Viola Gillette

Viola Gillette (1871 - 1956), born Viola Pratt, was an American contralto from Salt Lake City.

Viola Gillette
De Wolf Hopper and Viola Gillette in Beggar Student (1913)

Biography

Gillette began her career as a church singer in Salt Lake City. She made her stage debut in Washington, D.C. in 1898.[1] She subsequently moved to New York City, where she sang with the Castle Square Opera Company. She was a soloist at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in New York from 1898 to 1899. Gillette's first concert appearance as a soloist was at the Springfield, Massachusetts Music Festival in 1899.[2]

For a few months in early 1901, Gillette appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London.[3] From 1901 to 1904, Gillette was employed by Klaw & Erlanger, appearing for two seasons in their production of Beauty and the Beast and for one season in Mother Goose.[1]

In 1907, Gillette appeared as Violetta in The Girl and the Bandit. She managed to turn this role into a position managing her own company, the Viola Gillette Opera Company.[2] In 1909 she played Nichette in The Beauty Spot at the Herald Square Theatre in New York.

References
  1. Briscoe, Johnson (1908). The Actors' Birthday Book: 2d Series. An Authoritative Insight Into the Lives of the Men and Women of the Stage Born Between January First and December Thirty-first. Moffat, Yard. p. 227. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  2. Harry Prescott Hanaford; Dixie Hines (1914). Who's who in music and drama: an encyclopedia of biography of notable men and women in music and the drama. H.P. Hanaford. p. 478. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
  3. Green, Stanley (22 March 1980). Encyclopedia Of The Musical Theatre. Da Capo Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-306-80113-6. Retrieved 1 August 2012.



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