{{Short description|English soprano and actress}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2023}} [[Image:Arabella Lane in Billee Taylor.jpg|right|frame|Burville as Arabella in ''Billee Taylor'']] '''Alice Julia Burville''' (11 July 1856 – 4 July 1944) was an English soprano and actress, best known for her performances in Gilbert and Sullivan operas and other operettas in the 1870s and 1880s.
Beginning her West End career by 1874, Burville played leading roles in a variety of operettas. She also toured in Britain and America, appearing there with Lydia Thompson's troupe in 1877. She performed frequently with Richard D'Oyly Carte's companies, joining his Comedy-Opera Company at the Opera Comique in 1878–79 where she played a role in a curtain raiser to ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', while covering the role of Josephine in that opera and playing the role occasionally. After another West End role, Burville toured America with Carte, finally playing Lady Angela in ''Patience'' with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the New York and then on tour in 1881–82. Over the next decade, she continued to star in operettas and pantomimes, primarily on tour in Britain.
==Life and career== Burville was born in Stepney, London.<ref name=stone>Stone, David. [https://www.gsarchive.net/whowaswho/B/BurvilleAlice.htm "Alice Burville"]. ''Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', accessed 19 June 2010.</ref> In August 1874 she appeared in Richard D'Oyly Carte's presentation of Gaston Serpette's operetta, ''La branche cassée'' at the Opera Comique.<ref>"Opera Comique", ''The Era'', 30 August 1874, p. 12</ref> Later that year, she made a success in ''Ten of 'Em'', by Franz von Suppé, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: "Miss Burville sings a charming song (which she gave with such freshness and effect as to secure an enthusiastic encore.)"<ref>"Public Amusements", ''Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper'', 6 December 1874, p. 5</ref> This was a curtain raiser for the pantomime ''Aladdin'', in which she also appeared.<ref>"Advertisements & Notices", ''The Era'', 20 December 1874, p. 8</ref> In 1875, she performed in other West End theatres in London as Princess Fleur d'amour in Hervé's ''Dagobert'' (1875)<ref>''The Era'', 29 August 1875, p. 4</ref> and in the title role in Lecocq's ''Fleur de Thé'' (1875).<ref>''The Era'', 3 October 1875, p. 8</ref>
In 1876, Carte transferred his production of ''The Duke's Daughter'', an adaptation of Léon Vasseur's ''La Timbale d'argent'', from the Royalty Theatre to the Globe Theatre, and engaged Burville to join a cast headed by Pauline Rita.<ref>''The Daily News'', 3 February 1876, p. 4</ref> In the same year, she appeared for the manager John Hollingshead in an Offenbach operetta, ''The Song of Fortunio''<ref>Gaiety Theatre, London programme, 25 March 1876</ref> and a burlesque, ''Young Rip Van Winkle''.<ref>"The Easter Amusements", ''The Era'', 23 April 1876, p. 12</ref> She then joined Rita on a tour of ''The Duke's Daughter'', managed and conducted by Carte.<ref>"Provincial Theatricals", ''The Era'', 16 July 1876, p. 6</ref> She next toured with Selina Dolaro, in Offenbach's ''The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein'' and ''The Rose of Auvergne'', and Lecocq's ''La fille de Madame Angot'',<ref>"Provincial Theatricals", ''The Era'', 29 October 1876, p. 6</ref> before finishing the year in pantomime in Birmingham.<ref>"Boxing-Day Amusements", ''Birmingham Daily Post'', 26 December 1876, p. 5</ref>
In 1877, Burville took over the role of Rosalinde in London's first ''Die Fledermaus'', by Johann Strauss II<ref>"Advertisements & Notices", ''The Era'', 1 April 1877, p. 16</ref> and ''Orphee aux Enfers'', both at the Alhambra Theatre.<ref name=stone/> She next toured in America with Lydia Thompson's troupe, appearing in Offenbach's ''Blue Beard'' and ''Robinson Crusoé'', as well as in ''Oxygen'' and ''Piff-Paff'', playing, respectively, Fatima, Polly Hopkins, Suzel and Joconde.<ref name=stone/><ref>"Provincial Theatricals", ''The Era'', 5 August 1877, p. 6</ref> She returned to London in January 1878, playing the title-rôle in a revival of Offenbach's ''Geneviève de Brabant'', presented by Carte in a double bill with Arthur Sullivan's ''Cox and Box''.<ref>"Advertisements & Notices", ''The Era'', 6 January 1878, p. 10; and "The London Theatres", ''The Era'', 27 January 1878, p. 12</ref> She followed this by playing the Duchess of Parthenay in Carte's production of Lecocq's ''Le Petit Duc'' in 1878.<ref>"Drama", ''The Daily News'', 29 April 1878, p. 2; and "The Little Duke", ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', 25 June 1878, p. 11</ref> At the end of June 1878, Burville joined Carte's Comedy-Opera Company at the Opera Comique playing Lady Viola in the curtain raiser ''The Spectre Knight'',<ref>''The Morning Post'', 31 July 1878, p. 4</ref> while singing in the chorus and covering the role of Josephine in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', playing that part periodically in 1878 and 1879.<ref>Rollins and Witts, p. 6</ref> In October 1879, she played Josephine on tour, after which she left the D'Oyly Carte company.<ref>Rollins and Witts, p. 31</ref>
Burville returned to Drury Lane as Clairette in Augustus Harris's production of ''La fille de Madame Angot'' in 1880.<ref>"The London Theatres", ''The Era'', 4 April 1880, p. 4</ref> In 1881, she played Arabella Lane with Carte's American ''Billee Taylor'' company<ref name=stone/> and then played Lady Angela in ''Patience'' with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the New York cast at the Standard Theatre and on tour in 1881–82.<ref>"The Drama in America", ''The Era'', 8 October 1881, p. 4</ref> In 1882, Burville returned to London to play Fiametta in Suppé's ''Boccaccio''.<ref>"The London Theatres", ''The Era'', 29 April 1882, p. 6</ref> After this engagement, she appeared primarily in the provinces, where she appeared in the title role of ''Merry Mignon'', composed by her husband, John Crook. The theatrical newspaper, ''The Era'', called her "the merriest, prettiest, and most vivacious of Merry Mignons".<ref>"Provincial Theatricals", ''The Era'', 28 July 1883, p. 9</ref> She starred in a new light opera, ''The Bachelors'' (1885),<ref>"The Bachelors", ''The Era'', 13 June 1885, p. 14</ref> and played in pantomimes, including ''Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, or Harlequin Jack the Giant Killer'' in London in 1887.<ref>"Boxing Night at the Theatres", ''The Daily News'', 27 December 1887, p. 2</ref> In 1892 she appeared in another of her husband's works, ''The Young Recruit'', presented on tour by Augustus Harris.<ref>"The Theatres", ''The Liverpool Mercury'', 22 March 1892, p. 5</ref> Her last known appearance was in ''Geneviève de Brabant'' in Leicester in December 1893.<ref>"Boxing Day in Leicester", ''Leicester Chronicle'', 30 December 1893, p. 6</ref>
Burville was married for a brief time, beginning in 1876, to W. H. Denny, and then to the conductor-composer John Francis Crook (1847–1922), a friend of Alfred Cellier's.<ref name=stone/> She survived Crook by more than two decades and died in Littlehampton, England, at age 87. Burville and Crook are buried in the West Norwood Cemetery.<ref>[http://www.fownc.org/newsletters/no45.shtml Friends of West Norwood Cemetery Newsletter] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927225224/http://www.fownc.org/newsletters/no45.shtml |date=27 September 2007 }}, No. 45, September 2002</ref>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== * {{Cite book|last=Rollins|first=Cyril|year=1962|author2=R. John Witts|title=The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas: A Record of Productions, 1875–1961|location=London|publisher=Michael Joseph}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927225054/http://www.fownc.org/newsletters/no50.shtml Friends of West Norwood Cemetery Newsletter], No. 50, May 2004 *[http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=142975&word= Images from the New York Public Library digital archive]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burville, Alice}} Category:1856 births Category:1944 deaths Category:English opera singers Category:English operatic sopranos Category:Women of the Victorian era Category:Burials at West Norwood Cemetery Category:19th-century English singers Category:19th-century English actresses