Joseph O'Mara

Joseph O'Mara (16 July 1864 – 5 August 1927) was an Irish tenor whose career spanned opera, musical theatre, and concert performance across the Victorian and Edwardian eras, with Broadway appearances between 1897 and 1908. Born in Limerick, Ireland, the second youngest of thirteen children, he was the son of James O'Mara, a politician and bacon factory owner, and Hanora née Foley, who died while O'Mara was still a teenager. He received his early education at Crescent College, a Jesuit institution in Limerick, and as a boy sang as a chorister at both St. John's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church in the city. At eighteen he spent a year aboard an ocean liner sailing between Dundee and Calcutta before returning to his father's business. His family held considerable civic prominence in Limerick, with several members serving as mayor, including his nephew Stephen O'Mara, who held that office from 1921 to 1923.

Encouraged by his friend J. F. Murray, O'Mara traveled to Milan to study opera under Signor Moretti for two years. In 1891 he made his London stage debut in the title role of Arthur Sullivan's opera Ivanhoe at the newly built Royal English Opera House, an engagement followed by an appearance in La Basoche at the same venue before he returned to Milan for further study. From 1893 to 1894 he toured Britain and Ireland with Sir Augustus Harris's Italian Opera Company, singing principal tenor roles in Cavalleria rusticana, Faust, Pagliacci, Carmen, Lohengrin, and Die Meistersinger, with his Heldentenor voice proving particularly suited to the latter two works. He made his first appearance at Covent Garden Theatre in 1894, and for three years thereafter served as principal tenor at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he also appeared in the pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. He subsequently performed in the pantomime Aladdin at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Liverpool.

In 1896, O'Mara created the tenor lead of Mike Murphy in Charles Villiers Stanford's opera Shamus O'Brien, with Henry Wood conducting. Following a tour of Britain and Ireland in that production, the Harris company brought the opera to America in 1897, where O'Mara, accompanied by his wife, the former Miss Power, earned considerable personal success. The role of Mike Murphy remained one of his signature parts throughout his career. Later in 1897, O'Mara and his wife returned to America, where he created the tenor lead in Reginald De Koven's musical The Highwayman, a production that also constitutes one of his verified Broadway credits.

From 1902 to 1908, O'Mara served as leading tenor with the Moody-Manners Opera Company in London, performing in a wide range of works including Maritana, Faust, Lohengrin, Il trovatore, Carmen, Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and the first English-language production of Puccini's Madame Butterfly in 1907. He also performed extensively in Ireland with the company during this period, achieving several firsts for Irish operatic history: he was the first tenor in Ireland to sing Enzo in La Gioconda, the first to sing Rodolfo in La bohème in Ireland in 1908, the first to sing Cavaradossi in Ireland, and appeared in the Irish premiere of Samson et Dalila in the same season. In 1908, O'Mara was granted the Freedom of the City of Limerick, the only occasion on which a singer received that honor.

Also in 1908, O'Mara starred in Patrick Bidwell's musical Peggy Machree at The Broadway Theatre in New York City, a production that stands among his verified Broadway credits alongside The Highwayman and The Three Dragoons. In 1909 he returned to Britain and joined the Thomas Beecham Company, where he sang tenor leads in Carmen, Faust, and Tales of Hoffmann, among other works, while continuing to give concerts.

In 1912, O'Mara founded O'Mara's Travelling Opera Company, in which he served as principal tenor until his farewell performance as Lohengrin in 1926. In 1913 he opened the company's Dublin season singing Raoul in The Huguenots. At the Theatre Royal in Leeds, the company performed Puccini's La bohème and Madame Butterfly in 1918 and Verdi's Rigoletto in 1921, and also revived numerous works by Michael Balfe. Over the full span of his career, O'Mara sang 67 tenor roles. In 1926 he became the first tenor to broadcast in Ireland, performing at the opening of the new Irish radio station Raidio 2RN, later known as RTÉ. A recording of O'Mara from 1901 was later featured on the RTÉ Radio 1 program Mo Cheol Thu on 25 October 1992; his other recordings included "An April Birthday" and "Friend and Lover" by Landon Ronald, made in 1902, and "Ochone! When I used to be young" from Shamus O'Brien, recorded in 1911. O'Mara and his wife had five children: Eileen, Nora, Power, Moya, and Joey. He died in Dublin at the age of 63.