Marie Tempest in Shanghai

Marie Tempest was perhaps the best loved English soprano singing late Victorian and Edwardian musical comedies. She has a long career, starting in 1885. She was soon appearing in both London and New York. In the 1890s she appeared in several Chinoiserie productions on the London stage – The Geisha in 1896 and then San Toy in 1899 (and the film version in 1900). She appeared in the early 1900s in several Somerset Maugham plays and the two became great friends. In 1914 she undertook a world tour visiting America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Singapore, Japan and the Philippine as well as, of course, Shanghai. She spent the war years in America. She then passed through Shanghai once more (as well as appearing in Peking, Tientsin and Hong Kong), in 1919, while travelling round the world and eventually got back to England in 1922. Her 1919 engagement in Shanghai lasted an amazing four weeks due to public demand. She appeared at the Lyceum Theatre and charged upwards of C$4-5 a ticket – an unheard of high amount for the time. In 1922 she played the Peking Pavilion with similarly high ticket prices.

By the time she appeared in Shanghai she was in her 50s, but still a major star. Marie Tempest died in 1942, shortly after her home, and lost of the mementos and souvenirs of her long career, was destroyed in the Blitz.

Marie Tempest in The Geisha in the 1890s

And around the time she visited Shanghai