THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Janet Edmondson as Phyllis in Iolanthe

Janet Edmondson (1881-82)

[Born Binghamton, New York 5 Oct 1846]

Janet Edmondson's birth name was Janette Eldridge White. In June 1880 she was in London, a student of Albert Randeger, singing in concert at St. James's Hall. She returned to America and made her New York stage debut was in September 1880 in an unsuccessful "Musical Phalanx" at Brooklyn's Academy of Music. She later toured with Mahn's Comic Opera Company in Boccaccio and Donna Juanita, appearing in Boston and New York in May 1881.

Miss Edmondson joined D'Oyly Carte's New York cast of Patience at the Standard Theatre in October or November 1881 replacing Alice Burville as the Lady Angela. Still later in the run (February or March 1882), Miss Edmondson replaced Carrie Burton in the title role. When the opera closed on March 23, 1882, Miss Edmondson's association with D'Oyly Carte ended, but not her career in Gilbert & Sullivan.

She was engaged by Collier's Standard Opera Company for the inaugural production at the Bijou Theatre, Boston, where she played Phyllis in a Carte-authorized Iolanthe (December 1882-April 1883). Subsequent appearances at the Bijou included The Sorcerer (as Aline, June 1883), H.M.S. Pinafore (as Josephine, October 1883), and Iolanthe again (as Phyllis, November-December 1883), as well as several works by other writers and composers.

In 1885 she formed her own company and played the Crystal Opera House, and later the Theatre Royal, in Montreal for the summer. She shortly returned To Boston, playing in concerts and the occasional opera in New England until 1889. After her performing career, she did some vocal and language teaching, and directing amateur productions, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and (after 1905) in Berkeley, California, where she and her charges took on The Grand Duke.

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