Sylvia Cecil

Sylvia Cecil (c. 1898 – c. 1983) was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. She soon moved on to musical comedy, including the musicals of Ivor Novello and Noël Coward, as well as variety and radio. Her career spanned at least five decades.

Cecil was born in London, England. She attended the Guildhall School of Music and made her stage debut in 1914 playing Titania in a youth production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In 1918, Cecil was engaged by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to play the leading role of the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury, as well as the smaller roles of the Lady Ella in Patience, Peep-Bo in The Mikado and Fiametta in The Gondoliers. In 1919 she added the principal soprano roles of Patience in Patience, the title role in Princess Ida (recreating that role for the company's first London revival of the opera in 1919), Yum-Yum in The Mikado, Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard and Casilda in The Gondoliers. In 1920, she added to her repertory the role of Rose Maybud in Ruddigore, recreating that role when the opera was revived for the first time in Glasgow and then in London. Critics from The Observer praised Cecil for her performances as Patience, Princess Ida and Elsie, but Neville Cardus in The Manchester Guardian thought her Yum-Yum, "not quite in the right key.... She sang rather finely but her song at the beginning of Act II does not ask for a full-blown concert method." Another critic of the same paper thought her voice "a little light" for Patience, but added that "she has gaiety and charm, and that is much."

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