t h e r o s a t r o u p e
Cora Stuart, Georgina Burns and Leslie Crotty
Cora Stuart, Georgina Burns, and Leslie Crotty were Rosa artists and also family: the ladies, both sopranos, were sisters and Crotty was married to Georgina. Cora was really Caroline Burns and both sisters were born in the Paddington area of London. Birth dates of prima donnas are frequently difficult to determine but Caroline was probably born in March 1857 and Georgina about August 1859. Their musical education cannot be readily charted but it may have developed within church choirs as their grandfather the Reverend Jabez Burns was a prominent nonconformist divine. They eventually attracted the attention of Carl Rosa. Caroline accepted an engagement for his first London season, took Cora Stuart as her stage name and used it throughout her career.
Cora made her first stage appearance in Maritana at an
Alexandra Palace
matinee on 18 September 1875 and added Martha and Bohemian Girl at
five
more Palace matinees. There was also one appearance at the
Princess’s Theatre as Leonora in a Trovatore extract.
Her
second London season of nine performances at Alexandra Palace and the
Lyceum was similar to the first with the addition of Donna Anna in Don
Giovanni. The third season introduced her to the provinces
and on the
10 October 1877, at Her Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen, she
created the role of Ann Page in the British English-language premiere
of Nicolai’s Merry
Wives of Windsor. She also sang the
Countess in Mozart’s Figaro
and added Lily of
Killarney and
Satanella
to her repertoire. Her last Rosa performance was as Diana in
Crown Diamonds
at the Liverpool Amphitheatre on 3 January 1878 leaving
a legacy of fifty-seven appearances in nine roles in three seasons. The
illustration dates from 1883. A long career followed embracing music
theatre, comedy, pantomime, and some years in America. She retired to
the city of Bath in the 1930s and died at Sheringham, Norfolk, on 6
January 1940. Brief wartime obituaries described her as ‘One
of the last remaining links with the Victorian theatre’. She
was.
Frederick Leslie Crotty,
born in Galway town about 1853, was
the son of
a clergyman and church choirs may also have been a musical influence.
He later sang as an amateur baritone whilst working in Dublin, studied
locally under Alessandro Cellini, and after assisting at a Rosa concert
in 1875 pursued advanced study under Teodulo Mabellini in Florence. He
made his Rosa debut at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre as Arnheim in
Bohemian Girl
on 14 August 1877, followed with a few local
performances, and then departed presumably for further study. Georgina
arrived four months later and made her debut as Ann Chute in
Benedict’s Lily
of Killarney at the Theatre Royal,
Nottingham, on 6 December 1877. They became colleagues during the
following season and sang together for the first time again in
Benedict’s opera at the Theatre Royal Bristol on 3 September
1878. Both illustrations date from this time.
Their careers and personal relationship blossomed; they married in 1882 and remained with the company for the next decade. They each acquired a repertoire of over thirty operas including world premieres. Crotty appeared in Nadeshda, Troubadour, Thorgrim, and Burns in Nordisa. Both took part in the Esmeralda premiere with Burns creating the title role and Crotty as the hunchback Quasimodo. They achieved over 3,200 Rosa performances before they departed in 1892 to form their own company.
The Burns-Crotty Opera Company had a brief trial run in the summer of 1891 followed by an 1892 tour featuring an English version of Rossini’s Cinderella. The illustration is a note from Georgina dated 17 November 1893 requesting seats for some friends.
The
bold signature on a company envelope suggests that all was well but
there were problems. The venture had begun well but if failed by 1895
with heavy financial loss. This may have been due to a lack of business
acumen but Georgina’s uncertain health may have contributed.
She had been unwell for a lengthy period during the last 1892 Rosa
season and her continuing health problems were eventually attributed to
ataxia, an incurable malady involving muscular coordination and
affecting speech and movement. The impecunious Crottys went their
separate ways from about 1896 with an alcoholic Leslie settling in
Newcastle as a music teacher. He died there on 18 April 1903 and was
buried at Saint Andrew’s Cemetery three days later. There
were public appeals on Georgina’s behalf and she managed to
sing at a few concerts but she was never able to resume her career and
remained in poor circumstances. Her health continued to deteriorate and
she entered the British Home for Incurables at Streatham in 1914 and
died there in 1932.
The vocal achievements of Georgina and Leslie during their Rosa years have now been largely forgotten but James Joyce in his story The Dead described her as ‘Poor Georgina Burns’. Indeed she was and perhaps Leslie Crotty merited a similar description.
© 2017 John Ward
