Opera Scotland

George Snazelle Suggest updates

George Harry Snazel; Mr G H Snazelle.

Born Sydenham, Surrey, 1848 (baptised 18 November).

Died Stockwell, London 1912.

English baritone.

He was known professionally as Mr G. H. Snazelle. Having begun his working life as a bank clerk (and moonlighting as a singer under an assumed name), he made his stage debut in Italian Opera at the Gaiety, Glasgow, stepping in as Mephistopheles when Signor Rota was indisposed.  Snazelle records that his entrance was much enhanced by the lycapodium flash used in those days. He was ignorant about making an entrance from a trap, and the flash set fire to the spirit-gum holding on his hairpiece, to the excitement of the audience.

He spent nine years singing 'second baritone' roles with Carl Rosa, then in other companies.  He sang in Italian opera companies, in comic opera and in musicals.  In 1888 he created the role of Bobadillo in Carina, a comic opera by Julia Woolf, at the London Opera-Comique. Latterly he trod the boards with his own show, building a considerable reputation as singer, raconteur and entertainer. He was well travelled, visiting the United States before moving to Australia.  The first documented use of the word 'snazzy' coupled with his surname in Wellington, New Zealand in 1901 suggests that his stage persona could have been the origin of the word.  In 1898 he published lightweight memoirs called Snazelleparilla.  Snazelle complained that he was paid five pounds a week when he was with Carl Rosa and playing lead roles, yet in Melbourne got twelve pounds a week extra over his regular wages for consenting to appear in a bald-head advertisemnt.

He is mentioned in the memoirs of Sir Thomas Beecham, A Mingled Chime.  Beecham as a young man got his break as a conductor for a ramshackle opera company touring round London suburbs in 1902, and records "that inveterate old joker, G.H. Snazelle, who was playing Devilshoof (in Bohemian Girl), succeeded in setting fire to the stage as a farewell gesture on the last night."