Everything about Helen Carte totally explained
Helen Carte or
Helen Lenoir (
May 12 1852 –
May 5 1913) was the second wife of impresario and hotelier
Richard D'Oyly Carte. She is best known for her stewardship of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and
Savoy Hotel from the end of the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century.
Life and career
Susan Couper Black was born in
Wigtown,
Scotland, to George Couper Black,
procurator fiscal and banker, and his wife, Ellen, née Barham (from Penzance), the second of four siblings. One of her brothers,
John McConnell Black, later became a well-known botanist. Her grandfather, Robert Couper, M.D. was a Scottish poet.
She attended the
University of London from 1871 to 1874 and was a gifted student, passing the Special Certificates in mathematics and in logic and moral philosophy (the university didn't award degrees to women until 1878). She also spoke several languages. She registered at the university as
Helen Susan Black. After her studies, she taught mathematics and had a brief acting career, during which she changed her name to
Helen Lenoir ("Black", in French).
In 1877, Helen's mother, then a widow, relocated with Helen's sister and two brothers to Australia. Helen, however, remained behind and became secretary to Richard D'Oyly Carte in 1877, just before the production of
The Sorcerer. After the death of Carte's first wife in 1885, Helen married Richard on
April 12 1888 in the
Savoy Chapel, with Sullivan as Best man. The couple's London home included the first private elevator.
James McNeill Whistler, a client of Carte's agency and friend of the Cartes, made an etching of Helen in 1887 or 1888, "Miss Lenoir," and later decorated the Cartes' home. Although some sources refer to Mrs. Carte as "Helen D'Oyly Carte," this name isn't correct, because D'Oyly is a given name, not a surname. Therefore, Mrs. Carte's married name was "Helen Carte."
The woman behind the man
From the time that she was hired as Carte's assistant, Helen was intensely involved in his business affairs and had a grasp of detail and organisational and diplomacy skills that surpassed even Carte's. She became the business manager of the company and was also responsible for the
Savoy Hotel. One of Helen's early tasks was to produce the Paignton copyright performance of
The Pirates of Penzance. Helen made fifteen visits to America in order to promote Carte's interests. In 1886, Carte offered her a salary of £1,000 and 10% commission on all business at his theatres. Helen, more than anyone else, was able to smooth out the differences between
W. S. Gilbert and
Arthur Sullivan, to ensure that the two produced more operas together.
In his 1922 memoir,
Henry Lytton described Mrs. Carte:
» "She was a born business woman with an outstanding gift for organisation. No financial statement was too intricate for her, and no contract too abstruse. Once, when I'd to put one of her letters to me before my legal adviser... he declared firmly 'this letter must have been written by a solicitor.' He wouldn't admit that any woman could draw up a document so cleverly guarded with qualifications. Mrs. Carte, besides her natural business talent, had fine artistic taste and was a sound judge, too, of the capabilities of those who came to the theatre in search of engagements...."
Throughout the later 1890s, Carte's health was declining, and Helen assumed more and more of the responsibilities for the opera company and other family businesses. In 1894, Carte hired his son
Rupert D'Oyly Carte as an assistant. Rupert's older brother, Lucas, a barrister, wasn't involved in the family businesses and died of tuberculosis in 1907. With no new
Gilbert and Sullivan shows written after 1896, the Savoy put on a number of other shows for comparatively short runs, including Sullivan's
The Beauty Stone, in 1898. Young Rupert assisted Helen and
W. S. Gilbert with the first revival of
The Yeomen of the Guard at the
Savoy Theatre in May 1897. In 1899, the theatre finally had a new success in Sullivan and
Basil Hood's
The Rose of Persia, followed by
The Emerald Isle for which
Edward German completed the score after Sullivan's death.
After Carte's death
Richard died in 1901 leaving the theatre, opera company and hotel to Helen, who assumed full control of the family businesses. She leased the
Savoy Theatre to
William Greet in 1901. She oversaw his management of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's revival at the Savoy of
Iolanthe, and several new
comic operas including
The Emerald Isle,
Merrie England and
A Princess of Kensington (with music by
Edward German and libretto by
Basil Hood), which ran for four months in early 1903 and then toured. When
A Princess closed at the Savoy, Helen leased the theatre to other managements until
December 8 1906.
Rupert took over his late father’s role as Chairman of the
Savoy Hotel in 1903, which Helen continued to own. The years between 1901 and 1906 saw a decline in the fortunes of the opera company. The number of D'Oyly Carte repertory companies touring the provinces gradually declined until there was only one left, visiting often small centres of population. After the company visited South Africa in 1905, more than half a year elapsed with no professional productions of G&S in the British Isles. During this period Helen and Rupert likely focused their attention on the hotel side of the family interests, which were very profitable.
In late 1906, Helen (now remarried to barrister Stanley Carr Boulter) re-acquired the performing rights to the
Gilbert and Sullivan operas from Gilbert (she already had Sullivan's) and staged a repertory season at the Savoy Theatre, reviving the opera company and leasing the Savoy to herself. Helen persuaded the recently knighted Gilbert, now 71, to stage direct the productions in repertory, and once again Helen had to exercise the greatest tact, as Gilbert sometimes had difficulty accepting that he was no longer an equal partner and was taking no financial risk. The season, and the following one, were tremendous successes, revitalizing the company. After the repertory seasons in 1906-1908, however, the company didn't perform in London again until 1919, only touring throughout Britain during that time.
In March 1909,
Charles H. Workman assumed management of the theatre. Helen continued to manage the rest of the family businesses with the assistance of Rupert. In 1911, the company hired
J. M. Gordon, who had been a member of the company under Gilbert's direction, as stage manager. Helen died in 1913, a week before her 61st birthday, leaving the Savoy Theatre, the opera company and the Savoy Hotel to Rupert, bequests of 5,000 to each of her two brothers and smaller bequests to a number of friends and colleagues. She left the considerable
residuary estate to her husband.
Further Information
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