Geraldine Ulmar

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as Yum-Yum (center), with Kate Forster (left) and Geraldine St. Maur (right)

Geraldine Ulmar (June 23, 1862 – August 13, 1932) was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

1 Life and career
- 1.1 Ideal Opera and D'Oyly Carte years
- 1.2 Later years
2 References
3 External links

[edit] Life and career

Annie Geraldine Ulmar was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the United States. She began singing in amateur concerts before she was a teenager.

[edit] Ideal Opera and D'Oyly Carte years

In 1879, she made her professional debut as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore on a ship in a lake in Boston's Oakland Garden. She soon joined the Boston Ideal Opera Company and remained with the company as leading soprano for the next six years, singing roles in The Marriage of Figaro, The Bohemian Girl, Fra Diavolo, Giralda, The Chimes of Normandy, Fatinitza,^[1] Girofle-Girofla,^[2] Czar and Carpenter, and in Gilbert and Sullivan operas.^[3]

as Rose in Ruddigore

Ulmar then was hired to play Yum-Yum in D'Oyly Carte's first American production of The Mikado at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, from 1885 to 1886, in a cast that included George Thorne (Ko-Ko), Courtice Pounds (Nanki-Poo), and Fred Billington (Pooh-Bah). She joined a D'Oyly Carte touring company in England, singing Yum-Yum and Josephine for a few months before returning to America. D'Oyly Carte released her to play for John Stetson, the American manager, at the end of 1886, and she played in Carte-sanctioned productions of Princess Ida (in the title role) and The Mikado (as Yum-Yum) in New York and Patience in Boston (in the title role).

Ulmar then returned to England, where she rehearsed the new opera, Ruddygore, gave two matinee performances as Rose Maybud at the Savoy Theatre, and returned to New York to play Rose in the American production. In 1887, she returned to London to play Rose at the Savoy and then to play the soprano roles in the 1888 London revivals of Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance (Mabel) and The Mikado. Ulmar created the roles of Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard (1888), and in Gianetta in The Gondoliers (1889) before leaving the Savoy and the D'Oyly Carte organisation in 1890.

[edit] Later years

She next appeared in London as Marton in La Cigale (1890-91), then as Teresa in W. S. Gilbert and Alfred Cellier's The Mountebanks (1892) and Guinevere Block in Little Christopher Columbus (1893–94).

as Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard

Beginning in 1896, she toured as O Mimosa San in The Geisha with George Edwardes's touring company. After appearing as Jane Jingle in Ladyland (1904), Ulmar retired from the stage and devoted herself to teaching singing. Some of her students became well known, including Jose Collins and Evelyn Laye.

She was married for a time in the 1890s to composer-conductor Ivan Caryll. She died in Merstham Surrey, England.