t h e r o s a t r o u p e
Alice Mary Barth
Alice Mary Barth
Alice Mary Barth, born in the Saint Pancras area of
London in 1848, studied music with the tenor Charles Manvers and following her
parents’ death about 1870 resolved to pursue a musical career. After further
study with Alberto Randegger and other teachers she achieved a national
reputation as a soprano appearing in burlesques, concerts, operetta, oratorio,
and a successful debut in English opera at the Crystal Palace in 1873. Marriage
in the following year brought a temporary halt to her career but she was back by
1878 with appearances at the Alexandra Palace and Her Majesty’s Theatre. Two
years later she assisted Sims Reeves in ballad opera and by the 1880s she was
directing her own opera troupe, appearing with touring companies and eventually
with the Rosa.
Her Rosa debut was as the Countess in Mozart’s Figaro at the Theatre
Royal, Manchester on 6 March 1888. She had been hastily borrowed from the rival
Arthur Rouseby company to replace an unwell Georgina Burns. She came to the
rescue again as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Glasgow and as Eily
O’Connor in Lily of Killarney at Bradford before joining the Carmen
company, a second Rosa company created in 1891 for the farewell tour of Marie
Roze. Alice sang Paquita in Carmen, the Countess in Daughter of the
Regiment and the title role in Maritana followed by a few
performances with the regular Rosa company. She departed in the spring of 1892
and sang for a time with the Burns-Crotty Opera Company.
Alice Barth as the Red Queen
Alice returned to the Rosa at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool, on 13 August 1894 as the nurse in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette and later appeared in the world premiere of Hamish McCunn’s Jeannie Deans and provincial performances of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. This ‘Fairy Opera’ as it was known was given the first British performance by the Rosa at Daly’s Theatre London on 26 December 1894. It was a phenomenal success, ran in London in various theatres until the summer of 1895 and was simultaneously successful in the provinces with Alice as the children’s mother, and sometimes as the witch. Her Rosa repertoire consisted of eleven roles in almost 150 performances with Hansel and Gretel totalling a third of them. She left the company in June 1895 with a final rescue act later in the year as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana at the Theatre Royal, Hanley, on 12 October.
She continued as a soloist and manager of concert and opera troupes focusing upon the London area from about 1900 before forsaking managerial responsibilities some six years later. The illustration, from one of her last stage appearances, shows her as the Red Queen in a musical adaption of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Alice was one of the versatile Victorian artists who embraced everything from opera to pantomime. They do not always make the reference books but they enriched contemporary musical life. She died at her home in London on 18 July 1910 and is buried at Highgate.
© 2020 John Ward
