THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Bernard Maher

Bernard Maher (1935-38)

[Born Dunkitt, County Waterford, Ireland, c.1910]

Bernard Maher was a tenor chorister with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from November 1935 to September 1938. He assumed the small part of First Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard in August 1936, and during the Company's 1936-37 American tour understudied Robert Wilson, going on on occasion as the Defendant in Trial by Jury, Leonard Meryll in Yeomen, and Francesco in The Gondoliers. Maher assumed Francesco as his own in August 1937, but by the time the new season began in September 1938, however, First Yeoman had been given to newcomer Leonard Osborn. Maher continued to play Francesco but left the Company later that month.

Maher remained in America, embarking on a new career as a concert singer and radio performer. Billed as Brian O'Mara, "celebrated Irish Tenor," he appeared on tour in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, before being inducted into the U. S. Army in 1942. He did keep his hand in Gilbert & Sullivan, however, appearing as Dick Dauntless in Ruddigore with the Savoy Opera Guild at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village in September 1941, using yet another nom de theatre, Bernard O'Brien.

Maher's military obligation ended in 1945 and that year sang on Broadway in a short-lived musical comedy Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston (New Century Theatre, September 1945). O'Mara spent some time in a veterans hospital later that year before returning to the concert stage in January 1946.

M Index  |  "Who Was Who" Homepage