THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Josephine Curtis in H.M.S. Pinafore

Josephine Curtis (1933-37)

[Born Subiaco, Western Australia 1910]

Josephine Agnes Curtis was awarded a scholarship at the Royal College of Music, London, in February 1930. Upon completion of her studies there, she joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in January 1933 as a contralto member of the chorus.

From August of that year until she left the Company in July 1937 she served as understudy to the principal contraltos Dorothy Gill, who left in June 1936, and Evelyn Gardiner who took over when the next season started in August. Josephine Curtis sang the small part of Inez in The Gondoliers for those four years, and also occasionally filled in as Katisha in The Mikado (1933-34) and Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (1935-36).

In June 1936, during Miss Gill's last month with the Company, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recorded The Mikado. Jo Curtis was given the rare opportunity of recording the role of Katisha, a part she never played on a regular basis.

Not long after leaving the company, she appeared at Covent Garden in Strauss's opera Elektra (May 1938). She also did broadcast recitals for the BBC over the next ten years, as well as concert work. She performed for ENSA (Entertainment National Service Association) and CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts) during the war years. She married in England and lived in Manchester, appearing there in an amateur production of The Yeomen of the Guard in 1958.

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