Jessie Bond
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Jessie Bond (January 10, 1853–June 17, 1942) was an English singer and actress best known for creating most of the mezzo-soprano soubrette roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.
She was the sister of Neva Bond, a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company chorister for approximately twelve years, from 1880 to 1891, who created the role of Isabel in the London production of The Pirates of Penzance.
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[edit] Life and career
[edit] Beginnings
Jessie Charlotte Bond was born in Camden Town, London, the daughter of a pianomaker. Her family moved to Liverpool, where she grew up. At the age of eight, she played a Beethoven piano sonata in concert, but soon turned to singing. She made her concert debut at age sixteen in Liverpool and soon became the leading contralto soloist at St. Peter's Catholic church in the same city. Subsequently, she moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. Richard D'Oyly Carte first heard her at St. George's Hall and suggested concert engagements for her.
In May 1878, she made her first appearance on the dramatic stage, creating the role of Cousin Hebe in W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. The role had been written for another performer, Mrs. Howard Paul. But Gilbert and Sullivan were unhappy with Mrs. Paul's vocal abilities, and they decided to split the part in two, with the young Jessie Bond being brought in to sing most of the concerted passages. Mrs. Paul was not pleased to share her role with the then-unknown Bond, and eventually she departed the cast altogether, leaving Bond with the part to herself. At this stage of her career, Bond was not comfortable with spoken dialogue, and so her character was written out, or given nothing to say, in several scenes. After opening night, however, a portion of recitative was converted to spoken dialogue, and Bond would have dialogue in all of the remaining roles that she created.
In December 1878, Bond created the part of Maria in After All!, composed by Alfred Cellier, when that companion piece was added to the bill with Pinafore. In late 1879, Bond traveled to America with Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte to give American audiences their first opportunity to see the authentic H.M.S. Pinafore, rather than the pirated versions that had sprung up in American theatres. While in New York, she created the role of Edith in Gilbert and Sullivan's next opera, The Pirates of Penzance.
Just before the American tour, Bond had developed an abcess in her leg. This never fully healed and would be with her throughout her stage career. In her autobiography, she wrote:
- The abscess in my ankle was painful and persistent.... Owing to faulty treatment and want of rest my ankle became perfectly stiff, as it is to this day. Of course, I said as little as possible about it, for even partial lameness would spoil my chances on the stage. I doubt if the management ever knew; the public certainly didn't; and those who saw me dancing and capering light-heartedly about the stage for twenty years little thought under what difficulties I did it, and the pain I often suffered. [citation needed]
In fact, the management most likely did know about Bond's abscess, since Sullivan's diary records that both he and Gilbert visited her during her temporary incapacity, but they may not have realized that it never healed satisfactorily.
[edit] Principal soubrette
Back in London, Bond continued to play Edith until Pirates ran its course in April 1881. This was followed by a string of roles of increasing importance: Lady Angela in Patience (1881–1882), Iolanthe in Iolanthe (1882–1884), and Melissa in Princess Ida (1884). Bond played the role of Constance in the first revival of The Sorcerer (1884–1885). The role had originally written for a soprano, and some of the music was transposed down to suit Bond's lower range and tessitura. Bond then created Pitti-Sing in The Mikado (1885–1887) and Mad Margaret in Ruddygore (1887), and then appeared in the first revivals of H.M.S. Pinafore (1887–1888), Pirates (1888), and The Mikado (1888) recreating her earlier roles.
Sometimes, inspiration for plot points in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was provided by characteristics of the performers themselves. For instance, Gilbert noted in an interview that the fact that the female singers to be engaged for The Mikado, Leonora Braham, Bond, and Sybil Grey, were all of the same short stature inspired him to make them schoolgirls—three "little" maids—and to treat them as a closely-linked trio throughout the work as much as possible. Bond, however, knew how to stand out. During preparations for The Mikado, she prevailed upon the costumier to make the obi of her costume twice as big as that of the other "little maids". Jacobs quotes her as saying, "I made the most of my big, big bow, turning my back to the audience whenever I got a chance and waggling it. The gallery was delighted, but I nearly got the sack for that prank. However, I did get noticed, which was what I wanted."
In each of the new Gilbert and Sullivan operas, Bond's roles grew larger and more challenging, until with Mad Margaret, Phœbe Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard (1888–1889) and Tessa in The Gondoliers (1889–1891), Bond's role was at least as important as any other female role. She developed an enthusiastic following among the audiences at the Savoy Theatre and a close relationship with Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte.
[edit] Last years on stage
By the time The Gondoliers was in preparation, Gilbert felt that his regular principal cast members were becoming too demanding and that the precision and style of D'Oyly Carte productions could be maintained only if there were no "stars". He endeavored to make the nine leading roles as co-equal as he could. This appears to have been generally successful, but Bond declined to appear unless her salary was raised from twenty pounds to thirty pounds a week. Gilbert resisted the raise, but Sullivan and Carte supported her. At rehearsal after this incident, Gilbert never spoke directly to her and sometimes said as she entered the room, "Make way for the High-Salaried Artiste!" (Bond, Chapter 9)[1] However, Gilbert and Bond's friendship was soon renewed, and she writes more warmly of him than of Sullivan in her biography.
After The Gondoliers closed, Gilbert and Sullivan were estranged for a time, and Carte hired Bond to play Chinna-Loofa in Dance, Desprez, and Solomon's The Nautch Girl (1891). She left the D'Oyly Carte in August 1891, along with Rutland Barrington, and took a series of "musical duologues" on a provincial tour. They returned to the Savoy in November, but Bond left the D'Oyly Carte organisation at the end of The Nautch Girl's run in January 1892.
Over the next several years she had several engagements in London theatres, the longest of which were as Helen Tapeleigh in Go-Bang (1894) and Nanna in Gilbert and F. Osmond Carr's His Excellency (1894–1895). She returned to the Savoy to play Pitti-Sing in the revivals of The Mikado that ran off and on from November 1895 to February 1897. When the revivals were over, Bond left the stage, although she later made some guest appearances in gala concerts. She married Lewis Ransome. Gilbert later wrote to her "The Savoy is not the same without you." (Ayre, p. 51)
[edit] Later life
Bond's life as a performer in the theatre ended at age 44, although in 1912, and for some years onward, she played a significant role in developing the career of Donald Wolfit, whom she first saw perform when he was ten. Her first action on his behalf was to advise his concerned parents not to try to prevent him from pursuing a career on the stage.
In the 1920s, Bond wrote several articles about her memories of Gilbert and Sullivan and her years with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for The Strand Magazine and The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal. Her autobiography, The Life and Reminiscences of Jessie Bond, the Old Savoyard was published in 1930. In that book, she expressed great admiration for Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte, and decried that performers in the "modern" era had departed from the standards they had established.
In her later years, Bond entertained wounded soldiers and sailors at a south coast veterans' home. She died, aged 89, in Worthing, Sussex.
[edit] References
- Bond, Jessie (1930). The Life and Reminiscences of Jessie Bond, the Old Savoyard (as told to Ethel MacGeorge). London: John Lane, The Bodley Head.
- Jacobs, Arthur (1992). Arthur Sullivan – A Victorian Musican, Second Edition, Portland, OR: Amadeus Press.
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
- Ernill, Paul. "Jessie Bond? Glimpses Anew". W. S. Gilbert Society Journal (Spring 1999).
- Walters, Michael. "Jessie Bond and and English Light Opera of her Time". The Gaiety (Summer 2005). (pp. 29-40)
[edit] External links
- Jessie Bond at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte
- Review of Jessie Bond's career from 1885
- Photographs of Bond
- Jessie Bond's book
