Alice May

the long version

"Alice May created the role of the heroine, Aline, in Gilbert and Sullivan's first successful full-length operetta, The Sorcerer. It is for this brief association with one of the musical stage's most famous partnerships that her name is tenuously remembered today. But there was much more to Alice's career than The Sorcerer. During the 1870s and '80s she played leading roles in dozens of comic operas. She sang in a number of world premieres and took part in the first English-language performances of several works by notable European composers. If she never quite scaled the dizzying heights of stardom reached by a few special performers, she nonetheless enjoyed significant success in her chosen profession. At the peak of her powers she gave pleasure to thousands and even in her sad, declining years she remained a performer of consequence, as popular with her colleagues as with the public."--Jacket.