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Olive Margaret Milne Rae (1878–1933) was a Scottish soprano concert singer and actress who appeared in comic opera and Edwardian musical comedy in London and on tours of the British provinces. During her brief stage career, she played the May Queen during the original production of Merrie England (1902) and created the roles of Titania in A Princess of Kensington (1903) and Lady Violet in The Earl and the Girl (1903–04).
Miss Rae's voice is a bright and flexible soprano of most sympathetic quality, which she uses with great taste and intelligence. She gave an admirable rendering of a dozen songs in French, German, Italian, and English, revealing a quite remarkable purity of enunciation and no little distinction of style. Miss Rae is still very young, and in addition to her accomplishments as a singer she has a singularly bright and attractive personality.
She joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre, replacing Joan Keddie as the May Queen during the original production of Merrie England (1902), continuing in the role during the following 14-week tour of the provinces and again in the subsequent revival at the Savoy (November 1902 to January 1903). Next Rae created the role of Titania in A Princess of Kensington (1903) at the Savoy, continuing in the role in the subsequent tour commencing in May 1903. After this, she left D'Oyly Carte and created the small role of Lady Violet Dramatis Personæ: The Earl and the Girl, British Musical Theatre pages at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 26 April 2020 in The Earl and the Girl at the Adelphi Theatre and the Lyric Theatre (1903–04).Wearing, J. P. The London Stage 1900–1909: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, Rowman & Littlefield (2014), p. 163 via Google Books Cast of The Earl and the Girl, Theatricalia, accessed 26 April 2020 While performing in this musical in the evenings, she played the Princess in 23 matinee performances of Little Hans Andersen at the Adelphi Theatre.Stone, David. Olive Rae (1902–03), Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (1875–1982)Wearing, p. 165
After this, she returned to her family in Scotland, where she gave concerts, for example at St Andrews in 1909. In 1911 she listed her occupation as "Concert Singer", at which time she was living alone near Kensington Square in London.
Rae died in Edinburgh in 1933 aged 55 and was buried there with her parents and two of her siblings in the Dean Cemetery. George Milne Rae grave monument in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, Lothian, Scotland, Gravestone Photographic Resource, accessed 26 April 2020
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 1911 England Census for Olive Rae, London, Kensington, Kensington South via Ancestry.com She never married.
Categories: 1878 Births, 1933 Deaths, Actresses From Chennai, Musicians From Edinburgh, 19th-century Scottish Women Opera Singers, Scottish Operatic Sopranos, Actresses From Edinburgh, Scottish Stage Actresses, Scottish Musical Theatre Actresses, Burials At The Dean Cemetery, 20th-century Scottish Women Opera Singers
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