THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Wallace Macrery as Prince Hilarion in Princess Ida

Wallace Macrery (1880-81)

[Died near Weehawken, New Jersey 11 May 1905]

Tenor Wallace Macrery (or Macreery) was engaged by D'Oyly Carte to appear as Frederic with his Second American Pirates Company in Philadelphia from February 9 to April 10, 1880. He then transferred to the Fourth Pirates Company in the same part for a few weeks before joining Carte's First Pirates Company on tour in May, taking over as Frederic until June 19, 1880, when the Company gave its last performance in Chicago. He continued to play Frederic for two weeks in July at the gala opening of Halleck's Alhambra in Boston (a non-D'Oyly Carte but authorized production). In September 1880, D'Oyly Carte launched another touring Pirates Company, again with Macrery as Frederic. He toured the eastern United States for Carte as Frederic until January 1881.

Macrery had earlier appeared as Ralph Rackstraw with the Standard Opera Company in a tour of New England beginning in April 1879, and then as Captain Corcoran (!) when the Company returned to New York and the Standard Theatre in October-November 1879.

Macrery had a comic opera career that extended into the 1890s. His later Gilbert & Sullivan roles in New York included Frederic in an 1882 revival of Pirates, Prince Hilarion in the original New York production of Princess Ida (1884, produced by John Stetson and sanctioned by D'Oyly Carte), and Captain Corcoran (in Pinafore) with a small touring company in Atlanta (1894).

Macrery's life was plagued by alcoholism, as press accounts of his perfomances frequently revealed. He died in the Hudson River--a suicide by drowning in 1905.

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