26 Facts About Helen Carte

Helen Carte Boulter was born on Susan Helen Couper Black; 12 May 1852 – 5 May 1913, and known as Helen Lenoir, was a British businesswoman known for her diplomatic skills and grasp of detail.

In 1877 she obtained employment with Richard D'Oyly Helen Carte and became his assistant and, later, business manager.

Helen Carte helped to produce the Gilbert and Sullivan and other Savoy Operas, beginning with The Sorcerer in 1877 and helped Carte with all his business interests.

Helen Carte remarried in 1902 and continued to own the opera company and run most of the Carte business interests until her death.

Susan Helen Carte Couper Black was born in Wigtown, Scotland, the second of four children of George Couper Black, procurator fiscal and banker, and his second wife, Ellen, nee Barham.

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Helen Carte's grandfather, Robert Couper, M D, was a Scottish physician and poet, and a great uncle was Sir George Couper.

Helen Carte contemplated an acting career and took lessons in elocution, dancing and singing.

Helen Carte's first engagement was a two-month spell as a chorister and small part player in the pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Dublin in the 1876 Christmas season.

Helen Carte adopted the stage name Helen Lenoir, which, she later explained, had been the surname of her French ancestors until they anglicised it to Black on settling in Scotland in the 18th century.

In February 1877 she travelled to London to audition for Richard D'Oyly Helen Carte, who was setting up a provincial tour of a French farce adapted under the title The Great Divorce Case.

Helen Carte engaged her for a small role, which she played in Liverpool and other cities, before leaving the tour after a few weeks and obtaining work in Carte's entertainment agency offices in London.

Helen Carte was assisting Richard D'Oyly Carte with the production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer.

Helen Carte made seventeen visits to America to promote Carte's interests, superintending arrangements for American productions and tours of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and American lecture tours of artistes managed by Carte, as well as supervising many of Carte's British touring companies.

Helen Carte assisted in arranging American lecture tours for Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold and others.

Carte's first wife had died in 1885, and Helen married Richard on 12 April 1888 in the Savoy Chapel, with Sullivan acting as Carte's best man.

Helen Carte oversaw his management of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's revival at the Savoy of Iolanthe, and several new comic operas including The Emerald Isle, Merrie England and A Princess of Kensington.

Helen Carte had married Stanley Boulter, a barrister, in 1902, but she continued to use the surname Carte in her business dealings.

Helen Carte was a founder member of the Society of West End Theatre Managers, along with Frank Curzon, George Edwardes, Arthur Bourchier and sixteen others.

In late 1906 Helen Carte re-acquired the performing rights to the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from Gilbert and staged a repertory season at the Savoy Theatre, reviving the opera company and leasing the Savoy to herself.

Helen Carte persuaded the recently knighted Gilbert, now 71, to stage direct the productions in repertory, and she had to exercise the greatest tact, as Gilbert sometimes had difficulty accepting that he was no longer an equal partner and was taking no financial risk.

Helen Carte was displeased that he had not been consulted about the casting of the productions.

Contemporary accounts describe Helen Carte taking three curtain calls with Gilbert on the opening night of the 1906 revival of The Yeomen of the Guard.

Helen Carte wrote in 1911 that her health made it impossible for her to produce any more revivals at the Savoy.

Helen Carte continued to manage the rest of the family businesses with the assistance of Rupert.

Helen Carte left the considerable residuary estate to her husband.

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Helen Carte has been portrayed in the films The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan by Eileen Herlie and in Topsy-Turvy by Wendy Nottingham.