Louise Kirkby Lunn - Early Career

Early Career

In 1895, she appeared in the first season of Promenade concerts for Henry J. Wood. Augustus Harris gave her a five-year contract almost upon first hearing. In 1896 she appeared as Nora in Stanford's Shamus O'Brien at the Theatre Comique, again under Wood, with Joseph O'Mara, Maggie Davies, W.H. Stevens and Denis O'Sullivan, a production which ran for 100 nights from 2 March.

This was followed by a number of small roles at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. However, the Covent Garden contract expired with Harris's death in June 1896, whereupon she joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company, performing as principal mezzo-soprano in London and on tour in the provinces in Carmen, Mignon, Lohengrin, Rigoletto and other works. In 1898, at Queen's Hall in London, she sang as a Rhinemaiden in excerpts from Das Rheingold with Lillian Blauvelt and Helen Jaxon, with David Bispham appearing as Alberich. She remained with the Carl Rosa until 1899, the year in which she married W. J. Pearson.

She was particularly active in the 1900–1901 Queen's Hall season with Wood, appearing with Blauvelt, Lloyd Chandos and Daniel Price, and the Wolverhampton Festival Choral Society, in Beethoven's last symphony on 16 March, and in Gilbert and Sullivan excerpts (with Lloyd Chandos and Florence Schmidt). In the midst of a series of Wagner concerts with Marie Brema, Philip Brozel, David Ffrangcon-Davies and Olga Wood, on 22 November 1901 (the first anniversary of the death of Arthur Sullivan), she sang in a special performance of Sullivan's cantata The Golden Legend, with Blauvelt, John Coates and Ffrangcon-Davies.