Rudolph Lewis (bass-baritone)

Rudolph Lewis (c. 1844 – 21 November 1917) was a bass-baritone known for creating several small roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas including Go-To in The Mikado (1885) and Old Adam Goodheart in Ruddigore (1887).

In 1884, at the age of 40, he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with which he performed steadily for the next decade at the Savoy Theatre.

The other roles he created during this period included the Tinker in Merrie England and Jem Johnson in A Princess of Kensington both in London and on tour.

[5] By October 1884, at the age of 40, he was performing at the Savoy Theatre in the chorus of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer and Trial by Jury.

In March of the following year he originated the small role of Go-To in The Mikado,[10] which was created because the baritone voice of Frederick Bovill, who played Pish-Tush, was not deep enough to bring out the bass line in the madrigal "Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day".

In Ruddygore, Sir Arthur had engaged a man to play the servant [Old Adam] ... who had an enormous bass voice, and who had to go down to the lower E flat.

In June 1887 with Grossmith and other D'Oyly Carte colleagues, he appeared as the Usher in the benefit performance of Trial by Jury for Amy Roselle at the Lyceum Theatre.

He then toured the British provinces in Edwardian musical comedies, playing the Vizier in Morocco Bound (1894–95), Moran in Robbery Under Arms (1895), John Brown in The Shop Girl (1896), in Skipped by the Light of the Moon (1897), John Mayfield in Kitty (1897) and Donald in Little Miss Nobody (1899).

[5] He appeared in the musical The Talk of the Town (1905) by Seymour Hicks at the Lyric Theatre[22][23] and played in the June 1906 matinee performance of Trial by Jury to benefit of Ellen Terry, alongside W. S. Gilbert and many of his old D'Oyly Carte colleagues, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

He was credited as an "attendant" in The Golden Doom at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1912, and in 1914 was touring in a George Edwardes production, The Marriage Market.