THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

George W. Marnock (1880-82)

[Born Port Elphinstone, Aberdeenshire, Scotland 1842, died Glasgow May 23 May 1920]

Scottish baritone George Walker began his professional career as a singer around 1873 in Europe, appearing that year in Milan using the stage name of Giorgio Valcheri. Successful Italian opera appearances followed in Lugano, Paris, Turin, Genoa, etc. In 1878 he returned to Britain, where he continued to perform serious opera and concerts as Valcheri for awhile.

He eventually he abandoned his pseudo-Italian identity and, as George Walker Marnock, toured the British Isles as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance with Mr. D'Oyly Carte's "B" Company beginning in October 1880. The Company was renamed "C" Company in March 1881 and stopped touring for a spell in December of that year. It was reactivated in April 1882 as Mr. D'Oyly Carte's No. 1 "Pirates" Company with many of the same performers. In December 1882 the Company was disbanded. Marnock had served as Pirate King throughout its existence.

Marnock later traveled to Australia where, as Walter Marnock, he appeared as Sergeant Meryll in the first Australian production of The Yeomen of the Guard (Princess Theatre, Melbourne, April 1889). In 1890 he visited South America with Edwin Cleary's English Comic Opera Company, appearing in Buenas Aires and Montevideo. His parts in the former city included Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore, the Pirate King again, and the Mikado of Japan in The Mikado. He eventually returned to England, giving a single matinee performance as Colonel Sombrero in Captain Therese (Criterion, May 1893). Marnock later appeared in London as the Gendarme in the musical fantasy Biarritz (Prince of Wales's, April-June 1896) and as the Emperor in the Drury Lane pantomime Aladdin (December 1896-March 1897).

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