THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Henry Hallam

Henry Hallam (1877)

[Born Clerkenwell, London 7 Aug 1850, died 9 Nov 1921]

Tenor Henry Samuel Hallam Mayer began his singing career as a teenage burlesque artist, before leaving his homeland for Australia in 1870. He eventually joined G. B. Allen's Royal English Opera Company, touring Austalasia in 1874-75 and India in 1875-76 in a variety of comic operas. He then headed back to England.

Hallam appeared as the Donkeyherd in Frank Desprez and Richard D'Oyly Carte's one act musical pastoral Happy Hampstead, when it was produced at the Royalty Theatre, London, under the management of Carte and Kate Santley, in January and February 1877, with Orpheus in the Underworld and Lischen and Fritzen. It was his only engagement under D'Oyly Carte management. Later that year he was on tour with Santley as the Defendant in Trial by Jury and Prince Doro in W. S. Gilbert and Frederic Clay's Princess Toto.

He later toured with Richard South's Opera Company in Procida Bucalossi's comic opera Pom (1878). He went on to appear in New York with Rudolph Aronson's Company where his roles included Colonel Fairfax in The Yeomen of the Guard (Casino, 1888) and the Duke of Mantua in W. S. Gilbert's translation of Offenbach's The Brigands (Casino and on tour, 1889), among many others. In 1893 he appeared with Lillian Russell in a number of parts including Risotto in Gilbert & Cellier's The Mountebanks at New York's Garden Theatre.

Hallam eventually returned to Australia and New Zealand where, in 1901, he made a lengthy tour in a George Musgrove production of the musical comedy A Chinese Honeymoon.

In 1912 Hallam embarked on an entirely new career as a silent film actor. Over the next decade as a character actor he was seen in over 130 films.

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