Winfield Blake
Winfield Blake (July 4, 1868 – April 12, 1932) was an American actor, comedian, bass, lyricist, playwright, theatre director and producer, talent manager, and costume designer.
His work then branched out into burlesque and musical theatre performances in Chicago, Washington D.C., and St. Louis before joining the comic opera troupe of Jefferson De Angelis.
With that company he created leading roles in three original light operas by composer Julian Edwards: The Wedding Day, The Jolly Musketeer, and The Princess Chic.
During this period he simultaneously became a prominent national advocate for the creation of American music conservatories, opera companies, and orchestras at a time when these kinds of institutions were rare in the United States.
He played an instrumental role in the founding of The American Patriotic Music League in 1897, and worked as that organization's secretary in its offices at Carnegie Hall when not touring.
Blake also worked as a theatrical director and producer and costume designer in San Francisco, and was a performing member of the Bohemian Club.
[9] He performed in a concert at San Francisco's Irving Hall in January 1890,[10] singing Cassius Clement Stearns's The Parish Sexton and Gustav Graben-Hoffmann's duet "I Feel Thy Blissful Presence" ("Ich fuhle deinen odem"; Op.
[15] He was one of a small group of professional singers hired for a semi-professional production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience in Los Angeles, performing the role of Colonel Calverley in March 1894.
[12][16] In April 1894 he was the bass soloist in Handel's Messiah with the Los Angeles Oratorio Society under conductor F. A. Bacon, a professor at the USC Thornton School of Music.
Pinafore (as Dick Deadeye),[22] Cox and Box,[23] The Mikado (as Poo-Bah),[24] and Humphrey John Stewart's Robin Hood (as Ralph, the Chief of Outlaws),[25] He then performed with the Pyke Opera Company in Sacramento, California, in productions of Johann Strauss II's Das Spitzentuch der Königin, Charles Lecocq's Le petit duc and Procida Bucalossi's Les Manteaux Noirs (as Don Jose) in August and September 1894.
[28] He gave another recital at Blanchard Hall on November 22, 1894,[29] and that same month performed in a series of Sunday night concerts presented at Los Angeles's Grand Opera House led by conductor A. J.
[43] In early 1896 Blake was touring as a member of Lilly Clay's burlesque troupe which included a stop at Sam T. Jack's Opera House in Chicago.
[44] In April 1896 he starred in Joseph Hart's musical A Gay Old Boy at the Academy in Washington D.C.[45] In May 1896 he was one of several performers featured during the grand opening of Forest Park Highlands in St.
[46] Blake created the role of Sergeant Sabre in the original production of Julian Edwards and Stanislaus Stange's comic opera The Wedding Day.
[48][49] The production by Jefferson De Angelis's opera troupe moved to Broadway's Casino Theatre where it opened on April 8, 1897, running for a total of 36 performances.
[61] Blake starred in a third original comic opera by Julian Edwards in 1900 presented by the troupe of Jefferson De Angelis, The Princess Chic, this time with a libretto by Kirke La Shelle.
[62] In this opera he portrayed the real historical figure of Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, but in a fictitious plot in which his character has a romance with the Princess Chic of Normandy at a time when he is in conflict with Louis XI.
At the time Blake wrote this letter, The Musical Courier had recently questioned whether the Metropolitan Opera, then only a year old, would survive, and the paper had acknowledged the dominance of European singers and composers on the American stage.
Others working with Blake in this movement included composers Dudley Buck, Bruno Klein, Harry Rowe Shelley, and Frederick Grant Gleason; voice teacher and Columbia University researcher Floyd S. Muckey; and Herbert Wilber Greene, the founder of the Metropolitan College of Music in New York.
Francis, John Stromberg, and Edgar Smith's musical Twirly Whirly (1903);[102] Under the Red Globe (1903) which was a Weber and Fields parody of Stanley J. Weyman's Under the Red Robe;[103] Robert Hood Bowers's musical Rubes and Roses (1903);[104] and a burlesque parody of Clyde Fitch's play Barbara Frietchie entitled Barbara Fidgety (1903).
[108] That same year they toured Australia and South Africa with Kolb, Dill, and Bernard in performances of Hoity Toity, Hurley Burly, and Fiddle-dee-dee.
[126] Blake received particularly good reviews for his performance of the title role in Gustav Luders's King Dodo with Amber portraying Queen Lili.
[133][134] Later that year they performed at the Oxford Music Hall in Westminster with the New-York Tribune critic writing the following: Their act is an affair of hurricane swiftness, In which the blatancies of cheap melodrama and the methods of grand opera artists are delightfully skitted.
Both Winfield and Maude sing capitally in the "straight" way, but the spirit of grotesqueness and broad caricature prevails, and the turn is, to borrow a colloquialism from the other side, "a scream" from start to finish.
[135]Blake was a prominent member of the Variety Artistes' Federation in the UK, serving on that union's executive committee during the early years of the organization.
[159] In February 1913 they starred alongside Kolb and Dill in a production of Victor Herbert's Algeria at the Grand Opera House in Santa Ana, California,[160] and the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles.
[164] The success of this production led to the creation of the San Francisco Stage Society of which Blake was elected director general with his wife serving as treasurer.
[174] In 1925 he directed the world premiere of Thomas Vincent Cator's musical The Beggar of Bagdad at the Victory Theatre in San Jose, California.
