A Richmond City Chancery Cause and 19th Century English Opera, Part 2

Due to financial complications arising from their usurpation in popularity by other female-led opera troupes such as the Parepa-Rosa English Opera Company and the Kellogg English Opera Company, the Richings English Opera Company found it difficult to compete with bigger, more lavish opera troupes.¹ For example, William Castle, Edward Seguin, and Zelda Seguin Wallace, all renowned opera singers, regularly performed with the opera troupe during its heyday (Figure 1). Conversely, less well-known performers typically comprised the later iteration of the opera troupe, called the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Company or the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Troupe. A newspaper advertisement from 1870, in which the opera troupe was still referred to as the Richings Grand English Opera, perhaps demonstrates the beginning of this decline. A year removed from the involvement of Castle, Seguin, and Wallace, the troupe consisted of several individuals, such as Annie Kemp Bowler and Henri (Henry) Drayton, who, while popular, did not enjoy the same celebrity as their predecessors (Figure 2).² In 1876, the same trend persisted among the members of the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Company, as it was known by that time (Figure 3).

To further account for the decreasing popularity of the Richings opera troupe, Preston states that the Parepa-Rosa opera troupe stole several of their more famous performers around 1869 or 1870.³ A paragraph in the May 7, 1869 edition of the Daily Dispatch, reprinted from the Philadelphia Press, supports this point, noting that several members of the troupe were to shortly “rally around the standard of the Rosa.”⁴ Brian C. Thompson, the author of a journal article that explores Henri Drayton’s career, asserts that the Parepa-Rosa English Opera Company combined with the Richings opera troupe in 1870.⁵ This assertion is reinforced by a short article in the June 2, 1870 edition of the Daily Dispatch, which stated that the “Richings and the Parepa Opera Companies are to join forces.”⁶ Perhaps a merger with the Parepa-Rosa opera troupe offered financial stability, considering they were poised to eclipse the Richings opera troupe. By some point in the mid-1870s, however, Caroline Richings-Bernard was touring as the “Prima Donna Assoluta” of the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Company.⁷ The opera troupe performed Martha, Rose of Tyrol, and Maritana, among other operas, for audiences across the United States.⁸ Based on various newspaper advertisements, they traveled to western states such as Oregon and Nevada, and continued to entertain theatergoers in more easterly states like Ohio and Delaware.⁹ It is unclear as to whether the opera troupe continuously toured throughout the 1870s, but it seems that they ultimately disbanded between 1878 and 1880.

Caroline and Pierre lived outside of Philadelphia for a time before settling in Baltimore, Maryland, and engaging in musical instruction.¹⁰ They eventually relocated to Richmond, Virginia, in 1880.¹¹ Upon their arrival in Richmond, Caroline and Pierre involved themselves with the Mozart Association, an organization that encouraged musical performance and education; they also resumed teaching, forming the Richings-Bernard Conservatory of Music.¹² Caroline occasionally performed at Mozart Hall, a precursor to the Mozart Academy of Music that opened in 1886 (Figure 4).¹³ The Mozart Association rented Mozart Hall, formerly known as Assembly Hall, around 1877 when they outgrew their former space.¹⁴ On the 1877 map of Richmond, Assembly Hall is located on Eighth Street; the Mozart Academy of Music was later constructed on the same block, as evidenced by a Sanborn map from 1886. The same block of Eighth Street is now occupied by the Virginia Supreme Court building. Caroline and Pierre were known to be friendly with Dr. Jacob Reinhardt, a Richmond-based musician and conductor and fellow member of the Mozart Association.¹⁵

Caroline died in 1882 after battling smallpox, and Pierre passed the following year. Both Caroline and Pierre are buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. As an interesting aside, a newspaper article in the Daily Dispatch eulogizing Caroline described the circumstances surrounding her death as follows:

It is related by a gentleman of this city, who was well acquainted with Mrs. Bernard, that on the thirteenth anniversary of her marriage she gave a dinner-party, and that at the table it so happened there were thirteen persons present, and the fact made an unpleasant impression upon her, and recalled the old superstition…She was sick exactly thirteen days, and died at the close of the 13^th day of January. Super-stitious people will dwell upon these coincidences (whether or not the report about them be correct).¹⁶

By the time Frank M. Howard filed his bill of complaint in the chancery court of Richmond City, both Caroline Richings-Bernard and Pierre Bernard were no longer living. He initiated the suit, styled Frank M. Howard for etc. vs. Exr. of Peter Bernhard (alias: Pierre Bernard), in September 1883 following Pierre’s death the foregoing month. Howard sought recompense from the estate of Pierre Bernard for an unsatisfied debt: his salary as a member of the Caroline Richings-Bernard Grand English Opera Company. He sued David Mayer, the executor of Bernard’s estate, for salary as yet unpaid. Howard described Bernard as “engaged in the business of managing and conducting an Opera troup[e] or Company, and in giving public operatic entertainments throughout the Country…[with what] was then called the Caroline Richings Bernard Grand English Opera Company.” Bernard hired Howard, a Basso Profundo, to join said opera troupe from September 1876 to October 1878. Howard appears in a Daily Dispatch article from October 24, 1876, in which his performance in Martha was praised, and it was noted that he “sang his part with precision and earnestness.”¹⁷ In his bill of complaint, Howard claimed that Bernard owed him $5,223.00, equivalent today to around $163,000, with interest.¹⁸ Howard also intimated that Bernard owed numerous debts.

Susan Drayton, who appears in several of the newspaper advertisements pictured above (Figures 2 and 3) as Mrs. Henry Drayton, Mezzo Soprano, petitioned to be admitted to the suit as a plaintiff alongside Howard. She was married to Henri (Henry) Drayton, who was also a member of the opera troupe. Drayton and her husband performed with the Richings opera troupe throughout the 1870s.¹⁹ Drayton claimed that Bernard owed her $2,800 – equal to $87,410 today.²⁰ The suit contains no decrees, and there is no specified reason as to why the suit did not proceed further. It is possible that Bernard’s debts, potentially numerous as Howard suggested, could not be sufficiently satisfied by his estate. In all likelihood, Howard and Drayton were unable to recover the entire amount owed them.

Presciently, a paragraph from the June 23, 1868 edition of The Daily Phoenix (Columbia, SC) newspaper notes Caroline Richings-Bernard’s involvement in a court case related to the nonpayment of services rendered. Laura Waldron sued her in the Marine Court of New York “to recover for services as a singer in the Richings Opera Troupe.”²¹ According to the information provided, the jury was unable to reach a consensus.²²