Adele Ritchie

Adele Ritchie
The New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Born	(1874-12-21)December 21, 1874 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	April 24, 1930(1930-04-24) (aged 55) Laguna Beach, California, U.S.
Occupation	Comic opera, musical comedy and vaudeville performer

Adele Ritchie (December 21, 1874 – April 24, 1930) was an American prima donna of comic opera and star of Edwardian musical comedies and vaudeville. Her career began in the early 1890s and continued for nearly twenty-five years. Her life would end tragically in a murder-suicide involving a close friend.

Ritchie was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Quaker parents of French descent and, by the age of three, the step-daughter of Jacob Benclift Pultz, founder of the J.B. Pultz Company. She attended the Catholic girl’s preparatory school, Villa Maria Academy at Malvern, and made her first stage appearance as a singer in a production of a French comedy entitled The Isle of Champagne at Miner's Fifth Avenue Theatre on June 5, 1893. With the aid of Reginald De Koven, Ritchie appeared in the fall of 1893 at the Park Theatre, Philadelphia, playing a minor role in his comic opera, The Algerians. Her rendition of "Song of the Rose" became an audience favorite when The Algerians appeared in New York at the Garden Theatre and later Daly's Theatre. When Marie Tempest, the prima donna, left the production at the end of the year, Ritchie was chosen as her replacement.The Algerians like many other road tours found it difficult to achieve profitability in the face of the economic consequences resulting from the Panic of 1893.

On July 14, 1894, Ritchie and the German tenor Conrad Behrens sang with the Sousa Band in a summer concert performed at Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. At Abbey's Theatre, that September, Ritchie opened as Princess Mirane in The Devil’s Deputy, an operetta adapted from the French by J. Cheever Goodwin and composer Edward Jakobowski. The following week she was replaced by the more experienced Amanda Fabris, who manager Al Canby and lead actor Francis Wilson felt would give the stronger performance. Ritchie was next engaged at the American Theatre in January 1895 as Madge Brainerd in the Harrison Grey Fiske political drama The District Attorney, and that summer at the Garrick Theatre, New York, she played Little Willie in the burlesque Trilby by Joseph W. Hebert and Charles Puener.