Rosina Brandram

Rosina Brandram (2 July 1845 – 28 February 1907) was an English opera singer and actress primarily known for creating many of the contralto roles in the Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Brandram joined the D'Oyly Carte company in 1877 as a chorister and understudy. By 1879, she was originating roles with the company, and she became its principal contralto in 1884, creating roles in seven of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as well as many other Sullivan comic operas. She was the only principal to appear in every original Sullivan production at the Savoy Theatre, and she performed with the company until 1903. After leaving D'Oyly Carte, she played only a few more roles before retiring from the stage.

Brandram was born Rosina Moult in Southwark, London. Although she was not originally intended for an operatic career, she had "a very thorough musical education in Italy and England".

She joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy Opera Company at the Opera Comique in 1877 as a chorus member and understudy to Mrs Howard Paul in the role of Lady Sangazure in the original production of The Sorcerer, performing the role briefly in December of that year. She played Lady Sangazure on a provincial tour in 1878, and the next year deputised at the Opera Comique as Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore in August 1879.

At the end of 1879 she was a member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring company that W. S. Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan and Carte took to New York, where she created the role of Kate in The Pirates of Penzance and played Mrs. Partlett in The Sorcerer. She toured with Carte's companies in America as Kate (and possibly, at times, as Edith and Ruth) in Pirates. She also appeared as Little Buttercup.

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