Rosina Brandram
[5] She recalled being taken to Italy by her parents and being introduced to Gaetano Nava, a singing teacher whose pupils had included Charles Santley.
She later said that at the time she had no thought of taking up singing as a career,[4] but she had, in the words of one obituarist, "a very thorough musical education in Italy and England".
[2][7] Brandram joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy Opera Company at the Opera Comique in 1877 as a chorus member and understudy to Mrs Howard Paul in the role of Lady Sangazure in the original production of The Sorcerer, performing the role briefly in December of that year.
[8] During the original production of Patience (1881–82), she was given the leading roles in two one-act companion pieces: Margery Daw in Uncle Samuel[14] and Mrs. Bowcher in Mock Turtles.
[16] Rutland Barrington wrote of her in his 1908 memoir, "I have never heard a contralto singer who gave me so much pleasure as Rosina; she sang without any effort, and her voice had a fullness and mellifluous quality which were unrivalled.
Brandram had no role in The Nautch Girl at the Savoy, but she appeared as Widow Jackson in the curtain-raiser, Captain Billy (1891–92).
[25] She then originated the roles of Lady Vernon in Sullivan's Haddon Hall (1892),[26] Miss Sims in Jane Annie (1893),[6] Lady Sophy in Utopia Limited (1893), the Marquise de Montigny in Mirette (1894),[6] and Inez de Roxas in The Chieftain (1894, touring in this role in 1895), during the run of which Sullivan composed a new "characteristically Spanish" song expressly for her.
In Gilbert and Sullivan's last opera, The Grand Duke (1896), she created the role of Baroness von Krakenfeldt, followed by another Katisha in 1896.
[31] She then created the role of Dancing Sunbeam in The Rose of Persia (1899–1900),[32] after which she appeared as Ruth and Lady Jane in revivals of Pirates (1900) and Patience (1900–01).
[9] Two original works by Edward German and Basil Hood followed, in which Brandram created the roles of Queen Elizabeth I in Merrie England (1902–03)[36] and Nell Reddish in A Princess of Kensington (1903).
Club celebrating the first London repertory season of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, at which she had been scheduled to speak, along with George Grossmith and Rutland Barrington.
[44] In his remarks on that occasion, W. S. Gilbert gave this tribute to Brandram: "Rosina of the glorious voice that rolled out as full-bodied Burgundy rolls down – Rosina whose dismal doom it was to represent undesirable old ladies of 65, but who, with all the resources of the perruquier and the make-up box, could never succeed in looking more than an attractive eight-and-twenty – it was her only failure.
