Charles Santley

Sir Charles Santley, born in Liverpool on 28 February 1834, was a baritone whose career in opera and oratorio made him the leading English male concert singer of the Victorian era. One critic called his career the longest, most distinguished, and most versatile in recorded history. He performed widely in Britain and North America, gave many recitals, and after his 1857 debut in Italy, chose to live in England for the rest of his life, aside from occasional trips abroad.

Santley was the older son of William Santley, a Liverpool bookbinder, organist, and music teacher. He had a brother and two sisters (one named Catherine, not to be confused with the actor-manager Kate Santley). He attended the Liverpool Institute High School and sang alto in a Unitarian church choir as a boy. His voice broke before he turned fourteen. His father, who insisted he sing tenor, gave him music lessons. On his fifteenth birthday, Santley passed an exam to join the second tenors of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society and that same year sang at concerts opening the Philharmonic Hall. Not until he was seventeen or eighteen did he rebel against his father’s decree, drop into the bass clef, and be labeled a bass.

He was apprenticed to the provision trade but also played violin in the Festival Choral Society and Società Armonica. With his father and sister, he sang in the chorus of Haydn’s *The Creation* at Liverpool’s Collegiate Institution, where Jenny Lind was a soloist. Later, he joined a hand-picked choir for Handel’s *Messiah* at the Rhuddlan Castle Eisteddfod, with tenor Sims Reeves leading the soloists. At the Liverpool Festival, he sang in the chorus for *Elijah* and Rossini’s *Stabat Mater* under Julius Benedict, and heard Pauline Viardot, Luigi Lablache, and Mario. While accompanying his sister at St Anne’s Catholic Church in Edge Hill, he sang “Et incarnatus est” from Haydn’s Second Mass, reading from the same score as Julius Stockhausen, and won a bass soloist position. He modeled himself on Austrian bass Josef Staudigl and German bass Karl Formes.

In 1855, Santley went to Italy to study singing, following Sims Reeves’s advice to visit Lamperti in Milan. Instead, he chose Gaetano Nava, who became a lifelong friend. Nava taught him buffo roles in Rossini’s *La Cenerentola*, *L’italiana in Algeri*, and *Il Turco in Italia*, as well as Mercadante’s operas, building a solid baritone technique. He also taught him Italian speech. Santley studied duets from Bellini’s *Zaira* and Rossini’s *Semiramide* and *The Siege of Corinth*. He was a frequent guest at concerts and conversaziones of the Marani family, and at theatres heard Antonio Giuglini, Scheggi, Marini, and Enrico Delle Sedie, and saw Ristori in *Maria Stuarda* at La Scala and the Carcano Theatre.

He made his stage debut on 1 January 1857 in Pavia, playing Dr Grenvill in *La traviata* (later singing Germont père in the same run) and Don Silva in *Ernani*. Minor engagements followed, but after a thin summer, Henry Fothergill Chorley visited and urged him to return to England.

Back in London in 1857, Santley made his first appearance on 16 November for John Hullah, singing Adam in Haydn’s *Creation*. He broke down in the duet “Graceful Consort” from nerves, but the audience applauded and encouraged him to continue. Manuel García heard him and offered training, which Santley accepted. Under Chorley’s guidance, he gave concerts at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere. At a Chorley party, he met Gertrude Kemble, whom he married a year later. Through her, he entered the salon of Henry Greville, where he sang alongside Mario, Giulia Grisi, Italo Gardoni, Ciro Pinsuti, and others.

After an audition with Michael Costa, he sang in Mendelssohn’s *St. Paul* in Manchester under Charles Hallé. In March 1858, he first sang Mendelssohn’s *Elijah* at Exeter Hall in Liverpool, becoming a leading interpreter of the work for over fifty years. Sims Reeves, Clara Novello, Mario, and Grisi encouraged him from the start. At the inaugural Leeds Festival in autumn 1858, he was the star performer (with Willoughby Weiss) in Rossini’s *Stabat Mater*. In autumn 1859, he sang pieces from *St Paul*, *Judas Maccabaeus*, and *Messiah* at the Bradford Festival, just before his first operatic season. In 1861, he sang *Elijah* at his first appearance at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. In July 1862, at St James’s Hall in Piccadilly, he performed in the Philharmonic Society’s 50th Jubilee Concert, singing an item from Hummel’s *Mathilde of Guise* and “With Joy the Impatient Husbandman” from Haydn’s *The Seasons*. He shared the platform (though in separate performances) with Jenny Lind, pianist Lucy Anderson (her last public appearance), Thérèse Tietjens, and cellist Alfredo Piatti, under the direction of an unnamed conductor.

A highlight of his stage career came in 1870, when he led the cast in the first Wagner opera performed in London, *The Flying Dutchman*, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He retired from opera in the 1870s to focus on the more profitable concert circuit. Santley also wrote books on vocal technique and two sets of memoirs. He died on 22 September 1922.