George Robey

R.M.S. “Orsova,” October.

Strictly speaking, the quotation should be “A Chiel Amang Ye” (I believe?), but I have deliberately spared you that, and in any case the original conclusion, “takkin’ fishers,” is so inappropriate to the present circumstances that I prefer to leave it abbreviated and intelligible, if it is all the same to you. [1]

Who that has once heard them can ever forget those words of old Geoff. Chaucer’s—those words of old—just a minute—here they are:

“When y-wis klepe dan Moder brae . . .”

and so on? And are they not singularly applicable to the present case, I ask you? That is to say, there is nobody who engages in foreign travel who does not at some time or another—sooner or later—later or sooner—yearn to write home about it to the more fortunate stay-at-homes. When Nim, the son of Shur, left the tent of his fathers for the dug-out of his in-laws way back in B.C. let-me-see, hieroglyphics hastily scribbled with chisel and hammer on granite tablets carried the glad tidings to the world. When Hetty the Hen adventured o’er the road the darkest races of Ethiopia bade their minstrels fashion from her journey a conundrum in vogue to this day. And so the good work goes on, e.g., “America Through the Eyes of a Tortoise,” “Seeing India with a Bandmann,” [2] and other imperishable volumes. These few notes are about Australia—Australia from the theatrical point of view, as it strikes the ordinary average touring English actor (fresh from Sunday night arrivals in Rochdale or Tunbridge Wells and Monday morning meetings at Jonas' corner and other characteristic spots.) With not one reference to the Back Blocks and entirely free from Beating about the Bush. And, first of all, we have to get there.

This is usually done by boat, in my case the “Orsova.” [3] This boat will go down to history as that unit of the Orient fleet which carried Charlie Austin and the Misses Pounds, to say nothing of George Tully and others, to their triumphs "down under.” Many are the anecdotes of these famous folk, related to me by the chief officer, by the purser, and by the skipper himself. This voyage must be very tame by comparison, I'm afraid. That universal look of high expectancy which used to greet me as I entered the smoking-room has now, I notice, died down to a mere glazed recognition. Entertainment is sought in other quarters, notably from the tall slim figure with the thin, keen face of an ascetic enthusiast, and withal a boyish, boisterous sense of fun, regarded, I imagine, with something of suspicion by the staider members of the ship’s company. In great demand, he is equally ready to referee the boxing, to auction the figures of the day's run, to present the prizes to the third-class, to voice the complaints of the passengers, to recite to me, privately, from Browning and Kipling in support of some political tenet, to emerge victorious from the final of the bolster-fighting championship, to rehearse with me a five-scene problem drama he has projected for one of our two distinguished actor-managers, interspersed with tales of touring days in England and South Africa, with Sass and Nelson. A varied and vivid personality. In sum, Mr. Pemberton-Billing. [4]

Orient Line poster

Australian Maritime Museum

British polymath Noel Pemberton Billing

National Portrait Gallery, London

There is that about these sea voyages. One has regular meals and one has the opportunity—so painfully lacking at No. —, Railway Cottages, Chester-le-Street—of mixing with the Nobility, Clergy, and Gentry. That again is not to everybody’s taste. For instance, it didn't suit my friend Alfred, the Shy Comedian. That was not his bill-matter, it was his misfortune. He travelled to Melbourne on board a vessel which had the honour of conveying, in addition to Alf., a Very Great Personage, indeed. I think he was a Viceroy or a Governor-General or perhaps a Potentate. In any case, he was poor Alfred’s downfall. When he and this Magnifico met face to face on a lone expanse, of deck (as they frequently did in spite of all Alfred’s scheming) it taxed the comedian’s resource to the utmost to devise new methods of unconscious avoidance of the august eye. Paroxysms of sneezing and coughing gave way to the good old Refractory Bootlace. The Young Man suddenly arrested by Thrilling Sight Five Hundred Miles out at Sea stunt was much overworked. It was getting poor Alf down, which probably accounts for his entering for the Gents’ Doubles in the Deck Quoits competition, without reckoning up possible consequences. Realisation came later. The Very Great Personage, in genial mood had entered also. Supposing—cold shivers attacked the Shy Comedian's spine at the very thought. The imminence of the draws found Alfred a nervous wreck; to a lady “Committeeman” his repeated inquiries as to whether she had yet made them presented itself as the worst kind of joke shamelessly persisted in. And then, of course, it happened. Alfred and the Duke were drawn together. To be played off at 2.30 and any competitor failing to arrive losing the game. Alfred did not tell me how the episode ended, but I like to picture a grimy comedian emerging at midnight from the stokehold, happy and disqualified.

We go ashore at Toulon. The dramatic possibilities of Toulon appear to be undeveloped. At any rate, judging by the display of bills which recall the theatrical priming of, say, Chislehurst in the sixties. Why should the taste of Toulon be so far behind Paris? Toulon may be the Portsmouth of France, but Mr. Peter Davey would not like the parallel to be extended to its theatrical catering. Naples—where we next stopped—seemed in a worse plight. That is, unless the printing was very, very misleading. We in England are perhaps a little too much influenced by “the poster on the walls.”

The ship is very full, and I think 75 per cent, of its first-class passengers are Australians and New Zealanders returning from holiday at “home.” They appear, most of them, to have spent the bulk of this holiday in London—in West-End theatres. They criticise us very candidly and very intelligently. London acting is more polished than Australian, they tell me—and I thank them most politely, but where are our singers, they ask? They heard very little singing worth calling singing in our revues and musical comedies. In this direction Australia will astonish me (they assure me). I had to explain that our revues and musical comedies are breathless affairs. There is no time for singing in the best of them. Dear souls; I wonder whether the theatre will hold one half of the people who have so eagerly promised to attend our first night. Bless them! and it makes no difference at all that so many of them don't know or won't remember even our names.

We are fortunate in having Dorothy Brunton with us. She is a great favourite “down under”; the demeanour of our fellow-passengers made the telling unnecessary. [5]

Dorothy Brunton. Photo by Bertram Park.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Colombo. Here is the East, with a Maidenhead and musical comedy setting. My “rickshaw-driver” (I don't suppose this is what they call him) stays his servile trot to pluck the sahib a scarlet flower from the hedgerow. My taxi-driver never did so much for me on the heights of Haverstock Hill. Extending this pretty idea (duly charged for, I suppose, but I got in such a muddle with cents and rupees that I don’t know whether I set him up for life or cast him down to death), would it not add to the amenities of travel if George, taking advantage of a stoppage in the traffic, were to hop off his driver’s seat into a near-by “Lyons,” and bear forth, all steaming, a fragrant cup of tea for his sahib? Even, with the traffic problem growing acuter still, a luncheon at Ludgate, with dinner to follow outside Liverpool Street? Inside a Cingalese interior (into which I shamelessly rubber-necked) I beheld framed upon the wall two highly coloured chromo-lithos of good King Edward in Coronation robes and George Robey in full regalia as the Mayor of Muckemdyke. No doubt the loyal coolie reverently and impartially removes his shoes before daring to contemplate either. The Sahib’s roving eye furthermore noted that in the Public Hall for one week only “Daisy Harcourt, the original singer of ‘Blighty,’ would be supported by those famous all-English artists, the Dandies.” Henry J. Corner, please note.

Edward VII

Heritage images

British comedian, George Robey

National Portrait Gallery, London

Colombo— with its officers’ mess of the Ceylon Police, its Galle Face Hotel, its Prince’s Club—was a particularly green oasis in a rather arid voyage, and we started on our ten days’ run to Fremantle with real regret. 

October 18.—A low-lying dark blur on the port—or is it the starboard bow? The elegantly gowned ladies of the haut monde around me murmur excitedly. A hum of patriotism swelling as the dark blur on the horizon swells, and made articulate at length by the fashion-plate beside me:

“Orstrylia!"

I believe it is.

THE STAGE (London), 29 November 1923, p.19

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Endnotes

Compiled by Robert Morrison

[1] The quotation comes from Scots poet, Robert Burns’ 1789 verse On The Late Captain Grose’s Peregrinations Thro’ Scotland(Collecting The Antiquities of That Kingdom) and occurs in the opening stanza:

Frae Maidenkirk to Johnie Groat’s;-

If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,

I rede you tent it:

A chield’s amang you takin notes,

And, faith, he’ll prent it:

(Ref:http://www.robertburns.org/works/275.shtml )

[2] A pun on the surname of New York-born theatrical impresario, Maurice E. Bandmann (1872–1922) who toured English musical comedy and dramatic companies throughout India and the Far East between 1905 and 1922 from his home-base in Calcutta.  Following his death his companies continued to operate and it was not until the late 1930s that the Bandmann Eastern Circuit and its attendant companies finally closed down. (Ref:https://gthj.ub.uni-muenchen.de/gthj/article/download/5019/4312/6264 )

[3] The Orient liner, RMS Orsova departed from London on 15 September 1923, and arrived in Toulon on 21 September and Naples on 23 September en route to Australia via the Suez Canal.

From The Illustrated London News, 8 September 1923, p.1

A pictorial video of the Orsova and its luxurious on-board appointments may be viewed on YouTube athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SpGVWRqwWU

[4] Noel Pemberton Billing (1881–1948) was a British aviator, inventor, publisher and politician. He emigrated to Australia in 1923 to establish an acoustic recording studio and record production plant in Melbourne, but ultimately returned to Britain after the failure of the business in 1926, when the new electrical recording systems had supplanted the now out-moded acoustic system.

It was in Australia that he patented a recording system intended to produce laterally-cut disc records with ten times the capacity of existing systems. Billing’s “World Record Controller” fitted onto a standard springwound gramophone, using a progressive gearing system to initially slow the turntable speed from 78 rpm to 33 rpm and then gradually increase rotational speed of the record as it played, so that the linear speed at which the recorded groove passed the needle remained constant. That allowed over ten minutes playing time per 12-inch side of the records, but the high cost of the long-playing discs (10 shillings apiece), the fact that the speed varied, and the complexity of the playback attachment, prevented popular acceptance.

In 1923, Billing set up a disc recording plant under the name World Record (Australia) Limited. The plant was in Bay Street in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton, from where he produced his 78 rpm to 33 rpm discs.

The plant was also the base for radio station 3PB, which he established in August 1925, for the purpose of broadcasting the company’s recordings. It was a limited “manufacturers’ licence”, a type which was only available during the first few years of wireless broadcasting in Australia. 3PB was only on the air for four months.

The first recording made by World Record (Australia) was released in July 1925, and featured Bert Ralton’s Havana Band, then performing at the Esplanade Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda.

(Ref: Ralph Powell, Magician or Mountebank—The Mecurial Noel Pemberton Billing—Pioneer of Commercially recorded Sound in Australia; Vjazz, issue 67, August 2015, pp.14–15 [Australian Jazz Museum, Wantirna, Victoria]: https://www.ajm.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/VJAZZ-67-web.pdf )

[5] Melbourne-born actress, Dorothy Brunton (1890–1977) was returning to Australia after an absence of almost two years. She had made her London debut in 1918 appearing as ‘Fan Tan’ in Shanghaiat Drury Lane, and in December, took over the female lead in Soldier Boy at the Apollo Theatre, followed by lead roles in The Bantam, V.C. and Baby Buntingin 1919–20. Dot then returned to Australia to star for J.C. Williamson Ltd. in the local premieres of the musical comedies Yes, Uncle! (in June 1920) Baby Bunting (in December 1920) and Oh, Lady! Lady!!(in June 1921), as well as revivals of her earlier successes High Jinks and So Long Letty, plus Going Up and Irene.

Field Fisher, Dorothy Brunton, William Greene and Alfred Frith in a scene from Baby Bunting (1920). Photo by Monte Luke–Falk studios.

At the conclusion of her Australian tour, Dot left with her mother in early November 1921 to return to London via America, where they visited her brother, Jack in Los Angeles, who was working as a manager at their stepbrother, Robert Brunton’s Studios in Hollywood. 

Robert Brunton was a son of their Scottish father John Brunton’s first marriage in Edinburgh, who had initially followed his father’s profession as a scenic artist in London for some years before being sent to New York with an English theatrical company around 1914. When his engagement was completed he did not return to London, and later found scope for his ability in moving picture studios. His real opportunity came when a coterie of investors financed a film-making venture known as Paralta Plays Inc. and built a studio at Los Angeles, California in 1917. Robert Brunton was appointed manager of it, but due chiefly to a spirit of mutual distrust that developed among the partners, the company did not make a success of the venture. Eventually it was decided to put the plant up at auction in 1918, and Brunton made an offer to buy it at a price in excess of what it was likely to fetch under the hammer, for a small cash payment, and bills for the remainder of the purchase money. This was accepted, and in a few months he turned the proposition into a profitable concern. Brunton did at times interest himself in the production of pictures, but his chief business was to accommodate independent companies and hire out anything necessary to make their films. (Mary Pickford was amongst the Hollywood stars who made films at the Brunton Studios.) In January 1922, Robert Brunton disposed of the business to a syndicate which included T.J. Selznick and Joseph Schenck (the studios later became the site of Paramount Pictures) and left for England with Dorothy intending to establish a similar plant there.

Robert Brunton

IMDB

A glass-walled studio of the silent film era, which allowed for filming in natural sunlight

Wikipmapia

Dot had intended returning to the London stage, but was persuaded by Robert to take a rest with him on the Continent. They set off from Paris, and toured by car from one country to another taking in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and then down to Italy, where Dot revelled in the beautiful theatres in Rome, and saw musical comedy in Venice. The period of rest and comradeship came to an end, however, with the sudden death of her stepbrother in London on 7 March 1923 and, grief-stricken, Dot turned her back on Europe and found refuge for a time in Florida with her brother, Jack (who now managed the Miami Studios built by the Curtiss Airplane Co.), where she was eventually persuaded to return to the stage again. She thus played for a time in Tons of Money in London, where she was subsequently engaged by Hugh J. Ward for his Australian production.

Although Dot had previously appeared under Hugh J. Ward’s auspices during his tenure as joint Managing Director for JCW from 1911, Tons of Money marked her first appearance for Ward after his resignation from The Firm (following its take over by the Tait Brothers in 1920) to form Hugh J. Ward Theatres Ltd. in partnership with Sir Ben and John Fuller in 1922. 

(Refs.: Australian Dictionary of Biography—https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brunton-christine-dorothy-dot-9608 ; AusStage—https://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/235609 ; Table Talk (Melbourne), Thursday, 15 September 1921, p.41—http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146317421 ; The Herald (Melbourne) Saturday, 7 January 1922, p.16—http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243632442 ; Wikimapia—http://wikimapia.org/7351995/Former-Paralta-Studios-Robert-Brunton-Studios-United-Studios-Historical-site & The Age (Melbourne), Tuesday, 23 October 1923, p.9—http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243632442)

To be continued

Part 6: Just months before his untimely death Frank Neil told Tivoli executives: “Boys, I now feel our combined efforts are beginning to show real results. Don’t ever forget that in the event of anything happening to me, things must go on just as usual. There must be no regrets.”

Towards the end of 1938 the renowned Chinese illusionist Chang appeared for the Tivoli. Charles Waller recalled: ‘He performed many small tricks and performed them well. His entertainment was pretty and appealing. In the illusion “King Kong”, where a giant monkey disappeared with the breaking up of a cage, high in the air, the ballet, suitably attired, executed a dance peculiarly simian in its activities.’

Sharing the bill with Chang was the extraordinary Black American one-legged tap dancer ‘Peg Leg’ Bates. At the age of twelve Clayton Bates had lost a leg in an accident. He subsequently taught himself to dance, developing a series of spectacular tap routines that proved popular in nightclubs and vaudeville and on television. He appeared twice before the British royal family, at least 22 times on The Ed Sullivan Show, and later in his life owned and operated a fashionable ‘interracial’ country club in the Catskill Mountains. His artistry is preserved in numerous YouTube videos.

In June 1939, Frank Neil arrived back in Australia with the promise of 200 new stars

Frank Van Straten collection

Among the Australian acts working with Chang, Adler, Mahoney and the other star 1938 imports were John Dobbie, Jay Morris, Charles Norman, Morry Barling, Albert Chappelle and Hal Lashwood.

Hal Lashwood began at the age of sixteen as a dancer in J.C. Williamson musicals. His father, Joe, was ‘the world’s champion bone manipulator’ and his great uncle, George Lashwood, was ‘The Brummel of the Halls’, a distinguished looking, immaculately turned out ‘descriptive vocalist’ in the grand lion comique tradition. Lashwood had a long career on stage, radio and later television. He was president of Actors’ Equity from 1951 to 1976.

Another up-and-coming local act was Latona and Sparks. Born in Sydney in 1920, Joe Latona developed an energetic acrobatic dance act with Maisie Sparks and later added her brother, Les Warren. In London Joe formed another act, Latona, Graham and Chadell. Back in Australia he choreographed numerous Tivoli shows and taught and mentored many young dancers. Joe Latona died in Melbourne in 1989.

Realising that Tivoli shows and stars were rarely seen outside Sydney and Melbourne, canny Frank Neil came to an agreement with the Hoyts cinema chain to ‘lease’ them some of his imported headliners to appear on stage, mainly in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide, as part of Hoyts’ regular film programs. The parade was led by Billy Costello, who played a week at the Capitol in Perth, and Will Mahoney, who was the star attraction at the Regent in Brisbane. Many others followed.

Cover for The Big Fub Show of 1939, Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

Jazz vocalist Ada Brown

Frank Van Straten collection

The new year got under way with The Big Fun Show of 1939, headed by Ada Brown, ‘Harlem’s Empress of Rhythm’. A large lady with a belting jazz style, Ada had appeared on Broadway opposite Shelton Brooks and Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in the 1930 musical Brown Buddies. Four years after her Tivoli tour she was cast with Bojangles, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Lena Horne and Katherine Dunham in the landmark Black musical film Stormy Weather. Incidentally, Ada was a victim of the Tivoli’s notoriously cavalier attitude to spelling, especially in regard to performers’ names. Programs and publicity consistently added an ‘e’ to her surname.

Neil flew back into Sydney on a Dutch airliner early in June. He told reporters he had booked 200 artists including Gracie Fields, Sandy Powell, Stanley Holloway and Fats Waller, adding, ‘It is the best line-up of top-notch stars that we have ever had. They will all appear here within 12 months.’ Of course, he was not to know that momentous changes were only a few months away.

Cover for Highlights from Hollywood, Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

Glamorous Anne May Wong. Photo by Athol Shmith.

From The Home (Sydney), 1 August 1939

The exotic Chinese-American film and stage star Anna May Wong arrived around the middle of the year. She had starred in the 1933 film version of Chu Chin Chow but was probably better known because of a notorious ‘limited edition’ topless photograph of her that had been distributed internationally by an over-zealous young publicity man at Elstree Studios. Her show, Highlights from Hollywood, commenced at the Melbourne Tivoli on 12 June 1939. Fred Parsons recalled: ‘She opened at a matinee singing several pleasant songs, including Noël Coward’s “Half-Caste Woman”, but went off to lukewarm applause because the audience had been expecting an actress, not a singer. Frank Neil was furious. As soon as the theatre was empty, he called the entire company back on to the stage. Standing in the front stalls he gave vent to a tirade of abuse directed against Anna May Wong. He called her “a has-been”, “a no-hoper” and “a faded old bag”. With amazing dignity and control, she stood there until he had finished. Then she said, very quietly, “Thank you, Mr Neil,” bowed low to him, and walked off. And the entire company applauded her. Wallace Parnell called me into his office. “We’ve got to do something to help Anna. Could you write a dramatic sketch for her?” I said I’d try.’

Parsons created a ten-minute playlet, At the Barricade, based on a recent incident in the Sino-Japanese war, which was raging at the time. In it Anna, as a Chinese woman captured by the Japanese, sacrificed her own life to save the village in which she lived. Parsons continues: ‘Parnell okayed the script, and Anna liked it. An American comic, Bugs Wilson, was pressed into service to play the Japanese officer. It was what audiences expected from Anna, and it went well. She thanked me very graciously, but the thanks were really due to Parnell.’ Incidentally, the Tivoli promoted Bugs Wilson as ‘The Original Voice of Grumpy in Snow White. He wasn’t. That credit belongs to Disney regular Pinto Colvig. It was just one more example Frank Neil’s predilection for embroidering the truth about his less noteworthy imports.

Cover for George Robey and His Big New Company of Overseas Variety, Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

Designer Angus Winneke. Photo by Harry Jay.

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

Highlights from Hollywood is also notable for being the first Tivoli show designed by Angus Winneke. In April 1938 Wallace Parnell had been impressed by an exhibition of the 27-year-old’s watercolors at the Stair Gallery in Collins Street, and persuaded Neil to engage him as the Tivoli’s resident designer. Winneke’s stylish costume and set designs were to grace the Circuit’s productions until 1965.

George Robey made his Australian debut at the Melbourne Tivoli on 17 July 1939. His visit had been a long time coming; now he was seventy and well past his prime. His wife recalled: ‘I didn’t tell him I’d signed the contracts and done all the bookings until about a week before we sailed. Then he saw a little activity going on with the packing, and said, “Where are we off to now?” and I replied casually, “Oh, Sydney.” He didn’t believe me at first and then he said, “Well, I’m not going to Australia, I don’t want to be so far away.” I didn’t tell him that the intention was to go on from Sydney to Melbourne and Adelaide, followed by New Zealand and South Africa! I thought one piece at a time was enough. I always used to tell him such news early in the morning, so he had all day to get over it, otherwise, it might have affected his show at night.’

Jim Hutchings remembers: ‘Robey had a marvellous sense of timing. He was a master at projection and delivery that carried to the back wall of the gods. He’d been schooled when there were no mikes and like all the old performers knew all the tricks to get his stuff across. Still, he was poorly received. It upset him immensely, as well as his wife. She used to say to me, “Go out front! You’re his best audience!” I never missed his show. He made me laugh every time.’

Robey was playing in Sydney when war was declared on 1 September 1939, but it was the night before that stayed in Fred Parsons’ memory: ‘I was stage manager. The show went very well up to interval, but when the audience went outside they were greeted with special editions of The Herald announcing that Hitler had invaded Poland. As the second half of the show began, I glanced through the peep-hole and saw no faces, just a sea of opened newspapers. It was an amazing sight. Hitler not only invaded Poland that night, he ruined a Tivoli show.’

Cover for Nick Lucas, Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

In 1939 Tivoli theatres were equipped with new sound systems

Frank Van Straten collection

When war was declared Nick Lucas was topping the bill in Melbourne. ‘The Singing Troubadour’ had shot to fame in the 1929 film Gold Diggers of Broadway in which he sang ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’. He continued to sing it through the rest of his long career. Nick had a soft, pleasant voice and accompanied himself on the guitar. His act benefitted from the Tivoli’s newly installed amplification system.

Microphones had been used at the Tivoli occasionally since the early 1930s. In London, the Palladium had amplification installed in 1933. The Melbourne Tivoli was an intimate house with superb acoustics and though the Sydney Tivoli was larger, audiences were used to sitting quietly and paying attention. Nevertheless, some inexpert artistes had trouble getting their acts across. Stanley Holloway recalled: ‘A lot of laryngitis went on, because people didn’t know how to produce the tone without straining.’ Many comics developed hoarse voices with a cutting edge to them, and throat and chest trouble were common when they became older. More recently actress Stephanie Beacham dryly referred to her stage appearances as ‘shouting every evening for a living.’

The microphone altered the styles of performance. Comics could no longer move around freely; now they were anchored to a bulky microphone at the centre of the stage. The mike also affected the relationship between the comic and the audience. Laurence Olivier lamented its introduction: ‘The entertainer or the single act has a weapon. No one can shout him down. He’s protected by it, almost shielded by it, and the whole spirit of gallantry and courage and temerity that was this medium’s great attraction disappeared in front of your eyes. It was the microphone that killed music hall.’ And if one act used it, all the others had to, or they sounded weak in comparison. On the other hand, the microphone did allow a more intimate style of comedy and song, and artistes who had made their names on radio and recordings could maintain their style in the theatre.

Frank Neil realised that the war would make the importation of artistes increasingly difficult, especially from Britain and the Continent. He also knew that the Tivoli would have a significant role to play in maintaining morale and assisting the war effort. It’s significant he decided to call the first Tivoli show to open after the declaration of war Business as Usual.

Cover for The Famous Mills Bros., Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

Cover for Salici’s Parisian Puppets, Melbourne, 1939

Frank Van Straten collection

Business as Usualstarred the famous Black singing group the Mills Brothers. Their first recording, ‘Tiger Rag’ backed with ‘Nobody’s Sweetheart’, had been a million seller in 1931. Films and a national radio program followed. Their closely harmonised style was sweet and intimate and, again, ideally suited for the Tivoli’s new microphones. Today people listening to the Mills Brothers’ recordings find it hard to believe that the only instrument they used was a guitar; their imitations of trumpet, bass and other instruments were brilliant.

The comedy team in Business as Usualwas led by George Wallace, who reprised his immortal ‘Stanley the Bull’ monologue, assisted by Morry Barling. Act One closed with a stirring scena based on the song ‘There’ll Always be an England’. And an outstanding Australian novelty song-and-dance act, Rex and Bessie Lindsay, made their Tivoli debut. They had appeared extensively in Britain and would remain Tivoli regulars for years. In his later years Rex reigned over the stage door at the newly-opened Victorian Arts Centre.

Business as Usualalso introduced the sensational Lea Sonia to Australian audiences. Lea was the glamorous creation of a Danish-American female impersonator, Carl Wunderlich. Born in Copenhagen to a circus family, he started at the age of nine as a replacement for one of his six sisters in their speciality act. Although nobody spotted that he was not a girl, he was said to be ‘a handsome, manly figure in everyday life’. Still, it was as a provocative and titillating fan dancer that Lea scored his biggest success. ‘In drag he really looked like a female,’ recalled Jim Hutchings. ‘He outshone the showgirls. He had real hair wigs brought from England, beautiful fur coats, poise, voice, projection. Laid them in the aisles! As a star “she’d” get very temperamental. He had rough, common boyfriends who came around the stage door. “Is Lea there?”, they’d say. And Lea would poke “her” head out and say like a real showgirl, “I won’t keep you long, boys”.’

Percy Crawford remembered: ‘His act created such a furore that his visit of a few months extended well into its third year. On stage he appeared for all the world like a shapely, glamorous young woman and he sang in a beautiful soprano voice. But at the climax of his act he would remove his wig, revealing a head of close-cropped dark hair, and stride off the stage saying in unmistakable masculine tones, “Sorry to disappoint you, boys.” In Sydney he was engaged by the Maxine Club [in Oxford Street, Woollahra] and for the first time sang in male clothes. During this season Lea Sonia was killed. He stepped out of the brightly lit interior of the club, raced across a road to get a taxi, and was run down by a tram. By an ironic circumstance, the last number he was destined to sing was “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”.’ Jim Hutchings tells the story this way: ‘The night he met his death he came up to the paint frame at the Tivoli and said, “I wonder if you could design a little tea-room for me. I want something island-ified.” I said, “How would you like a blue heron on the wing?” He said, “Heavens no! Don’t give me birds. They’re unlucky.” That night he had an argument with his boyfriend and threw himself under a tram near Centennial Park. Death was instantaneous. Another star went out.’ Lea Sonia was celebrated in Alex Harding’s 1988 Australian musical Only Heaven Knows.

November brought the Salici puppets to the Tivoli. The Salicis were a six-generation family of Italian puppeteers, and their act is still regarded as among the best of its type in the world. They used dozens of large marionettes and demonstrated an almost unbelievable skill in having them perform a vast range of activities, from playing a piano to singing opera, dancing, and lighting and smoking cigarettes. The Salicis, with Jim Gerald, Billy Kershaw and the juggler Elimar played in Mother Goosefor the Christmas season in Sydney.

German juggler Elimar. Photo by Athol Shmith.

Frank Van Straten collection

Program cover for Cinderella and Hat Trick, Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne, 1939/1940

Frank Van Straten collection

Will Mahoney and Evie Hayes had followed their 1938 show with Laugh Round-Up early in 1939; if anything, they were even more popular than before, playing to 131,811 people in just five weeks in Sydney. Notable among the supporting acts was a handsome young ‘American Radio Singing Star’, Lawrence Brooks. In 1944 he created the role of Edvard Grieg in the Broadway premiere of Song of Norway. Will and Evie returned in December with a third show, Hat Trick. With them were John Dobbie, Scott Sanders, Cusko’s Dog, Monkey and Bird Circus, plus a pair of lively newly-weds, Max Reddy and Stella Lamond. Stella’s previous marriage to comic Joe Lawman had produced Toni Lamond, then a budding star and, eventually, mother of actor and writer Tony Sheldon. A year after her marriage to Max came yet another budding star, singer-actress Helen Reddy.

After Christmas this company presented matinees of Cinderellawith Will as Buttons, Evie as Prince Perfect, Stan Foley as the Dame, Stella Lamond as Dandini and Coral Macer as Cinderella. Coral found that her glittering golden coach had been originally built for the beloved Australian actress Nellie Stewart, who performed in Cinderellaat the turn of the century. While Neil’s version of Cinderella was true to age-old pantomime tradition, he must have felt that increasing public anxiety about the developing war should somehow be acknowledged. This would explain why, amid items like ‘Rainbow Land’ and ‘The Beautiful Butterfly Ballet’ he managed to squeeze an elaborate set piece called ‘The Sinking of the U-Boat’.

With Christmas shows launched successfully in Melbourne and Sydney, Frank Neil looked confidently towards the challenges of a new year with Australia at war. He was determined that under his guidance the Tivoli would be ready to play its part in providing entertainment and boosting morale. Neil spent the evening of Saturday, 30 December 1939 at the Tivoli. He left the theatre after the show, presumably to return to the Hotel Alexander in Spencer Street, where he was a permanent resident. A short tram ride or a pleasant walk from the Tivoli, the Alexander, built in 1926, was a large modern hotel, opposite Spencer Street railway station; it is now known as the Savoy.

At around 2 am Frank Neil was in Sturt Street, South Melbourne, near the Kavanagh Street intersection. That part of South Melbourne is vastly different today: it is the section of Sturt Street with the rear of Arts Centre Melbourne and its Theatres Building’s stage door stage door on the east side and the Australian Ballet Centre on the west. In 1939 there was no St Kilda Road overpass, and Sturt Street could be accessed from St Kilda Road via the Alexandra Avenue intersection. On the east side of Sturt Street was the rear wall of the Wirth’s Circus property; on the west was a motor garage and the YMCA. It was quiet and dimly lit. Not far away, the gardens at the corner of St Kilda Road and Linlithgow Avenue provided a meeting place for lonely men.

Neil was crossing Sturt Street near the YMCA when he was hit by a 1926 Dodge car. It was driven by Quartermaster Sergeant Arthur McMaster of the Sixth Division, Second AIF Service Corps, stationed at Puckapunyal Army Camp, some 114 kms from Melbourne. In the car with him were two friends, Harry Powell, an engineer, and Warrant Officer Arthur Martin. The car’s two left wheels passed over Neil and it pulled up some distance away. The tyres left no skid marks.

Frank Neil was rushed by ambulance to nearby Prince Henry’s Hospital. He was admitted at 2.20 am. A £1 note was found hidden in his shoe. Neil’s injuries were horrific: a compound fracture of the base of the skull, a fractured left clavicle, left forearm and pelvis, ruptured urethra, severely lacerated right calf, paralysed left arm and leg, abrasions and shock. His sister, Helenor Mary Urquhart and his brother John were notified. They were living in one of the flats in the front of the Melbourne Tivoli building. They, Charles Brandreth (the Tivoli’s company secretary) and a few close friends went to the hospital. According to one of them, Frank was injured so badly ‘they must have backed over him’. Neil rallied very slightly but never recovered consciousness. He died at 2.45 pm on New Year’s Day, 1940. He had turned fifty-three ten days before.

The Sun News Pictorial (Melbourne), 4 January 1940, p.15

On 8 January hundreds of people attended his funeral service, and three cars were required to carry all the floral tributes, which included a wreath from the children in the Tivoli pantomime. On its way to the Fawkner Crematorium the cortege halted briefly outside the Tivoli, the Apollo (the former Palace) and the Princess theatres. The chief mourners were his were his sister, Mrs Helenor Mary Urquhart, and his four brothers, John, William, Arthur and Howard.

At the coronial inquest there was evidence that the Dodge’s brakes may have been ineffective, though it was said to having been driven at no more than 25 miles per hour. There was even a suggestion from Arthur Martin that Neil ‘appeared to hurl or jump in front of the car. I should say if the man wanted to avoid the car he would have stood still or stepped back’. Although Neil’s friends and family and many in the theatrical and gay communities believed that Neil’s death could have been the result of a homophobic crime, this was not mentioned in court  ̶  probably a reflection of the attitudes that prevailed at the time. Instead, the Coroner decreed that death was accidental, and the case was closed.

A few months later, Frank Neil’s estate was valued for probate at £3761. There was £460 in an account at the Bank of New South Wales. The bulk of the rest of his estate was £478 due from the Tivoli in wages and director’s fees and £2816, representing 8666 fully paid £1 ordinary shares in the Tivoli Circuit, valued at 6s 6d each. Neil owned no real estate; he once had a large home at Warrandyte in the hills north-east of Melbourne. He had called it ‘Whoopee’ after the musical he had presented in 1929. It was destroyed in a bushfire in January 1939. His sister was his sole beneficiary.

It was a sad, inglorious finale for a man who had devoted his life to the fun and colour and glamour of popular entertainment.

In a piece published in The Sporting Globe in 1942, Tivoli publicist Percy Crawford paid this tribute:

‘I could write almost endlessly of the kindly actions and pleasant personality of Frank Neil. He always had time to listen. No matter what any patron, high or low, had to say, he was sure of a hearing from the Tivoli chief, and invariably went away with a great impression of Mr Neil. His spirit never contemplatedfailure, nor did his insatiable appetite for hard work ever weaken. His successes did not change him, and he was ever ready generously to give credit to others.

‘Possibly there was a touch of hidden melancholy in his soul, and perhaps he had forebodings death being not far off. On several occasions, in the evening talks with executives of the theatre, he would say, “Boys, I now feel our combined efforts are beginning to show real results. Don’t ever forget that in the event of anything happening to me, things must go on just as usual. There must be no regrets.”

‘He had a happy life, a busy life. A great worker and a kind-hearted man, he made a host of friends. He wanted to be remembered as he was, a bright sparkling personality. He had an acute brain for the show business and a thorough understanding of artists and their peculiarities. He had the happy knack of engaging in a serious argument one minute and being the best of friends the next. He never carried enmity or malice from any disagreements.

‘Frank’s tragic death is still fresh in memory. There were many regrets, and there is a blank in many places of the theatrical world. But Neil’s great work was well done, and, mainly due to his enterprise, ability, experience and judgment, “the show goes on”.’

Postscript

Wallace Parnell steered the Tivoli circuit through the Second World War, producing lively revues starring Roy Rene ‘Mo’, George Wallace, Bob Dyer and Jenny Howard. He left Australia in 1944 and tried to make fresh start in the United States, but his disastrous business and amorous adventures led to a grisly murder and his own sensational suicide in Los Angeles. Under the management of David N. Martin, his son Lloyd Martin and Gordon Cooper the Tivolis survived until 1966. The last show in the Sydney Tivoli was the revue One Dam’ Thing After Another. The title could not have been more appropriate.

Applause!

This exploration of the life and times of Frank Neil would not have been possible without the help received from:

Nancye and Babe Bridges

Peter Burgis

Dr Mimi Colligan

Gordon Cooper

Dr Clay Djubal

Dr Derham Groves

Graeme Haigh

James Hutchings

Elisabeth Kumm

Eddie McDonald

Valantyne Napier

Steve Rattle

Lady Tait

APAC

Syria Lamonte. Photo by Hana, London. Thanks to John Culme for restoring this cabinet card.

So little seemsto have been known about this pioneering recording artist. In his memoirs of 1947, Fred Gaisberg, the American recording engineer who had come over to set up the first London studio—at 31 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in 1898, for The Gramophone Company—wrote:

The autumn of ’98 saw me making the first records in London … As [the music hall artists’] rendezvous was Rules in Maiden Lane, next door to the premises we had taken as a recording studio, [Bert] Sheppard brought his companions to us to be amused and this served to give us contact with the greatest artists of the then flourishing music-hall world.¹

Then in a later conversation (in 1949) with Brian Rust, Gaisberg added:

I remember Syria Lamonte. She was an entertainer: I suppose she must have served drinks—in Rules, the pub next door to the first recording studio in Maiden Lane. She was the first artist I recorded, I’m sure of that… she had a big voice, and that was what we wanted.²

So what does that tell us about her? A “barmaid” at Rules? A singer who had made one of, possibly the earliest studio recordings in Europe? At some stage it was suggested that she was Australian. But was she really? Who exactly was this mystery woman?

In July 2009, the search for Syria Lamonte was set in motion by an email from Rob Morrison in Melbourne. Attached was a letter he had received from the doyen of Australian collector-researchers, Peter Burgis. In the course of one paragraph on Lamonte, Burgis refers to her as a “Melbourne soprano” and also a “Sydney soprano”. And in a letter to For the Record magazine (Spring 2008), Peter Adamson of St. Andrews University asks, “So was Syria Lamonte perhaps Australian?”

Quite quickly a group of interested individuals³started the search for her. Given the growth of the online newspaper database, TROVE, by the National Library of Australia, assembling her early career turned out to be a relatively straightforward matter.⁴She first appears in March 1892, performing with the touring theatre company from England of Mrs Bernard Beere in Melbourne. Then singing the coloratura aria “Regnava nel silenzio” from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Trotère’s “In Old Madrid” at the first of several concerts at the Rotunda Hall, Bourke Street.

By March the following year she was touring Victoria and South Australia (venturing as far as Broken Hill in New South Wales) with Gourlay, Walton and Shine’s Musical Comedy Company in G.R. Sims’s Skipped by the Light of the Moon, the singing of Syria Lamont (without the e) “much admired”. By September she was back in Melbourne performing at a benefit for the unemployed stagehands of Melbourne theatres.     

By January 1894 Syria Lamont was a leading member of the Melbourne-based touring Austral Opera Company, recently formed by two English-born singers, tenor Charles Saunders and baritone William D’Ensem. Initially they gave Benedict’s The Lily of Killarney and Dibdin’s The Waterman, interspersing these performances with “sacred recitals”. Later in their tour of Victorian towns, the company introduced Balfe’s Dolores (with Lamont in the title role). Throughout that tour, Syria Lamont was praised by local newspapers as young, beautiful and an excellent singer.

Harry Rickards, c.1893. Photo by Falk Studios, Sydney.

Falk Album, Falk 126/7, Theatre Heritage Australia

Oxford Music Hall, London,  c.1900

Theatres Trust, London

Early in 1895, Syria performed at Melbourne Opera House in a benefit for Mrs Edouin Bryer and by April she was making her debut season in Sydney (with William D’Ensem) in vaudeville for Harry Rickards at the Tivoli. By this time, Miss Lamont had become Lamonte. In June she sang at another benefit, this time a farewell, at the Lyceum for the celebrated English singer who had settled in Sydney, Emily Soldene (1838-1912). The audience included most of the great and good of the city.

By August Syria Lamonte had left the Rickards company at the Tivoli and had joined Williamson and Musgrove’s Royal Comic Opera Company, initially performing in Brisbane in Ross and Leader’s musical comedy In Town. They followed this up at the Lyceum in Sydney with Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, Syria Lamonte as one of the “little maids”, but by January the following year she was back in Melbourne with Harry Rickards’s company at the Opera House.

In May 1896, Syria Lamonte was reported as having sailed the previous month to London “to complete her musical studies under Marchesi”. Whether her target was Mathilde Marchesi, Nellie Melba’s teacher in Paris, or Mathilde’s daughter Blanche in London, is not clear—and there is no indication (thus far) that this ambition was ever fulfilled.

Arriving in London, she seems to have been offered a part in Wagner’s Lohengrin in Berlin and at the same time a three-year contract with the Tivoli and Oxford music-halls. She seems, not unnaturally, to have taken up the latter, the London Stage reporting that she had “a true, sweet soprano voice of much flexibility and good range, and her singing [of Ganz’s ‘Sing, Sweet Bird’] is something to be enjoyed.” She was in exalted company at these halls, the other artists including Vesta Tilley, Katie Lawrence, R.G. Knowles and James Fawn.

Fred Gaisberg

EMI Archive Trust

George Robey in the early 1890s

National Portrait Gallery, London

Clearly the contract with the Tivoli and Oxford was not too restrictive for her, and by December she had been cast to play the role of Principal Girl in the pantomime Dick Whittington in Birmingham, with George Robey as Idle Jack.

In 1897 Syria Lamonte sailed to South Africa for a three months’ engagement “at £35 a week”. Her return to London in November was not to be a happy experience. Before the voyage from Cape Town, she had met a cattle dealer named Ian Henterick Hugo, who had “conceived a grand passion for the fair Australian”, and showered her with expensive diamond jewels. Unfortunately, on arrival at Southampton together, Hugo was arrested, apparently having obtained money by false pretences, and Miss Lamonte had to relinquish the jewels to the police.

This episode was followed, according to Era in December, by a “severe illness of five months”, from which she was “now on the road to recovery.” What was the nature of her “illness”? Pneumonia? Pregnancy? Imprisonment?   

The Gramophone Company studio, 1898. EMI Archive Trust.

The stint at Rules and the consequent pioneering recordings came in August the following year. In all, she recorded some fourteen sides with Gaisberg (one, a duet, being uncredited). It is probable that it was Gaisberg himself who accompanied her on the piano. The exact dates of all these remain unclear. By October she was back at the Oxford Music Hall, accompanied by Tom Collins, touring with him the following spring.

By 1900 her career had also encompassed continental Europe. November saw her at Ronacher’s in Vienna, where, according to reports, the band one day struck up “God Save the Queen”, Syria leading the singing “with heart and voice, winning much applause”. Vienna was followed by Bucharest and St. Petersburg, and Paris in 1903.

In July 1906 she had emigrated to America, where she appears to have lived and presumably worked in vaudeville for the following years (reportedly making further recordings for Columbia), before returning to Australia in 1912.

She seems to have opened at the Empire in Brisbane in early April, before misfortune overtook her following a train journey between Sydney and Melbourne. Her luggage was lost—including all her performing wardrobe and her jewellery “which she values at £800”. This mishap (the luggage was quite quickly found at Wagga Wagga and restored to her) created the possibility of dramatically raising her profile again in Australia, from which she had been absent for some sixteen years.

However, there are few reports of further performances by Syria Lamonte. Aside from a broadcast in Melbourne in May 1926 and an entertainment at Caulfield Military Hospital in June 1929, she seems effectively to have retired.

But does her long association with Australia mean that she was really an Australian? After all, she could well have come initially from England with Mrs Bernard Beere’s troupe.

This remained a puzzle for quite some time. Exploration of the online births, marriages and deaths indexes of both Victoria and New South Wales revealed plenty of Lamonts of Scottish origin, but no-one who could be our Syria. Eventually it became clear that she was neither a Lamont nor a Syria by birth.

In fact, she was Sarah Cohen, daughter of Morris Cohen and Rachel née Isaacs, born 12 March 1869 at Elizabeth Street, Sydney. Father Morris was 23 and a clerk, mother Rachel just 18. Both had been born in London and were married in the gold-rush city of Ballaarat in Victoria in 1868. Morris Cohen was later described as a “commission agent”. Exactly when the Cohens moved from Sydney to live in Melbourne is not clear, but it was most probably in 1873. Sarah, the eldest, was to have at least six siblings.  

It is clear from newspaper reports in the 1890s that Sarah Cohen’s singing teachers had been Lucy Chambers and Pietro Cecchi. These were arguably the finest teachers in the city, their work reflected in the good reviews that Lamonte received throughout her performing careers in Australia and England. The contralto Chambers was born in Sydney in 1840 and studied under Manuel Garcia jnr in London, then with Romani and Lamperti in Italy. Following a successful career in Europe, she returned to Australia in 1870 with Lyster’s Italian Opera Company. She was often described as the “Australian Marchesi”, her successful pupils including Amy Sherwin and Florence Young. The Italian tenor Cecchi was Nellie Melba’s main teacher in Melbourne prior to her move to study with Marchesi in Paris.

In February 1889, at nineteen, Sarah Cohen married Joseph Pearl, a Melbourne jeweller. He strongly opposed her performing ambitions, but she persisted. There were two offspring of the marriage, both dying in childhood. The marriage was dissolved in 1900, when Syria was living in London, following her “desertion and misconduct with one J.J.A. McMeckan.”

She next married Anton Vincent Jonescu, an electrical engineer, in London in April 1905, presenting herself grandly on the marriage certificate as Syria de Lamonte Cowane. Whether or not he went with Syria to America the following year remains unclear, but he supposedly died in 1908.

As Syria Jonescu she married a third time in June 1924—in Melbourne, to George Arthur Senior, a master butcher. She was 55, he 59. Sarah/Syria Cohen/Pearl/Lamont/Lamonte/de Lamonte Cowane/Jonescu/Senior died at St. Kilda, Melbourne, aged 67, on 8 April 1935, eight months after her last husband.

While she was by no means a major star, nevertheless Syria Lamonte was an admired performer with a thriving career in light opera, musical comedy and music hall, and was an important pioneer in the fledgling recording industry—not someone to be a mere footnote in musical history.

Having listened to several of her recordings in 2009, Tony Locantro, veteran of EMI, concluded: “I would say that Syria’s voice had a firm and well supported lower register that enabled her comfortably to sing in the mezzo range but a bright top and a good technique to do the more showy soprano pieces. And I was quite impressed with her trills—would that more of today’s songbirds could do as well!”

Postscript

When I wrote about Syria Lamonte in 2014, I was convinced that she had been the first Australian singer to be recorded—by Berliner in London—on 28 August 1898. Now I believe that particular garland belongs to Frances Saville, who recorded ‘Caro nome’ from Rigoletto on cylinder for Bettini in New York in 1896/97.

Endnotes

1. F.W. Gaisberg, Music on Record, Robert Hale, London, 1948, pp.28/42

2. Jerrold Northrop Moore, A Voice in Time: The Gramophone of Fred Gaisberg 1873–1951, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1976, pp.241–242

3. The group, which corresponded mostly by email, included Peter Adamson, Anton Crouch, Kurt Gänzl, Andrew Lamb, Tony Locantro, Peter Martland, Rob Morrison, Roger Neill and Frank Van Straten. Andrew Lamb wrote up the results in an article for On Stage (Summer, 2010) in Australia and Call Boy (2010) in Britain.

4. Australian newspapers consulted include: The Argus (Melbourne); Bendigo Advertiser; The Advertiser (Adelaide); South Australian Register; Barrier Miner (Broken Hill); Euroa Advertiser; Riverine Herald; Horsham Times; Camperdown Chronicle; Colac Herald; Bairnsdale Advertiser; Traralgon Record; Morwell Advertiser; Warragul Guardian; Sunday Times (Sydney); Sydney Morning Herald; Evening News (Sydney); Brisbane Courier; North Melbourne Gazette; Daily News (Perth); Chronicle (Adelaide); Referee (Sydney); West Australian (Perth); Kalgoorlie Miner; Queensland Figaro (Brisbane); The Register (Adelaide); Williamstown Chronicle

Discography

Syria Lamonte’s Berliner recordings

The Gramophone Company, 31 Maiden Lane, London, with piano

A Geisha’s Life (The Geisha, Jones)
E3000 28 August 98

Star of Twilight
E3001 no date

The Holy City (Adams)
E3002 no date

Sing, Sweet Bird (Ganz)
E3003 no date

Si tu m’aimais (Denza)
E3004 no date

Il Bacio (Arditi)
E3005 1 September 98

Il Bacio (Arditi)
E3005X 7 September 98

Tell Me My Heart (Bishop)
E3006 not seen

Comin’ thro’ the Rye (trad)
E3007 2 September 98

Jewel of the East (sic) (The Geisha, Philp)
E3008 7 September 98 (unissued)

The Cows are in the Corn (Harding)
E3009 no date

Roberto tu che adoro (Roberto il diavolo, Meyerbeer)
E3010 7 September 98

Listen to the Band (= “Soldiers in the Park”, A Runaway Girl, Monckton)
E3011 27 September 98

The Jewel of Asia (The Geisha, Philp)
E3012 27 September 98

They always follow me (The Belle of New York, Kerker)
E3013 27 September 98

Dear Bird of Winter (Ganz)
E3014 27 September 98

Home, Sweet Home (Bishop)
E3015 3 October 98

The Poor Little Singing Girl (A Runaway Girl, Caryll)
E3016 3 October 98

A Streamlet full of Flowers (duet, uncredited)
E3017 not seen

When a Merry Maid Marries (The Gondoliers, Sullivan)
E3018 3 October 98

The Amorous Goldfish (The Geisha, Jones)
E3020 3 October 98

Listen to Syria Lamonte singing ‘Comin’ thro’ the Rye’, as featured on From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record (Decca Eloquence):

This article was first published in The Record Collector, March 2014. Republished with permission.