dame fanny moody

Music, Arts, Business and Enterprise

1866 - 1945    

Suggested by Jen Feenan  

Jen writes, “Dame Fanny Moody was an opera singer who set up her own touring opera company. She was notoriously gifted a tiara of diamonds with the Cornish coat of arms on it which she auctioned in WW2, gifting the money raised to Red Cross to help the wounded. Moody was an early female entrepreneur and philanthropist who helped established the arts. All this having been born in Redruth.”  

From the Kernow Matters website: Fanny Moody was born in Redruth, one of 13 children of a Redruth photographer. Her talent for singing was recognised while still at school and Mrs Bassett of Tehidy paid for her to be educated in London. In 1887 she sang for the Carl Rosa Opera Company’s opera ‘The Bohemian Girl’ where she met and married Charles Manners, later forming the Moody-Manners Opera Company. 

Known as ‘the Cornish Nightingale’, she was presented with a tiara with the Cornish coat of arms picked out in diamonds which she donated for auction in WW2, the proceeds going to the Red Cross to help the wounded. 

Fanny sang at Covent Garden and Drury Lane (1890-94) and her roles included Eileen in ‘The Lily of Killarney’, Micaela in ‘Carmen”, Marguerite in ‘Faust’, as well as leading roles in ‘La Juive’, ‘I Puritani’ and several Wagner operas. She travelled extensively and sang the songs from home to the Cornish exiles and for the miners in South Africa in 1896. 

By 1902 there were two Moody-Manners touring companies. The larger had 175 members and gave London seasons in 1902 and 1903 at Covent Garden, in 1904 at Drury Lane, and in 1907/08 at the Lyric Theatre when the repertoire included The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Marriage of Figaro, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, Faust, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, Madame Butterfly, Aïda and Il trovatore. There were Moody-Manners tours of Britain, North America and Africa and the organisation remained an important provider of opera in Britain until 1916.