Ella Halman

Ella Louise Halman (July 18, 1906 – March 20, 1995) was an English contralto and actress born in Ealing, Middlesex, who became one of the principal performers of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and appeared on Broadway between 1939 and 1952. At eighteen, she won the Sussex County Scholarship in singing and subsequently trained at the Brighton School of Music for several years. She later completed her studies in London following three years of touring with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, and gained additional experience through concert work and teaching before joining D'Oyly Carte.

Halman entered the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a chorister in 1937. She quickly moved into the role of Inez in The Gondoliers and began understudying the company's larger contralto parts, including Katisha in The Mikado and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers. By 1939 she was also covering Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance and the Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe. On Christmas Day of that year she was appointed the company's principal contralto, a position she held for the next eleven years. In that capacity she performed Ruth in Pirates, Lady Jane in Patience, the Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe, Katisha in The Mikado, Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard, the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore, and Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore. Her Broadway credits during this period included Iolanthe, Trial by Jury, The Pirates of Penzance, The Hot Mikado, and The Gondoliers.

In 1940, Halman married fellow D'Oyly Carte performer L. Radley Flynn. Between 1949 and 1951, she recorded eight of her principal roles with the company as D'Oyly Carte took advantage of the newly available LP technology, capturing her performances as Ruth, Lady Jane, the Queen of the Fairies, Katisha, Dame Carruthers, the Duchess of Plaza-Toro, Dame Hannah, and Little Buttercup. She also sang Katisha in a 1951 BBC radio broadcast.

Halman and Flynn departed the D'Oyly Carte organisation in 1951 and relocated to the United States, where they joined Martyn Green on a series of Gilbert and Sullivan productions presented by S. M. Chartock. On the 1952 tour, Halman performed Buttercup, Ruth, the Queen of the Fairies, and Katisha. The couple subsequently returned to England and settled in Penrith, Cumbria, where they became involved with amateur operatic societies, principally the Penrith Savoyards from 1959. In 1975, during the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's centennial season, Halman was invited to take part in a special performance of Trial by Jury in which fourteen former company stars augmented the regular D'Oyly Carte chorus. In the early 1990s she recorded a series of interviews about her life and career for BBC Radio Cumbria. Halman died in Penrith at the age of 88.