Orville Harrold

Orville Harrold (November 17, 1877 – October 23, 1933) was an American operatic tenor and musical theatre actor born in Cowan, Indiana, to farmers John William Harrold and Emily Harrold, née Chalfant. At age nine he relocated with his family to Lyons, Kansas, and again to Newton, Kansas at thirteen, where he studied voice with his school's music supervisor, Mrs. Gaston Boyd, a graduate of the New England Conservatory. During his Kansas years he sang in community and church choruses, performed in a vocal quartet, and won a local music competition. In 1893 he appeared at the Chicago World's Fair. The family returned to Cowan in 1894, after which Harrold played in a band in Muncie, took violin lessons, and sang in church choirs. In 1898 he married Euphamia Evelyn Kiger, with whom he had three children; the couple divorced in 1913. That same year he married fellow singer Lydia Locke, from whom he was divorced in 1917.

Encouraged to pursue a professional singing career by soprano Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Harrold moved to New York City in 1906 to study opera and acting. He made his stage debut that summer in the light operetta The Social Whirl at the Shubert Organization's Casino Theatre. In 1907 he portrayed Lord Drinkwell in the original production of Julian Edwards and Stanislaus Stange's The Belle of London Town at the Lincoln Square Theatre, and that same year appeared in the musical Hip! Hip! Hooray! In 1908 he performed in the touring vaudeville show Wine, Women, and Song. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1907 to 1925, also included productions of Holka Polka, Fra Diavolo, and The Bohemian Girl, among others.

A turning point came in 1909 when Oscar Hammerstein I attended an operetta in which Harrold was performing at the Victoria Theater and subsequently took the singer under his wing, arranging for him to study with voice teacher Oscar Saenger at Hammerstein's own expense. Harrold made his debut with both Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House and Hammerstein's Philadelphia Opera Company in the spring of 1910, singing Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with Mario Sammarco as Tonio and conductor Giuseppe Sturani. He followed that with the role of the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto alongside Giovanni Polese in the title role and Luisa Tetrazzini as Gilda, before both companies went bankrupt later that year.

In November 1910 Harrold returned to the musical theatre stage to create the role of Captain Dick Warrington in the world premiere of Victor Herbert's operetta Naughty Marietta, opposite Emma Trentini in the title role at the New York Theater. He remained with the production through much of 1911 as it toured the United States. Concurrently, in 1911–1912 he performed at Hammerstein's London Opera House, where his roles included Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata, Arnold Melchtal in Rossini's William Tell, Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Ferrando in Donizetti's La favorite, Jean Grenicheux in Planquette's Les cloches de Corneville, Romeo in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and the title role in Gounod's Faust. He pursued further vocal studies in Paris in 1912–1913.

From 1912 to 1922 Harrold was among the leading tenors in Chicago, performing with the Chicago Grand Opera Company (1912–1913), the Chicago Opera Association (1916–1919), and the Chicago Civic Opera (1922). He also appeared at Ravinia Park during the summer seasons of 1916–1919 and 1922, taking on an extensive range of roles that included Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Canio, Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon with Marguerite Bériza in the title role, Dimitri in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Don José in Bizet's Carmen, Gerald in Delibes's Lakmé, Lionel in Flotow's Martha, Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème, Thaddeus in Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, Win-San-Lui in Leoni's L'oracolo, and the title roles in The Tales of Hoffmann and L'amico Fritz. In 1913 he sang at the Indianapolis Wagner Festival. Returning to New York in 1914–1915, he performed with the Century Opera Company in the roles of Lionel, Pinkerton, Radames in Verdi's Aida, and Gounod's Romeo. In 1915 he appeared in a variety show at the Palace Theatre before joining the original cast of the musical Hip! Hip! Hooray! at the New York Hippodrome, where he performed the role of the Hero across the production's 425-performance run from September 30, 1915, to June 3, 1916. In 1918–1919 he sang with the Society of American Singers in New York City, performing roles including Canio, Hoffmann, Lionel, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, Pinkerton, Thaddeus, Turiddu, and the title roles in Auber's Fra Diavolo and De Koven's Robin Hood. In the spring of 1919 he toured with the Scotti Opera Company, singing Pinkerton, Turiddu, and Win-San-Lui.

Harrold served as one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading tenors from 1919 to 1924, making his debut there as Prince Leopold in Halévy's La Juive alongside Enrico Caruso as Eléazar and Rosa Ponselle as Rachel. He created the role of Meïamoun in the world premiere of Henry Kimball Hadley's Cleopatra's Night and starred in several United States premieres at the Met, including Korngold's Die tote Stadt in 1921 opposite Maria Jeritza and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden in 1922, in which he sang the role of the Tsar. In January 1921 he performed the role of Julien in the Met's first staging of Charpentier's Louise, with Geraldine Farrar in the title role. Additional roles at the Met encompassed Almaviva, Dmitri, Don José, Edgardo, Faust, the Italian Singer in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Nicias in Massenet's Thaïs, Pinkerton, Rodolfo, Turiddu, Win-San-Lui, and the title roles in Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal. He gave his final opera performance at the Met in 1924 and continued to appear in vaudeville entertainments into the late 1920s.

Throughout his career Harrold made gramophone recordings for Edison Records, Columbia Records between 1913 and 1916, and the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1920 and 1924. His Broadway appearances extended through 1925, encompassing productions that ranged from early musical theatre and operetta to the grand operatic stage, reflecting a career that moved fluidly between popular and classical vocal performance.