Selina Dolaro
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Selina Dolaro (August 20, 1849-January 23, 1889) was an English actor, singer, theater manager, and writer.
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[edit] Life and career
A native of London, Dolaro made her stage debut at the Lyceum, in the role of the Spanish princess, Galsuinda, in Hervé's operetta Chilperic in 1870. Successes at various theaters around town followed, and by March of 1875 she was director of the Royalty Theatre, where her father, Benjamin Simmonds, served as music director, and at which venue she was starring in Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. As a companion piece to the latter, her new theater manager, Richard D'Oyly Carte, commissioned Trial by Jury from the creative team of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.
Curiously, in late January 1875, the The Times ran advertisements for the Royalty Theatre: "In preparation, a new comic opera composed expressly for this theatre by Mr. Arthur Sullivan, in which Madame Dolaro and Nelly Bromley will appear." Reginald Allen (Allen, p. 28) and other writers took this as an advertisement for Trial by Jury. However, the advertisement does not mention a librettist, a peculiar omission if it was to have been W. S. Gilbert, who was at that point better known to London theatregoers than Sullivan. Moreover, Trial has no place for two principal ladies, whereas Sullivan's The Zoo does. The Zoo did eventually play at the Royalty in 1879. In any event, however, Bromley played the sole female principal role of the Plaintiff in Trial, and neither lady later appeared in The Zoo.
Dolaro took her Madame Selina Dolaro's Comic Opera Co. on tour between 13 June and 10 October 1875, when the theater was closed. Upon their return, Charles Morton became manager. Dolaro returned to the position in January of 1876 when, again working with Carte, she played Malvina in The Duke's Daughter. Dolaro continued to perform both in London and on tour, appearing at the Alhambra Theatre in 1877. In 1879 she worked at the Folly, which she also managed for the time.
Dolaro traveled to the United States that fall, appearing in October at the Academy of Music in New York City in the title role of Bizet's Carmen. Finding her voice too small for grand opera, she joined a touring comic opera troupe before returning to London. In 1880 she appeared again at the Globe, as Cerisette in Farnie & Genee's The Naval Cadets. Soon thereafter she returned to New York, where she spent the next few seasons working in comic opera. Here, too, she worked with Carte, appearing as Girola in Bucalossi's Les Manteaux Noirs and Katrina in Robert Planquette's Rip van Winkle in 1882 at the Standard Theater.
Dolaro's last part was Minnie Marden in an adaptation of Victorien Sardou's Agnes in 1886. Her health soon began to decline, and her last appearance in New York was as a "super" in a benefit production of Hamlet for Lester Wallack, played at Daly's in May of 1888.
The actress died of a stroke in New York City in January 1889 at the age of 49.
[edit] Publications
Dolaro's play, In the Fashion (later known only as Fashion), ran in New York between 1887 and 1888. Her Mes amours: Poems, Passionate and Playful, was published in 1888.
Dolaro was also a novelist, and her novels included
- The Princess Daphne, Belford, Clarke & Co. (U.S.), 1888 (Edward Heron-Allen with Selina Dolaro -- a tale of psychic vampirism, it is a story of mesmerism, doppelgangers and metapsychosis).
- Bella Demonia, Belford, Clarke & Co. (U.S.), [c.1889] (ghost written for Selina Dolaro by Heron-Allen -- an historical novel concerning the Ru so-Turkish War of 1877-78), which was published shortly after her death by Lipincott's Magazine
- The Vengeance of Maurice Denalguez, Belford, Clarke & Co. (U.S.), [c.1889] (ghost written for Selina Dolaro by Heron-Allen)
[edit] Reference
- Allen, Reginald (1975). The First Night Gilbert and Sullivan. London: Chappell & Co. Ltd.
