Charles Santley

Charles Santley in Auber's opera Fra Diavolo.

Sir Charles Santley (February 28, 1834 - September 22, 1922), was an English vocalist of great eminence and distinction, probably the most popular English concert and operatic baritone of the Victorian and Edwardian age. He was the son of an organist and music teacher of Liverpool. His sister, Kate Santley, was a famous singer and comedienne, as well as a London theatre manager.

Early training in Italy

He was given a thorough musical education, and having determined to adopt the career of a singer, he went in 1855 to Milan and studied under Gaetano Nava. He had a fine baritone voice, and while in Italy he began singing small parts in opera, making his debut in Pavia (as Dr Grenvill in La traviata).

Oratorio

In 1857 Santley returned to London (where he continued his studies under Manuel Garcia), and on November 16 made his first appearance in the part of Adam in Haydn's Creation at St Martin's Hall. In January 1858 he appeared at Exeter Hall in Haydn's The Creation. In March he first performed there the title-part in Mendelssohn's Elijah, a role in which he became identified as the supreme performer for over fifty years. At the inauguration of the original Leeds Festival of 1858 he was the star performer in Rossini's Stabat Mater. In 1861 he sang Elijah in his first appearance at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival.

Santley was already considered a 'star' soloist in 1862, for on July 14th of that year he appeared in the Philharmonic Society's 50th Jubilee Concert, singing a recit. and aria from Hummel's Mathilde of Guise, and With Joy the Impatient Husbandman from Haydn's The Seasons. On that occasion he shared a platform at St James's Hall Piccadilly with Jenny Lind, the pianist Mrs Anderson (her last public appearance), Therese Tietjens, and Alfredo Piatti the cellist, under the direction of William Sterndale Bennett, who was conducting a new work of his own. The Society's orchestra had been depleted by conflicting engagements with Covent Garden, but after much drilling by Bennett a new personnel had reached a high state of efficiency, and the concert, attended by one of the largest and most brilliant auditories ever seen at a musical event was completely successful.

In 1862 he was engaged for the Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace, and made his first appearance at the Worcester and Norwich Festivals in the following year. At the musical festivals and on the concert stage his success was immense. For many years he appeared in oratorio alongside his friend and colleague, the English tenor Sims Reeves, and the celebrated Victorian soprano Adelina Patti and contralto Antoinette Sterling: these were the stalwarts of the genre. In Michael Costa's new work Naaman, given at the Birmingham festival of 1868, he was typically associated with Sims Reeves, Adelina Patti, Miss Palmer and Mme Sainton-Dolby. In such songs as "To Anthea," "Simon the Cellarer" or "Maid of Athens," he was unapproachable, and his oratorio singing carried on the finest traditions of his art.

Operatic roles

In 1859 he made his debut at Covent Garden as Hoel in Meyerbeer's opera Dinorah. He appeared in the English opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1860 in G.A. Macfarren's Robin Hood (a cast led by Sims Reeves, under the direction of Charles Halle). He was engaged by Mapleson for Her Majesty's in 1862, appearing in Il trovatore, The Marriage of Figaro, Les Huguenots, and other operas. In that year he created the part of Danny Man in Julius Benedict's Lily of Killarney.

He was the first England performer of Valentin in Gounod's Faust in 1863, with Therese Tietjens, Zelia Trebelli (mezzo), Antonio Giuglini (tenor) and Edouard Gassier (bass-baritone). In 1864 Gounod composed the aria Even bravest heart (Dio Possente or Avant de quitter ces lieux) expressly for him in this role.

Buckingham Palace recital programme 1864 (detail) showing Charles Santley performing scenes from Der Freischutz and Don Giovanni, in distinguished company.

He appeared also with Tietjens in Cherubini's Médée, Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, in the premiere of Nicolai's Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, and other roles. He sang at the Liceo in Barcelona in the winter of 1864-65, including his first appearances as Rigoletto, and returned to La Scala from December 1865 to March 1866. On return he was successful in Don Giovanni (with Mario) and in Der Freischutz (as Caspar). In 1869 he appeared in the Hamlet of Ambrose Thomas, in Italian ('O vin, discaccia la tristezza') (with Christine Nilsson as Ophelia), and in Rossini's La gazza ladra at Covent Garden with Adelina Patti. His Figaro (Mozart) was greatly admired.

In 1870 he sang Vanderdecken in The Flying Dutchman opposite Ilma de Murska (one of his most successful roles), and then appeared in Herold's Zampa, Auber's Fra Diavolo and Czar und Zimmerman (in English) at the Gaiety Theatre. He then planned to retire from the English operatic stage in 1870, but circumstances overtook him.

George Bernard Shaw (who first saw him on stage as Di Luna in Il trovatore) considered that Santley's dramatic powers were 'blunt, unpractised, and prone to fall back on a good-humoured nonchalance in his relations with the audience, which was highly popular, but which destroyed all dramatic illusion. He was always Santley, the good fellow with no nonsense about him, and a splendid singer.... The nonachalance was really diffidence...' He played Valentin, in Faust, 'in an unfinished, hail-fellow-well-met way.' Later on, as Vanderdecken, etc, 'his dramatic grip was much surer; and at the present moment [1892], on the verge of his sixtieth year, he is a more thorough artist than ever.'

In 1871-72 he toured with great success in the United States, most famously appearing as St Bris in Les Huguenots at the Academy of Music in New York. On return to England he joined the Company of Carl Rosa: he studied and planned to appear as Telramund in Lohengrin, but the project was abandoned. Another unrealised Wagnerian wish was to play Wolfram in Tannhäuser. He took part in the Drury Lane Season and later at the Princes Theatre and on tour in the provinces, singing in works of Michael Balfe and Cherubini, and as Zampa (Herold) and Fra Diavolo (Auber). His Vanderdecken for the same company was presented at the Lyceum Theatre in 1876, and achieved a total of fifty performances including the provincial tours. Santley disliked the prominence of the Wagnerian orchestra, and regretted the innovation of opera orchestras being relegated to a pit beneath the stage.

Later career

Santley converted to Roman Catholicism in 1880, and in 1887 Pope Leo XIII created him a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great. He married twice, first (in 1858) to Gertrude Kemble (grand-daughter of Charles Kemble), who before her marriage had a professional career as a soprano singer. Their daughter Edith also became a concert singer. Gertrude died in 1882. Santley's second wife was Elizabeth Mary Rose-Innes.

Santley toured in Australia and New Zealand in 1889 and 1890, and in South Africa in 1893 and again in 1903. George Bernard Shaw, describing Santley as the hero of the 1894 Handel Festival, remarked especially on his Honor and Arms and Nasce al Bosco. 'Santley's singing of the division of Selection Day was, humanly speaking, perfect. It tested the middle of his voice from C to C exhaustively; and that octave came out of the test hall-marked; there was not a scrape on its fine surface, not a break or a weak link in the chain anywhere; while the vocal touch was impeccably light and steady, and the florid execution accurate as clockwork.' In these two arias his entire compass from low G to top E flat, and in Nasce al Bosco the top E natural and F, were exhibited 'in such a way as made it impossible for him to conceal any blemish, if there had been one.'

Santley gave recitals at the Monday Popular Concerts, and appeared with the Joachim String Quartet and Mme Clara Schumann. He settled down to concert and oratorio work in England, and to teaching: between 1903 and 1907 he trained the Australian baritone Peter Dawson, and in c1905 toured with Dawson in Mme Emma Albani's company. He celebrated the Jubilee of his singing career assisted by many of his musician friends at a grand benefit concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 1 May 1907. He was knighted (the first singer to receive this honour) later in 1907, and made his Covent Garden farewell in 1911 as Tom Tug in Charles Dibdin's The Waterman. In 1915, at the request of the Lady Mayoress, he sang at the Mansion House concert for Belgian refugees, when the intonation, quality and vigour of his voice were still apparent.

Vocal character

In addition to a haunting tone, Santley possessed a wonderfully flexible voice (developed no doubt through his oratorio work). His technique and musicianship made him a master in the singing of Handel or Mozart, where a fresh and accurate management of rhythm and roulade created an effect of spontaneity, vigour and ideal phrasing, while his ensemble singing (for instance as Figaro) was distinguished by superb clarity. His compass was from the bass E flat to the baritone top G, and was exceptionally even throughout. His clarity and freedom from strain enabled him to continue singing with freshness through a career of over sixty years, partly perhaps because he had not hung on too long on the opera stage.

Recordings

Charles Santley made a few recordings, mostly of ballads. His earlier series was made for the Gramophone Company (His Master's Voice) in 1903. Although the voice lacks some of its former brilliant resonance it preserves his remarkably vivid and lively rendering of 'Non piu andrai' (Figaro), employing a portamento (notably on the word 'Narcisetto', usually broken by modern interpreters) to satisfy Garcia himself.

• 2-2862 Simon the Cellarer (Hatton)(10")
• 2-2863 The vicar of Bray(10")
• 2-2864 To Anthea (Hatton)(10")
• 02015 Thou'rt passing hence, my brother (Sullivan)(12")
• 052000 Ehi capitano/Non piu andrai (Figaro - Mozart) (12")

Several years later he cut a group of ballad titles for the Columbia label. Hatton's 'To Anthea' and 'Simon the Cellarer' are characteristic of Santley's earlier ballad repertoire, and are repeated in the Columbia series, which also includes Ethelbert Nevin's 'My Rosary', C.V. Stanford's 'Father O'Flynn,' Sullivan's 'Thou'rt passing hence, my brother,' and other titles.

Books

Of the volumes of reminiscences, Student and Singer deals with his career up to c1870, and Reminiscences of My Life includes material for the later period.

• C. Santley, Student and Singer, Reminiscences of Charles Santley (Macmillan, London 1893).
• C. Santley, The Singing Master (1900).
• C. Santley, The Art of Singing (1908).
• C. Santley, Reminiscences of my Life (Isaac Pitman, London 1909).

Compositions

• Mass in A flat
• Ave Maria, Berceuse for Orchestra

Sources

• J.R. Bennett, Voices of the Past - Catalogue of Vocal recordings from the English Catalogues of the Gramophone Company, etc. (c1955).
• J.R. Bennett, Voices of the Past - Vol 2. A Catalogue of Vocal recordings from the Italian Catalogues of The Gramophone Company, etc. (Oakwood Press (1957), 1967).
• G. Davidson, Opera Biographies (Werner Laurie, London 1955), 264-267.
• S.Reeves, Sims Reeves, His Life and Recollections Written by Himself (Simpkin Marshall & Co, London 1888).
• H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (Corrected Edition, Oxford 1974).
• M. Scott, The Record of Singing to 1914 (Duckworth 1977).
• G.B. Shaw, 1932, Music in London 1890-94 by Bernard Shaw, 3 Vols (Constable & Co, London)

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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