Sir Augustus Henry Glossop Harris (18 March 1852 – 22 June 1896) was a British actor, impresario, and dramatist, a dominant figure in the West End theatre of the 1880s and 1890s.
Born into a theatrical family, Harris briefly pursued a commercial career before becoming an actor and subsequently a stage-manager. At the age of 27 he became the lessee of the large Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he mounted popular melodramas and annual pantomimes on a grand and spectacular scale. The pantomimes featured leading music hall stars such as Dan Leno, Marie Lloyd, Little Tich and Vesta Tilley. The profits from these productions subsidised his opera seasons, equally lavish, starrily cast and with an innovative repertoire. He presented the first British production of Die Meistersinger and the first production anywhere outside Germany of Tristan und Isolde, and revitalised the staging of established classics.
Harris remained in charge at Drury Lane for the rest of his life, and in 1888 took on the additional responsibility of running the Royal Italian Opera House, Covent Garden, modernising its productions and repertory and abandoning the old convention that all operas, whatever their nationality, were sung in Italian. He changed the name of the theatre to The Royal Opera House in 1892. Both at Drury Lane and Covent Garden he engaged the most admired artists, including Hans Richter and Gustav Mahler as conductors, and Emma Albani, Nellie Melba, Adelina Patti, Jean and Édouard de Reszke and Victor Maurel among the singers.
In 1892 Harris took over the failed Royal English Opera House and turned it into a successful music hall with the new name The Palace Theatre of Varieties. He was active in civic affairs, a member of the new London County Council, a sheriff of the City of London and a prominent Freemason. His health gave way under the pressure of his multifarious activities, and after a short illness he died at the age of 44.
Life and career Early years Harris came from a musical and theatrical family. His paternal grandfather, Joseph Glossop (1793–1850), was at various times manager of the Royal Coburg Theatre in London (later known as the Old Vic), La Scala, Milan, and the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples;Knight, Joseph and Nilanjana Banerji. "Harris, Augustus Frederick Glossop (Augustus Glossop Harris) (1825–1873), actor and theatre manager", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020 his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Feron (1797–1853), was a popular soprano, dubbed "The English Catalani";Cheke, D.J. "Feron, Elizabeth", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press 2002. Retrieved 10 May 2020. his father, Augustus Glossop Harris (1825–1873), was a leading stage-manager,Wearing, J. P. "Harris, Sir Augustus Henry Glossop (1852–1896), actor and theatre manager", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 10 May 2020 and his mother, Maria Ann, née Bone (1825–1892), was a theatrical costumier known under the name of "Madame Auguste"."Death of Mrs Harris", Liverpool Echo, 2 August 1892, p. 3; Glover, Jimmy , His Book (1911), p. 105 Augustus senior and his wife had five children all of whom became connected with the theatre. Harris was born on 18 March 1852 in the Rue Taitbout, Paris, near the Salle Ventadour, where his father was stage-manager of the Comédie-Italienne opera company."Mr Augustus Harris", Bow Bells, 28 September 1887, p. 348
The young Harris was educated in London, and then, from age 12, in Paris at the Lycée Chaptal and the music academy L'École Niedermeyer."Mr Horace Sedger", The Era, 27 February 1892, p. 11 Friends he made then included the composer Gabriel Fauré, the music publisher Louis Brandus, the opera manager Léon Carvalho, his future brother-in-law Horace Sedger, and the soprano Adelina Patti."Manager Harris Dead", The New York Times, 23 June 1896 He completed his education in Hanover to learn German, after which he joined the financial firm Emile Erlanger & Co. and then the Paris house of Tiffany's."Interview with Augustus Harris", The Musical World, 27 September 1884, p. 603 After his father died in 1873, Harris abandoned commerce ("I saw no prospect in 'quill driving'") and followed the family's theatrical calling. He made his debut as an actor in the role of Malcolm in Macbeth in September 1873 at the Theatre Royal, Manchester, in a company headed by W. H. Pennington, Geneviève Ward and Tom Swinbourne."Provincial Theatricals", The Era, 5 October 1873, p. 6 According to his biographer J. P. Wearing he followed this with juvenile and light comedy roles in Barry Sullivan's company at the Amphitheatre, Liverpool."Obituary: Sir Augustus Harris", The Times, 23 June 1896, p. 12
The opera impresario J. H. Mapleson engaged Harris as an assistant stage-manager and was soon sufficiently impressed to put him in sole charge of his Italian Opera Company. Harris went on tour with Mapleson's company as stage-manager, together with his younger brother Charles, later best-known as Richard D'Oyly Carte's stage director.Rosenthal, Harold, and George Biddlecombe. "Harris, Sir Augustus", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 10 May 2020 ; and Rollins and Witts, pp. 5, 14 and 98 In 1876 Harris was appointed resident stage-manager at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester,"Provincial Theatricals", The Era, 8 October 1876, p. 8 and by the end of that year, when he staged the pantomime Sindbad [sic] the Sailor for Charles Wyndham at the Crystal Palace, he had established a high reputation: one reviewer wrote that the management could not possibly have a better stage-manager than Harris."Sindbad the Sailor", The Penny Illustrated Paper, 30 December 1876, p. 435
Moving into management
Harris continued to appear as an actor. In 1877 Wyndham cast him as the juvenile lead in The Pink Dominos at the Criterion Theatre in the West End."Criterion Theatre", The Era, 8 April 1877, p. 5 It ran for 555 performances, of which Harris did not miss one. He was a competent actor, but his talents and inclination drew him towards management. In 1879, seeing that the huge Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was closed and empty, he determined to reopen it. He had little money but raised enough funds from friends including his future father-in-law to acquire the lease. He was not immediately able to mount a production of his own, and at first he sub-let the theatre to George Rignold, who presented and starred in a spectacular production of Henry V, which lost money, adding to Drury Lane's reputation as an unprofitable house.
Harris followed Rignold's production with the first of his Drury Lane pantomimes, Bluebeard, written by "the Brothers Grinn" (E. L. Blanchard and T. L. Greenwood), lavishly mounted, well-reviewed and financially successful. After a short Shakespeare season, presented by Marie Litton's company, Harris staged the first of his series of melodramas, The World (July 1880), which he co-wrote, staged, and acted in (Wearing comments, "he never took things lightly"). He established a pattern of lucrative melodramas in the late summer and autumn and even more lucrative pantomimes in the winter, all of which subsidised the culturally ambitious seasons he presented in the spring and early summer. In his pantomimes Harris featured top-line music-hall stars – Marie Lloyd, Kate Santley and Vesta Tilley among the women performers and Herbert Campbell, Dan Leno, Arthur Roberts and Little Tich among the men. Some critics held that Harris had vulgarised the pantomime by importing music-hall turns, particularly knockabout comedians, but the theatre historian Phyllis Hartnoll writes that he "had a feeling for the old harlequinade, providing for it lavish scenery and machinery and engaging excellent clowns and acrobats".Hartnoll, Phyllis, and Peter Found. "Harris, Sir Augustus Henry Glossop", The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Oxford University Press, 2003. Retrieved 11 May. 2020
In 1881 Harris married Florence Edgcumbe Rendle (1859–1914). They had one child, Florence Nellie (1884–1931), who married the actor Frank Cellier in 1910."Obituary: Frank Cellier", The Times, 28 September 1948, p. 7
Harris's ambitious seasons of high culture included the Meiningen Court Theatre company in 1881, with a repertoire of German plays and Shakespeare in German translations, and the following year Adelaide Ristori and Rignold in Macbeth."Madame Ristori at Drury Lane", The Times, 5 July 1882, p. 5 In 1882 Harris engaged leading German singers and the conductor Hans Richter for a season of German operas that included the first British performances of Die Meistersinger and the first production anywhere outside Germany of Tristan und Isolde."Drury Lane", The Times, 8 June 1882, p. 10 Over the next four years he hosted the Carl Rosa Opera Company's seasons of opera in English, and he also presented operatic seasons sung in the original languages by celebrated international singers. His productions did much to revitalise the presentation of Italian opera in London, which had for some years chiefly consisted of vocal display and little dramatic coherence."Opera Under Sir Augustus Harris", The Musical Times, August 1896, p. 521
The 1887 opera season at Drury Lane celebrated Queen Victoria's golden jubilee by featuring a particularly starry international cast, including Jean de Reszke, Édouard de Reszke, Victor Maurel, Minnie Hauk and Lilian Nordica. The repertoire was Italian (Il barbiere di Siviglia, La traviata and Rigoletto), French (Les Huguenots, Faust and Carmen) and German or Austrian (Don Giovanni and Lohengrin)."Royal Italian Opera, Drury Lane", The Times, 9 July 1887, p. 13 Wearing comments that the season was an artistic and social success, but lost £10,000.
As well as the opera, Harris presented serious non-musical drama, including seasons by the Comédie-Française (1893), Eleonora Duse (1895), and the ducal court company of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1895).
Covent Garden By 1888 Harris was so closely identified with his theatre that he was popularly known as "Druriolanus". He remained in charge at Drury Lane for the rest of his life, but having had to contend with the rival opera seasons of the Royal Italian Opera House, Covent Garden (run by Antonio Lago) and Her Majesty's Theatre (run by Mapleson), he concluded that "in London there is room for but one operatic enterprise at a time", and that he should take over Covent Garden."Opera Under Augustus Harris", The Era, 19 February 1898 He assembled a syndicate of influential backers including Lord Charles Beresford, Earl de Grey and Henry Chaplin and took over the lease of the house in early 1888. From May to July he presented a ten-week season with Luigi Mancinelli and Alberto Randegger as conductors and 21 leading singers including Emma Albani, the de Reszkes, Hauk, Nordica, and Nellie Melba in her London debut.Parker, pp. 23 and 27 The repertoire consisted of 19 operas, beginning with Lucrezia Borgia and ending with Les Huguenots.