THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Bates Maddison (1892-93)

Tenor Robert Bates Maddison began his brief D'Oyly Carte career on tour as Colonel Fairfax in The Yeomen of the Guard and Reverend Henry Sandford in The Vicar of Bray with D'Oyly Carte Opera Company "B" from July to December 1892. Maddison then transferred to the main Company at the Savoy where he appeared for a time as John Manners in Haddon Hall (January-February 1893) and Horace Alexander de Vere in the Greenbank & Ford curtain raiser Mr. Jericho (March-April 1893).

Maddison seems to have left the D'Oyly Carte shortly thereafter. He was at the Lyceum, London, in May 1893 in a single matinee performance of Gounod's Faust, in which he played the title role. The following year he gave another single performance as Don Jose in Carmen (Drury Lane, May 1894).

Maddison was married to ex-D'Oyly Carte contralto Waldeck Hall. He bought the Shrewsbury Theatre in 1914 and became Mayor of Shrewsbury in 1923.

M Index  |  "Who Was Who" Homepage