THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

Charles Puerner (m.d., 1885-86)

[Born Virginia c.1849]

Charles Puerner had an active career in America as a conductor and composer for musical theatre that extended at least from April 1878 (when he was musical director for "a glorious ridiculosity" Nia-for-li-ca, In the Halls of Montezuma, at Niblo's Garden, New York) to October 1905 (when his own "cartoon musical extravaganza" Simple Simon Simple was produced at New York's West End Theatre). Puerner also conducted a pirate production of H.M.S. Pinafore at Niblo's Garden in 1879, and was musical director for the first New York production of Gilbert & Cellier's The Mountebanks at the Garden Theatre by the Lillian Russell Comic Opera Company in 1893.

His only engagement with the D'Oyly Carte organization was a brief one, touring the northeastern United States as musical director for Carte's Third American Mikado Company for portions of December 1885 and January 1886.

His compositions included the comic operas The Pyramid (Star Theatre, 1887) and The Robber of the Rhine (Fifth Avenue Theatre, 1892), an "operatic burlesque of duMaurier's Trilby" called Thrilby (Garrick, 1895), as well as several spectacles and extravaganzas. None achieved any noticeable success.

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