Thomas Quinlan (impresario)

The witnesses were Gertrude Browning and the pianist Angelo Fronani, who married the opera singer Zélie de Lussan in 1907.

Between mid-February and New Year's Eve, Sir Thomas Beecham either conducted or was responsible as impresario for 190 performances at Covent Garden Opera House and His Majesty's Theatre.

Six evening and one or two matinee performances were given weekly in thirteen cities during the autumn segment (Blackpool, Belfast, Dublin, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Brighton) with fourteen more after Christmas (Swansea, Fulham, Bournemouth, Dublin, Southampton, Leicester, Wolverhampton, Hull, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth, and Portsmouth).

Fitzgerald in an interview in The Lone Hand in Sydney, had never had the chance of hearing grand opera on the same scale as Covent Garden.

The company rehearsed in London for five months before touring the provinces, (opening in Liverpool, where the results exceeded Quinlan's expectations), making a visit to Ireland with performances at the Theatre Royal Dublin from 26 December 1911 to 9 January 1912, and then setting off for Australia for the 1912 season.

Quinlan pointed out that she concentrated on a harmoniously blended colour scheme, eschewing extraneous spangles and similar gewgaws.

Quinlan claimed the largest scenic studio in England and said that a great deal of research had been done on the historical accuracy of stage accessories.

But attendance was poor, and the company decided to cut its losses and terminate its visit to Canada, even though performances had already been announced for Toronto.

Problems in New Zealand and Canada interfered with his plan of performing nine Ring cycles around the world in the space of six months, a feat he had been confident would "be mentioned with bated breath in European art circles", and the enterprise proved ruinous.

Quinlan estimated that it "cost £150,000 a year to run grand opera round the world", and with disruptions to the schedule, the incomings were not enough to balance this figure.

But the outbreak of World War I put paid finally to the possibility of Quinlan's plan to bring another company to Australia in 1915.

[9] The 1919–1920 season of Quinlan Subscription Concerts included performances in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh by the Halle Orchestra conducted by Hamilton Harty, with Arthur De Greef (piano) [25 October 1919], and by the Sir Thomas Beecham Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates (musician) with various soloists [20 February 1920].

[10][11][12] In 1922 Quinlan, in association with E. J. Carroll, arranged a tour of Australia by the Sistine Chapel Choir, which turned out to be a financial failure.