cherubini)
Médée is a French language opéra-comique by Luigi Cherubini.The libretto by François-Benoît Hoffmann was based on Euripides' tragedy of Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée....
, Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
and The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....
, and promoting such singers as Mario, Giulia Grisi, 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:...
, Therese Tietjens, Antonio Giuglini
Antonio Giuglini
Antonio Giuglini was an Italian operatic tenor. During the last eight years of his life, before he developed signs of mental instability, he earned renown as one of the leading stars of the operatic scene in London...
, Charles Santley
Charles 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...
and Christine Nilsson. On the night of 6 December 1867, the theatre was destroyed by fire, thought to have been caused by an overheated stove. Only the bare walls of the theatre remained, and most of the adjacent shops in Pall Mall, and the Clergy Club hotel in Charles Street, suffered damage of varying severity. The Royal Opera Arcade, on the western side, survived with only superficial damage. With the destruction of the theatre, Mapleson took his company 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,...
.
By the 1850s, with the era of the romantic ballet at an end, the principal personalities of the ballet, such as Perrot, Saint-Léon, Taglioni, and the composer Pugni, joined the Tsar's
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
Imperial Ballet
Mariinsky Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies...
of St. Petersburg, Russia. Ballet in London went through a considerable decline beginning with the fire at Her Majesty's Theatre, a decline that lasted until the end of the 19th century. Ballet in London was not resurrected until the early 20th century, when such dancers as Adeline Genée
Adeline Genée
Dame Adeline Genée DBE was a Danish/British ballet dancer.-Early years:Anina Kirstina Margarete Petra Jensen was born in Århus, Denmark. Her uncle, Alexandre Genée, gave her dancing lessons from the age of three. When she was eight, Alexandre and his wife, the former Antonia Zimmerman, adopted her...
began performing. The theatre's ballet company found a new home at the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
and soon took on the name of the Vic-Wells Ballet. Later, relocating primarily to the Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
, the company became known as the Sadler's Wells Ballet. Eventually the troupe began performing at the Royal Opera House
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...
and became the Royal Ballet
Royal Ballet, London
The Royal Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the four major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois, it became the resident ballet...
, as it is known today.
Third theatre: 1868–1896
William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley
William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley , known as The Lord Ward from 1835 to 1860, was a British landowner and benefactor.-Background and education:...
. It was designed by Charles Lee and Sons and their partner, William Pain. They had taken over John Nash
John Nash (architect)
John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...
's practice on his retirement. The new theatre used materials such as concrete and ironwork to reduce the future risk of fire. The auditorium had four tiers, with a stage large enough for the greatest spectaculars. For opera, the theatre seated 1,890, and for plays, with the orchestra pit removed, 2,500. As a result of a dispute over the rent between Dudley and Mapleson, and a decline in the popularity of ballet, the theatre remained dark until 1874, when it was sold to a Revivalist Christian group for £31,000.
Mapleson returned to Her Majesty's in 1877 and 1878, after a disastrous attempt to build a 2,000-seat National Opera House on a site subsequently used for the building of Scotland Yard
Scotland 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...
. On the return of the company, all the fittings of the theatre had been removed, including the seats, carpets and even the wallpaper. £6,000 was spent on fitting out the theatre, and on 28 April 1877 the building returned to theatrical use with the opening of Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's opera Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
. The London première of Bizet'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...
occurred here on 22 June 1878, and in subsequent seasons the theatre hosted the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...
(Rosa's wife, Euphrosyne Parepa
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa was a British operatic soprano who established the Carl Rosa Opera Company together with second husband Carl Rosa...
, had made her name in opera partly at Her Majesty's) and a programme of French plays and light opera. The company was the first to produce Carmen in English, at the theatre in February 1879, starring 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...
in the title role and Durward Lely
Durward Lely
Durward Lely was a Scottish opera singer primarily known as the creator of five tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, including Nanki-Poo in The Mikado....
as Don José. In 1882, the theatre hosted the London premières of Wagner's Ring cycle.
Mapleson returned in 1887 and 1889, but The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
commented that the repertoire comprised "works that had long ceased to attract a large public, the singers were exclusively of second-rate quality, and the standard of performance was extremely low". Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, on 25 May 1889, was the last operatic performance given in the house.
Phipps' theatre: 1897–present
Crown Estate
In the United Kingdom, the Crown Estate is a property portfolio owned by the Crown. Although still belonging to the monarch and inherent with the accession of the throne, it is no longer the private property of the reigning monarch and cannot be sold by him/her, nor do the revenues from it belong...
) desired the entire block on which the theatre stood to be rebuilt, except for the Royal Arcade, where the lease did not expire until 1912. Problems were encountered in obtaining all the buildings and in financing the scheme, but the theatre and surrounding buildings were demolished in 1892. Plans were commissioned from architect Charles J. Phipps for a theatre and a hotel. In February 1896 an agreement was reached with Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
for the erection of the theatre at a cost of £55,000. The plans were approved in February 1897, and on 16 July 1896, the foundation stone of the new theatre was laid. Phipps died in 1897, and the theatre was his last work.
Architecture
Carlton Hotel, London
The Carlton Hotel, London was a luxury hotel that operated from 1899 to 1940. It was designed by the architect C. J. Phipps as part of a larger development that included the rebuilding of Her Majesty's Theatre, which is adjacent to the hotel site. The Carlton was originally run by the Swiss...
and restaurant on the adjacent site, now occupied by New Zealand House. The frontage formed three parts, each of nine bays. The hotel occupied two parts, the theatre one, and the two buildings were unified by a cornice above the ground floor. The buildings rose to four storeys, with attic floors above, surmounted by large squared domes in a style inspired by the French Renaissance
French Renaissance
French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...
. The theatre has a Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
colonnade at the first floor, rising to the second, forming a loggia in front of the circle foyer. This is above a canopy over the main ground floor entrances. The theatre lies on an east–west axis. The stage at the western end was 49 feet (14.9 m) deep and 69.5 feet (21.2 m) wide, and reputedly the first to be flat, rather than raked. The interior was designed by the consulting architect, W. H. Romaine-Walker
W. H. Romaine-Walker
William Henry Romaine-Walker was an English architect and interior decorator. From 1881 to 1896 he worked in partnership with Augustus William Tanner.-Works:These include:*Canford School, Canford Magna, Dorset, extended ....
(1854–1940), after the Opera at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
by Gabriel
Ange-Jacques Gabriel
Ange-Jacques Gabriel was the most prominent French architect of his generation.Born to a Parisian family of architects and initially trained by the royal architect Robert de Cotte and his father , whom he assisted in the creation of the Place Royale at Bordeaux , the younger Gabriel...
. Stalls and the pit were entered at ground level, with two partly cantilevered tiers above accommodating dress and family circles on the first level, and upper circle, amphitheatre and gallery on the tier above. In all, there were 1,319 seats. Contemporary opinion was critical of the project. Edwin Sachs wrote in his 1897 guide to theatres, "The treatment is considered to be in the French Renaissance style and stone has been used throughout. The detail cannot, however, be termed satisfactory, nor does the exterior architecturally express the purpose of the building."
Modern opinion of the theatre is more generous, with English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
describing the building as both Phipps' finest work and one of the best planned theatres in London. The building was Grade II* listed in January 1970. Appreciation of the buildings came too late to save the adjacent hotel from redevelopment as the new High Commission for New Zealand, completed in 1963 by British architects Robert Matthew
Robert Matthew
Sir Robert Hogg Matthew, OBE, FRIBA was a Scottish architect and a leading proponent of modernism.- Early life & studies :Robert Matthew was the son of John Matthew . He was born and brought up in Edinburgh, and attended the Edinburgh College of Art.- Career :Robert was apprenticed with his...
, Johnson Marshall and Partners, who also designed the Commonwealth Institute
Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute was an educational charity connected with the Commonwealth of Nations, and the name of a building in West London formerly owned by the Institute...
. In 1995, this too was Grade II listed as a fine example of 1960s architecture. The 200-year-old Royal Opera Arcade, built by Nash and Repton, is all that survives of the second theatre and is the earliest example of a London arcade.
Performance
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...
, and he owned, managed and lived in the theatre from its construction until his death in 1917. For his personal use, he had a banqueting hall and living room installed in the massive, central, square French-style dome. This building did not specialise in opera, although there were some operatic performances in its early years. The theatre opened with a dramatisation of Gilbert Parker
Gilbert Parker
Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet PC , known as Gilbert Parker, Canadian novelist and British politician, was born at Camden East, Addington, Ontario, the son of Captain J. Parker, R.A....
's The Seats of the Mighty. Adaptations of novels by Dickens, Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
, and others formed a significant part of the repertoire, along with classical works from Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
and Shakespeare. The theatre also hosted the world première of J. M. Synge's The Tinker's Wedding
The Tinker's Wedding
The Tinker's Wedding is a two-act play written by Irish playwright J. M. Synge. The author's only comedy, it is set on a roadside near a chapel in rural Ireland...
on 11 November 1909 and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of...
, with Tree as Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell
Mrs Patrick Campbell was a British stage actress.-Early life and marriages:Campbell was born Beatrice Stella Tanner in Kensington, London, to John Tanner and Maria Luigia Giovanna, daughter of Count Angelo Romanini...
as Eliza, in 1914. Tree's productions were known for their elaborate and spectacular scenery and effects, often including live animals and real grass. These remained both popular and profitable, but in his last decade, Tree's acting style was seen as increasingly outmoded, and many of his plays received bad reviews. Tree defended himself from critical censure, demonstrating his continuing popularity at the box office until his death.
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...
), which spent a year based in the theatre before moving in 1905 to Gower Street
Gower Street (London)
Gower Street is a street in Bloomsbury, Central London, England, running between Euston Road to the north and Montague Place to the south.North Gower Street is a separate street running north of the Euston Road...
in Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
. Tree continued to take graduates of the Academy into his company at His Majesty's, employing some 40 actors in this way by 1911.
The facilities of the theatre naturally lent themselves to the new genre of musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. Chu Chin Chow
Chu Chin Chow
Chu Chin Chow is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves...
opened in 1916 and ran for an astonishing world record 2,235 performances (almost twice as long as the previous record for musical theatre – a record that it held until surpassed by Salad Days in 1955). Major productions of plays with large casts were also performed at His Majesty's. George
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
's Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay!
Oh, Kay! is a musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse. It is based on the play La Presidente by Maurice Hanniquin and Pierre Veber. The plot revolves around the adventures of the Duke of Durham and his sister, Lady Kay, English...
had its London première on 21 September 1927. This starred Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence was an English actress, singer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End theatre district of London and on Broadway.-Early life:...
and John Kirby
John Kirby (musician)
John Kirby , was a jazz double-bassist who also played trombone and tuba.-Background:Kirby may have been born in Winchester, Virginia, although other sources say he was born in Baltimore, Maryland, orphaned, and adopted. Kirby hit New York at 17, but after his trombone got stolen, he switched to...
, and ran for 213 performances. Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
's operetta Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet
Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts written by Noël Coward and first produced in 1929 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. It ran for a very successful 967 performances....
enjoyed a run of 697 performances beginning 18 July 1929. J. B. Priestley
J. B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley, OM , known as J. B. Priestley, was an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster. He published 26 novels, notably The Good Companions , as well as numerous dramas such as An Inspector Calls...
's theatrical adaptation of his own The Good Companions
The Good Companions
The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley.Written in 1929 , it focuses on the trials and tribulations of a concert party in England between World War I and World War II. It is arguably Priestley's most famous novel, and the work which established him as a national figure...
premièred on 14 May 1931.
Musicals continued to dominate at the theatre in the post-World War II period, including transfers of the successful Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
productions Follow the Girls
Follow the Girls
Follow the Girls is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton, Eddie Davis and Fred Thompson and music and lyrics by Dan Shapiro, Milton Pascal, and Phil Charig....
(1945; 572 performances) and the Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe
Lerner and Loewe are the duo of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon....
musicals Brigadoon (1949; 685 performances) and Paint Your Wagon (1953; 478 performances). Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's West Side Story opened in December 1958 for a run of 1,039 performances, transferring from Broadway via the Manchester Opera House
Manchester Opera House
The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England is a 1,920 seater commercial touring theatre which plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is the sister to the Palace Theatre which is a similar venue in nearby Oxford Street at its junction with Whitworth...
. The London première of Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
was on 16 February 1967, starring Chaim Topol
Chaim Topol
Chaim Topol , often billed simply as Topol, is an Israeli theatrical and film performer, actor, writer and producer. He has been nominated for an Oscar and Tony Award, and has won two Golden Globes.-Early life:...
, and the production ran at Her Majesty's for 2,030 performances. Forty years after the original stage adaptation, André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
's musical adaptation of The Good Companions
The Good Companions
The Good Companions is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley.Written in 1929 , it focuses on the trials and tribulations of a concert party in England between World War I and World War II. It is arguably Priestley's most famous novel, and the work which established him as a national figure...
premièred on 11 July 1974, followed by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
and Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
's initially unsuccessful collaboration, Jeeves
By Jeeves
By Jeeves, originally Jeeves, is a 1975/1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn, based on the novels of P. G. Wodehouse....
, on 22 April 1975, which has since enjoyed considerable success.
John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
organised A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick)
A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick)
A Poke In The Eye is the title of the first show in what became the iconic Secret Policeman's Ball series of benefit shows for human rights organization Amnesty International...
as a benefit for Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
at the theatre in 1976, and it was broadcast as Pleasure at Her Majesty's
Pleasure At Her Majesty's
Pleasure At Her Majesty's was the name given to the filmed release of A Poke In The Eye , the first of the Amnesty International comedy benefit galas. The title is a play on the phrase at Her Majesty's pleasure...
. This was the first of The Secret Policeman's Balls
The Secret Policeman's Balls
The Secret Policeman's Balls is the collective name informally used to describe the long-running series of benefit shows staged in England to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International...
, organised by and starring such performers as Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
, Graham Chapman
Graham Chapman
Graham Arthur Chapman was a British comedian, physician, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.-Early life and education:...
, and Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Atkinson
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
. The venue was also the setting for the popular ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
variety series Live From Her Majesty's
Live From Her Majesty's
Live From Her Majesty's was a Sunday night live variety show which was produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network and ran from 1982 to 1988...
, which ran on television from 1982 to 1985. It was on this programme that Tommy Cooper
Tommy Cooper
Thomas Frederick "Tommy" Cooper was a very popular British prop comedian and magician from Caerphilly, Wales.Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle, and respected by traditional magicians...
collapsed and died on stage in 1984.
Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
had its world première on 9 October 1986 at the theatre, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Musical
Olivier Award for Best New Musical
The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical is an annual presentation by The Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial British musical theatre...
and featuring Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...
and Michael Crawford
Michael Crawford
Michael Crawford OBE is an English actor and singer. He has garnered great critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his career, which covers radio, television, film, and stagework on both London's West End and on Broadway in New York City...
, who won an Olivier award for his performance in the title role. The piece is still playing at Her Majesty's, celebrating its 25th anniversary in October 2011 and surpassing 10,000 performances in October 2010. It is the second longest-running West End musical in history (after Les Misérables
Les Misérables (musical)
Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
). In a sign of its continuing popularity, Phantom ranked second in a 2006 BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
listener poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals". The musical is also the longest-running show on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, was made into a film in 2004 and had been seen by over 130 million people in 145 cities in 27 countries and grossed more than £3.2bn ($5bn) by 2011, the most successful entertainment project in history.
Her Majesty's Theatre's "grand exterior" and "luxurious interior, with its three tiers of boxes and gold statuary around the stage", as well as French Renaissance design, "make it an ideal site for this Gothic tale" set at the Opéra Garnier. The original Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
stage machinery remains beneath the stage of the theatre. Designer Maria Björnson found a way to use it "to show the Phantom travelling across the lake as if floating on a sea of mist and fire", in a key scene from the musical. On 5 May 2008, for the first time in the run, the show closed for three days. This allowed the installation of an improved sound system at the theatre, consisting of over 6 miles (10 km) of cabling and the siting of 120 auditorium speakers.
The theatre's capacity is 1,216 seats on four levels. It is owned by Really Useful Group Theatres
Really Useful Group
The Really Useful Group Ltd. is an international company set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is involved in theatre, film, television, video and concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing...
, which purchased it in January 2000 with nine other London theatres formerly owned by the Stoll-Moss Group
Moss Empires
Moss Empires was a British company formed in Edinburgh from the merger of the theatre companies owned by Sir Edward Moss and Sir Oswald Stoll in 1898. This created the largest British chain of music halls...
. Between 1990 and 1993, renovation and improvements were made by the H.L.M. and C. G. Twelves partnership.
External links
- Her Majesty's Theatre official site from the Really Useful GroupReally Useful GroupThe Really Useful Group Ltd. is an international company set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is involved in theatre, film, television, video and concert productions, merchandising, magazine publishing, records and music publishing...
- Her Majesty's Theatre pages from Theatre Tickets Cheap.com
- Herbert Beerbohm Tree archive at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...