How many British opera singers have a Wetherspoons pub named after them? Not many – but here’s one I stumbled upon when cruising along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal to the former silk, cotton and coal town of Leigh in Lancashire…
The Thomas Burke is a rather grand building which originally opened in 1908 as the 2,000 seater Grand Theatre and Hippodrome. After many name and function changes it finally closed in 1989 and lay empty until it was revived by Wetherspoons and named after the highly acclaimed operatic tenor Thomas Burke, who was born in Leigh on 2 March 1890.
Puccini apparently said of Thomas Burke: ’Never have I heard my music so beautifully sung’. In fact the words are carved onto his headstone in Carshalton, Surrey where he died in 1969.
The eldest of nine children, Tom had little option than to work in the silk factory from the age of 12, and then to follow in his Irish father’s footsteps at just 14 to work in the coal mines where he was a ‘lasher-on’ – fastening coal trucks onto a steel rope as they were brought up from the pithead. It is said that he earned the name ‘Minstrel Boy’ as he used to sing to his fellow workers.
Outside of work there was more music: like so many of these gritty northern towns, the brass band was a focal point of the community. Here Burke played the cornet – and clearly rather well, winning the silver prize as a cornet soloist in a national championship at The Crystal Palace. His mother’s sewing machine was pawned to buy him a piano and he also joined the local church choir.
At the age of 19, Burke walked the 60 miles round trip to Blackpool to hear Enrico Caruso sing. He queued for several hours before the performance and then realised that this was his dream – and his ticket out of industrial Lancashire.
Burke’s first stroke of good luck came when the tenor who was due to perform in Handel’s Messiah for a local music society fell ill – and Burke stood in at the last minute. Reviews were good – and he received a fee.
Tom Burke memorabilia
After studying at the Manchester College of Music he auditioned for the Halle Choir where the orchestra and choir conductor Christian Neilsen recommended he sing for the London impresario Hugo Gorelitz; he ended up with a contract and the opportunity to study at London’s Royal Academy of Music. It was here that he had the opportunity to sing before Enrico Caruso and who told Burke that ‘You must go to Italy and there you will find your voice.’
Burke studied with maestro Colli in Milan where he debuted as the Duke in Rigoletto and enthralling audiences at La Scala. ‘At last an English tenor with a voice of pure Italian flavour,’ enthused one critic.
But before he was able to really make his mark on Italian opera he was recalled home to be conscripted. Burke did not join the services but embarked on a series of charity concerts until the war ended.
His career became more London focused with performances including many leading roles in Puccini operas at Covent Garden and concert performance at the Albert Hall before he was offered £400 a performance – the highest offer ever made to a British singer – to embark on a North American tour. And it wasn’t always the music which won Burke the headlines – there was also the drinking and womanising. One altercation with a Mafia boss over another woman left him in hospital with a gunshot wound!
Towards the end of the 1920s he returned to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden taking lead roles in Cavalleria rusticana and Rigoletto opposite Nellie Melba. Occasionally he would return to his home town of Leigh to perform at the Grand Theatre and Hippodrome.
Burke also had a significant recording career ranging from popular song to operatic arias. He also appeared in several films including Gypsy Blood – a film version of Carmen.
Thomas Burke as Mario singing an aria from Act III of ‘Tosca’.
Unfortunately, from the early 1930s his career started to take a downward turn and in 1932 after losing over £100,000 he filed for voluntary bankruptcy.
Alan Whittaker in ‘Northern Life’ tells us that his character and personality were to hold back any further development in his career:
‘Burke carried an invisible coal wagon of smouldering contempt and loathing for the wealthy toffs from privileged backgrounds who seemed to control the destinies of working class people without ever working or making any contribution to society or caring about the plight of poor families.’
This self-destructive streak led to arguments with Barbirolli, agents and impresarios. He even slated his own audience at Covent Garden saying ‘They are not music lovers, they go to opera because it’s the thing to do… just showing off.’
On many occasions he failed to turn up for engagements and was shunned by agents and theatre managers. There are many stories about his latter years: how he sank into obscurity as a barman in a golf club, lived out his year in a tiny rented room in south London, became a bookies’ runner, and tried running a club in Leigh before it was busted in a police raid for illegal drinking.
But today the voice of this ‘Lancashire Caruso’ still echoes from the walls of the building which now bears his name. This once grand theatre is now saved with the memories of the adoring local mining community fans for whom Burke performed in the town where it all began.
Written by Nicholas Keyworth