by Geri Laudati
A particularly strong thread reflected in the Tams/Witmark-Wisconsin Collection is that of the English opera troupes who brought English opera and “Englished opera” to the American stage in the nineteenth century.
Operas were performed in a casual manner, cut, adapted, and modified without a thought. This was partially due to the limitations of American theatrical stock companies. English opera depended on visiting British soloists singing with American theatrical companies. It was also in part a catering to taste and the intention to entertain. Songs would be inserted, others cut. Often, two adapted operas would be given in the same evening.
The remarkable collection of Anne Childe Seguin, the earliest of the English vocal star/opera troupe singers to make a permanent home and career in America, is among the materials in Arthur Tams’ Music Library. Its promptbooks especially track the development of the touring English opera troupes through the 1870s.
When the opera Amilie, by William Michael Rooke (1794–1847), made its premiere in London in 1837, it featured Jane Shirreff and John Wilson in leading roles. The London press praised it, with one reviewer pronouncing it “one of the most successful works that has been produced since the young days of Mr. Bishop.” James Wallack went to London to recruit singers for the 1838–39 season at the National Theatre in New York and contracted Shirreff and Wilson, as well as the Covent Garden bass, Edward Seguin (1809–1852). Seguin brought along his wife Anne.
Soprano Anne Childe (1809?–1888) studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she met Edward Seguin. The two performed on London stages before coming to America. When Jane Shirreff fell seriously ill in February 1839, Anne Seguin made her North American debut as Shirreff’s replacement in the role of Rosina in the National Theatre’s production of Bishop’s Barber of Seville. Anne Seguin continued to perform with the troupe for the duration of the tour.
The singers' operatic and concert performances during the 1838–39 and 1839–40 seasons created a musical furor and the group became great American favorites. In addition to appearances at the National Theater, the vocal stars undertook two major concert tours, which took them as far north as Quebec, west to Detroit, and south to Savannah, with performances at every major center along the way.
Shirreff and Wilson returned to England at the end of 1840 but the Seguins remained and began their own touring troupe, first as vocal stars, and then accompanied by other singers. From 1840 through 1850, Anne and Edward Seguin dominated the performance of opera in English in the United States.
Anne contributed much to the direction of the Seguin Opera Troupe. Her activities included organizing new productions, mediating disputes among performers, and often, directing rehearsals during the day before performing demanding singing roles in the evening. Her most famous role was that of Arline in the Bohemian Girl.
The Seguins were responsible for a great number of North American premieres--Balfe's Bohemian Girl, Donizetti's Don Pasquale (9 March 1846, New York); Wallace's Maritana (9 November 1846, Philadelphia); Mercadante's The Bravo (2 October 1849, Philadelphia); and Balfe's The Enchantress (26 March 1849 , New York). In addition, they gave the first American performances in English of other operas that had already performed here in their original languages, namely Adam's Le Brasseur de Preston (1846); Donizetti's Anna Boleyn (1844); Bellini's I Puritani (1845); and Lacy's Israelites in Egypt (1842).
The Seguins also premiered three operas by American composers: C. E. Horn’s The Maid of Saxony (23 May 1842, New York); C. Jarvis’s Luli (16 December 1846, Philadelphia); and William Fry’s Leonora, generally considered to be the first performed grand opera written by an American composer (4 June 1845, Philadelphia). The title role of Leonora was written for Anne.
In the late 1840s, the couple's popularity waned as the taste for Italian opera grew. After the death of Edward from tuberculosis in 1852, Anne Seguin retired from the stage to teach voice in New York. It is apparent from the dates and titles of libretti and promptbooks which bear her signature that she also continued to participate in some way in the productions of English opera in America until her death in 1888.
Anne's son Edward (1837–1879) continued the tradition, appearing first with the Caroline Richings English Opera Troupe, then touring with the Eusephrone Parepa-Rosa Troupe (Madame Parepa-Rosa was also a Seguin), the Hess Grand Opera Company, which later included soprano Clara Kellogg, and the Emma Abbott [the "people's prima donna"] English Opera Company. Edward married soprano Zelda Seguin and the two performed together until shortly before his death in 1879. Among their premieres were Fry's Notre Dame de Paris (4 May 1864, Philadelphia), and English translations of Masse's Paul and Virginia (6 February 1879, New Orleans) and Bizet's Carmen (21 February 1880, New Orleans). Zelda premiered Calixa Lavalee's The Widow (8 May 1882, Boston). Promptbooks, often annotated, for these and countless other titles, are present in Anne's collection.
Exactly how Anne Seguin's collection came into Arthur Tams’ possession is not immediately ascertainable, but Tams knew the Seguins at least through his performances with Caroline Richings’ Company and as stage manager of the Emma Abbott Company. Tams began his rental library in 1886 and it is possible that Anne, who died in 1888, willed her collection to him. Research in the Warshaw Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, which includes the business records of Arthur Tams, may reveal this information and is underway.
Materials from the Tams Witmark/Wisconsin Collection, comprised of the libraries of Arthur Tams and Isidore Witmark, are accessible to scholars and other interested parties. Inquiries should be addressed to Geri Laudati.
