George Bentham (singer)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

George Bentham

George Bentham (9 December 1843 – 25 March 1911) was an English tenor best remembered today for creating the role of Alexis in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Sorcerer in 1877. As Giorgio Bentami he pursued a professional opera and concert career in Europe and Britain from 1868 to 1877. Alexis proved to be his last role.[1]

Early life

Bentham was born in

6th Dragoon Guards and the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot, among others, and his wife Emma Sophia (née Ikin). The family was well-connected and rich. Bentham gained a post in the War Office, and, being possessed of a fine tenor voice, by 1866 he became involved in amateur high society concerts, the first recorded being given by the Margate Volunteers at the local Assembly Rooms. Of his performance the local press wrote: "Rarely do concert-goers hear such a tenor as Mr Bentham ... his singing of 'The Message' was something superb."[1] A few weeks later at Torquay he sang in a concert given by "The Wandering Minstrels", then the leading gentlemen's amateur singing club in Britain. Among his other appearances with the group was one the same season at the West London School of Art.[1] Later the same year he appeared in a concert given by the Civil Service Musical Society at the Hanover Square Rooms in London, where a critic commented: "Besides possessing a voice to excite envy, Mr Bentham has real musical feeling and sings with expression as true as it is unaffected."[2]

Career

By 1868 Bentham, often performing as Signor Bentami, had become a professional singer in Europe and was appearing in

Il Trovatore and Rigoletto, where his performance of the former was described as "a great surprise … a soft, sonorous, sympathetic voice ... intonation as pure as the sound of a silver bell".[1] In October of that year, he was in Amsterdam, where English reports called him the "primo tenore in the opera of the city", and later that year he was a leading tenor at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm for ten weeks. He next appeared in Italy.[1]

George Bentham as Alexis (left) and Giulia Warwick as Aline in The Sorcerer (1878)

He returned to Britain and signed a three-year contract with

Her Majesty's Theatre. He soon sang Lionel in Martha.[1] He also appeared that year at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester[5] in violation of his Mapleson contract. On 8 September 1871 at All Saints Church in Kensington he married the 20 year-old mezzo-soprano Cecile Fernandez.[1]

Back with Mapleson, in

La Traviata, opposite Emma Howson. In early 1877, he sang in a starry concert party for Mapleson, earning warm reviews.[1]

In November 1877 Bentham was engaged by Richard D'Oyly Carte to create the role of Alexis in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Sorcerer, at the Opera Comique in London.[6] His singing on the opening night was hampered by a bad cold, but even after he had recovered, the critics found his performance disappointing, marked by wooden acting and pallid characterisation.[7] In March 1878, at Arthur Sullivan's request, he was asked to join Carte's touring company playing the opera in the British provinces;[8] George Power took over the role of Alexis in London.[6] Bentham played Alexis on tour until July 1878 when he left the company.[9][10]

Last years and death

Following this, at the age of 34, Bentham gave up his singing career. His wife and he apparently never reconciled and never divorced. She continued to perform as Madame Bentham-Fernandez, or Fernandez-Bentami, or under her maiden name, until at least 1913.[11] Bentham died, aged 67, a man of "independent means and no fixed abode", at the Strand Palace Hotel in 1911 from fatty degeneration of the heart leading to a sudden heart failure. Although he had the disease for some years, his death certificate reports that he had been ill "for a few minutes".[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gänzl, Kurt. "David Stone's Three Wishes: Number Two ... granted!", Kurt Gänzl's blog, 25 April 2018
  2. ^ "Civil Service Musical Society", The Musical World, 31 March 1866, p. 205
  3. The Glasgow Herald
    , 3 March 1871, p. 4
  4. ^ "Her Majesty's Opera", The Pall Mall Gazette, 27 March 1871, p. 11; "Her Majesty's Opera, Drury-Lane", The Era, 9 April 1871, p. 11; and "The Operas", The Pall Mall Gazette", 17 April 1871, p. 12
  5. ISBN 1135949859
  6. ^ a b Rollins and Witts, p. 5
  7. ^ Joseph, pp. 33–34
  8. ^ Young, pp. 110–111
  9. ^ Rollins and Witts, p. 29
  10. ^ Stone, David. George Bentham, Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 15 March 2010, accessed 28 April 2018
  11. ^ "Signora Guerrina Fabbri", The Pall Mall Gazette, 27 June 1913, p. 7

Sources

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Bentham_(singer)&oldid=1144445979"