Lyric Opera Company

The Lyric Opera Company was a professional opera company, led by messrs Arturo Bonamici and Edgar Perkins.

Also known simply as The Lyric Company.

It was apparently a large company, and its members of the company included Miss Leonara Braham (from the London Savoy Theatre) and Grant Fallowes, and it appears in 1894-5 also Ancarina Massimimi. The company toured South Africa in 1893-5, giving performances of excellent standard.

They performed the opera Dorothy (Stephenson and Cellier) at the opening of the Cape Town Opera House, 31 August 1893, and would over their period in the country put on such standard operatic works as Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), La Favorita (Donizetti), Cavalleria Rusticana (Rossini), The Barber of Seville (Beaumarchais/Rossini), Carmen (Bizet), Rigoletto (Verdi), La Gioconda (Ponchielli) and Ernani (Verdi).

Other works performed by them included La Cigale (Meilhac and Halevy), The Old Guard (Boucicault)., La Mascotte (Audran, Duru and Chivot ), Maritana (), Haddon Hall (Grundy and Sullivan), Rip van Winkle, Iolanthe, The Mikado and Princess Ida.

Sources

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.203-205

Jill Fletcher. 1994. The Story of Theatre in South Africa: A Guide to its History from 1780-1930. Cape Town: Vlaeberg

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