This book considers and discuss aspects of the management of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the twentieth century since the death of its founder Richard D'Oyly Carte and concentrate on key events which contributed to its demise in 1982. In this project, Paul Seeley follows the analytical model that no single factor may trigger the collapse but several, both external and internal. In the case of an opera company the external factors may include public taste and market forces, but more significant are the internal factors such as the management decisions taken in response to external factors and how these compare with the original artistic aims, aspirations and business models of the founder. This is a study by someone with close observation of the administration, for at the 1982 demise Paul was assistant to the company manager, having earlier served on the music staff. The book will be of great interest to music historians, theatre historians, and arts management professionals, but also for a wider public interested in Gilbert and Sullivan opera and production.

The captivating story of the famed Savoy Hotel’s founders, told through three generations—and one hundred years—of glamour and high society. For the gondoliers-themed birthday dinner, the hotel obligingly flooded the courtyard to conjure the Grand Canal of Venice. Dinner was served on a silk-lined floating gondola, real swans were swimming in the water, and as a final flourish, a baby elephant borrowed from London Zoo pulled a five-foot high birthday cake. In three generations, the D'Oyly Carte family and London's Savoy Hotel pioneered the idea of the luxury hotel and the modern theater, propelled Gilbert and Sullivan to lasting stardom, made Oscar Wilde a transatlantic celebrity, inspired a P. G. Wodehouse series, and popularized early jazz, electric lights, and Art Deco. Following the history of the iconic Savoy Hotel through three generations of the D'Oyly Carte family, The Secret Life of the Savoy brings to life the extraordinary cultural legacy of the most famous hotel in the world.

D'Oyly Carte: Through the Lens is a beautiful book of photographs of the world-renowned D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, most of which have never previously been seen.

This book considers and discusses aspects of the management of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in the twentieth century since the death of its founder Richard D’Oyly Carte, and concentrates on key events that contributed to its demise in 1982. In this book, Paul Seeley follows the analytical model that proposes no single factor triggered the collapse, but rather several, both external and internal. In the case of an opera company the external factors may include public taste and market forces, but more significant are the internal factors such as the management decisions taken in response to external factors and how these compare with the original artistic aims, aspirations and business models of the founder. This is a study by someone with close observation of the administration; at the 1982 demise, Seeley was assistant to the company manager, having earlier served on the music staff. The book is a must-read for music historians, theatre historians and arts-management professionals; as an uncompromisingly critical history of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company it is designed to serve a wider public, not just the Gilbert and Sullivan opera specialist, but anyone keen to debate the desirability of private or public sponsorship of the performing arts.

The first biography of Richard D’Oyly Carte, this is a critical survey of the career of the impresario whose ambitions went beyond the famous partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan. Errors and misconceptions in current literature are challenged and corrected to give a truer portrayal of one of the most influential music theatre promoters in the nineteenth century.

Daughter of an English lord, and married to the man who owned The Savoy, Lady Dorothy D'Oyly Carte enjoyed all of the privileges that wealth and position could offer in pre-war England. But then, in the 1930s, she visited Trinidad and Tobago and fell in love, both with the beauty and charm of the islands, and with the author's great uncle, St. Yves de Verteuil. She would spend the rest of her long life in Tobago, deeply involved in the community in which she lived. In Deep Indigo, author Elizabeth Cadiz Topp draws on family lore, historical research, and a rich imagination to breathe life into a story she first heard as a child. Infused with joy, humour and heartbreak, it tells the story of a courageous, generous and eccentric woman who defied the society she grew up in and found her own way.

'D'Oyly Carte: The Inside Story' looks at the life of the historic D'Oyly Carte Opera Company between 1950 and its sad demise in 1982. After thrilling audiences on both sides of the Atlantic from the time of Queen Victoria with its productions of Gilbert and Sullivan, the last great touring repertory company said farewell to its audiences after 107 years. Although many books have been written about the company founded by Richard D'Oyly Carte in 1875, none has been from the perspective of its members. This book details the working life of every department of the famous company, from its London management to the wardrobe department, as told by Roberta Morrell, herself a performer with the company for 10 years. Having travelled all over the UK to interview her former colleagues, Roberta uses their stories and recollections to present an insight into the world of a theatre company on tour for 48 weeks of every year. Personal tales of travel, theatrical digs, mad-cap parties, on-stage disasters, overseas tours and glamorous occasions are told by singers, musicians, back-stage staff and senior managers proud to have been a part of the D'Oyly Carte story. Hilarious anecdotes are mingled with serious fact, from eccentric landladies of the 1950s, to the logistics of presenting a Royal Command Performance at Windsor Castle. Mix in a little intrigue over the ownership of the Savoy Hotel and you have an entertaining account of a unique theatrical institution that will appeal to any reader.