A Richmond City Chancery Cause and 19th Century English Opera

While processing Richmond City chancery causes that ended between 1879 and 1881, I stumbled across a suit involving several former members of an English opera troupe styled the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Company. It piqued my interest, namely because the bill of complaint specified that the troupe performed English-language operas. During my search for more information about Caroline Richings-Bernard, I discovered a variety of resources that describe her background, her involvement with the opera troupe, and the widespread impact of English opera troupes on American society.

In one such resource, a journal article titled “Singers and Managers: Women and the Operatic Stage in Late Nineteenth-Century America,” Katherine K. Preston writes that “Opera – in particular opera performed in English – was an extraordinarily successful style of popular entertainment in the United States during the nineteenth century.”¹ As the American elite attended Italian and foreign-language operatic performances in greater numbers, Caroline Richings-Bernard and several other women exploited less-affluent theatergoers’ continued interest in English-language opera. They formed English opera troupes that saw great success among audiences who differed socioeconomically and racially. The role Caroline Richings-Bernard played (pun intended) in reviving and popularizing English-language opera following the American Civil War, as well as the way in which the chancery cause highlights the financial complications that can arise while managing an opera troupe, will be more fully explored in this series.

Peter Richings, a preeminent stage performer during the early to mid-nineteenth century, adopted Caroline Richings sometime during her infancy. According to his obituary, which was reprinted in the Richmond Enquirer, Peter Richings was born in England and relocated to New York in 1821 to pursue a theatrical career.² After adopting Caroline, he encouraged her musical abilities, as “she early displayed a taste for lyric endeavor.”³ She eventually debuted on the stage in the 1850s, marking the beginning of her illustrious stage career.⁴ Caroline featured in operas such as The Prima Donna and Norma, performing in both English and Italian, among other languages.⁵

Peter and Caroline also performed together, as evidenced by several newspaper articles. One article, published in the Daily Dispatch (Richmond, VA) on January 28, 1860, described an upcoming performance by Caroline and Peter in which “Miss Caroline Richings will, during the evening, render a number of GEMS of Italian, French, English and Scotch composers.”⁶ A New York Dispatch article from 1875, describing the New York stage season of 1861 to 1862, reminisced about their joint performances in The Syren and The Daughter of the Regiment.⁷ A paragraph in the November 26, 1860 edition of the Daily Dispatch referred to Caroline as “the Richmond favorite” and “one of the finest vocalists of the day.”⁸ Such praise from Richmond audiences perhaps foreshadows her eventual relocation there in 1880.

Caroline formed a touring English opera troupe around 1859, with the support of Peter, and functioned as its manageress and directress.⁹ Among contemporaneous newspaper articles and advertisements, the troupe was referred to variously as the Richings English Opera Troupe, the Richings English Opera Company, and the Richings Grand English Opera. The troupe initially struggled to distinguish themselves, due in part to the outbreak of the American Civil War and their place among “a dwindling number of vernacular troupes,” but from 1866 to 1869 enjoyed heightened success following the popularization of foreign-language operas among wealthier theatergoers.¹⁰ As foreign-language operas became more expensive (and thereby increasingly exclusive), and as wealthier theatergoers began to discount English-language opera as “old-fashioned and passé,” Caroline and Peter recognized the continuing interest among a varied American populace in English opera, thus setting the stage, so to speak, for their success.¹¹

Per Preston, Caroline saw “that many Americans were not disaffected from all opera, and believed that they might be lured back into the theater by a company that mounted affordable opera devoid of aristocratic trappings.”¹² The troupe performed such operas as Bohemian Girl, Fra Diavolo, and Rose of Castille, primarily touring the eastern half of the United States.¹³ Their English-language performances attracted socioeconomically and racially diverse audiences, especially since the troupe “presented opera in a language they [middle-class Americans] could understand,” and tended to be more affordable than the popular, and costly, foreign-language operas.¹⁴ Also of significance – the Richings opera troupe heralded a number of female-led English opera troupes that eventually surpassed that to which Caroline had given rise.¹⁵ In 1867, Caroline married Pierre Bernard, an opera singer and member of the opera troupe.

As noted above, Richmond residents appear to have deeply appreciated Caroline’s talents, as well as those of her opera troupe. A Daily Dispatch article published in 1870 described Caroline as “Richmond’s popular favorite.”¹⁶ Another Daily Dispatch article, printed in 1876, lauded Caroline for having “won her way to the hearts of our people by her accomplishments, her great facility in her art, and her force of expression” and mentioned that she had “ensconced herself in the very hearts of our discriminating yet generous opera-goers.”¹⁷ As for the opera troupe, an article in the Virginia Record, published in October 1957, claimed that the opera troupe “often visited Richmond” and that “Richmonders loved [Caroline] and her troupe.”¹⁸ They generally performed at the Richmond Theatre, located on the corner of Broad and Seventh streets, where today the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia lives.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the legacy of the troupe intersects with the Richmond City Chancery Courts in the second half of our story…