WHEN the final curtain fell on rock musical Chess at Alban Arena recently Queen of the players, Mary Myers, was also taking a final bow.

One of the grande dames of the local theatrical scene for nearly half a century, Mary announced in the Chess programme that she is stepping down as Chairman of St Albans Operatic, the society she joined in 1952 - the year after it was founded.

"I joined that year to start rehearsing for the following year's Iolanthe - I was in the back row of the chorus!" she recalls.

Since then she has played some of the best roles in musical theatre, both comic and tragic, with a troupe whose own history could be turned into a stage show.

Their Golden Jubilee production, an ambitious Die Fledermaus, was in the Arena in April 2001 - but in saying they've been going 50 years the troupe is being a bit conservative.

"You could say they originally began in 1911 with Yeoman of the Guard, but then they folded during the First World War," said Mary.

"They re-formed in the twenties and actually had 12 successful years until the Depression closed them down again. Six years later the group was resurrected and put on just two productions before World War II broke out."

But in 1950, the war safely over, St Albans Operatic proper was formed by Roland Booth whose widow, Nancy, is still President today.

"Nancy has been one of the pivotal people in the society and, of course, Roland who badgered the council and called a public meeting to get the society going, and roped in the Earl of Verulam as first president," said Mary.

"Then there were Anne and John Paul who had been in the D'Oyly Carte opera company and retired to St Albans, and the Covey-Crumps whose grandson Gareth has just played bass guitar in Chess - and of course the Newling-Wards who owned St Michael's Manor hotel and were also leading lights in the Company of Ten."

The Mikado was their first production in May 1951; it had an interesting cast. Bertram Mycock, the BBC's industrial correspondent, had the title role while the pages were none other than Mike Newell who years later was to direct Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Rogers Covey-Crump who went on to become one of the country's leading tenors.

On the first night they opened to a packed house in the Conservative Hall, now Marks and Spencer's car park. "You had to go running out into the rain to get to the dressing room - and I mean room; there was only one with a sheet down the middle, men on one side, women on the other," said Mary.

She has loved singing ever since she was a pupil at Lyndale School in St Albans. In her early twenties, training to be a radiographer, she wanted a hobby. "I thought it would be much more fun to join the Operatic than to sing in a choir."

And so it has been. In her second year with the company they did the Gondoliers - she auditioned for Tessa and got Casilda. But it was the Gondoliers who provided her with one of her favourite roles 23 years later when she played the Duchess of Plaza-Toro - she is pictured here in splendid plumed hat with Don Scott, now the membership secretary, as the Duke.

Top roles have included Maria in Most Happy Fella, Yenta in Fiddler on the Roof, Hatty in Kiss Me Kate and Mrs Pearce in My Fair Lady. One of the most challenging was Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret - "a tearful role but a wonderful one to play because it was so meaty - you could really let rip."

In 1968 they moved into the new Alban Arena where they now stage two shows a year. "Our first show there was Orpheus in the Underworld - to my embarrassment I was cast as Cupid. After the school halls the Arena stage seemed enormous, I was so frightened," she said.

Two years later, with not a little trepidation, the Society took the plunge and performed their first opera, Carmen. "We had some very good singers and they were agitating to do something with a bit more weight. It was a roaring success," she recalls.

But she believes their greatest artistic triumph is still Verdi's Aida in 1975. "A lot of people said we were absolutely foolish to attempt it but Roland insisted we could do it. Derek Phoenix was an amateur singer of extraordinary quality, and he was our male lead. It was absolutely sensational."

Since then St Albans Operatic has made its name as one of the best amateur societies in the country. Never short of members from singers and dancers to stagehands and prompts, it currently has around 100 but a current membership drive hopes to add another 20.

Productions have ranged from opera like The Flying Dutchman to West Side Story, My Fair Lady to Hello Dolly, Fiddler on the Roof to Oklahoma.

They have sashayed out of the Arena to appear regularly in the Maltings Arts Centre and the Abbey Theatre. They were the first to perform in the old town hall courthouse when they put on Trial By Jury twice nightly in 1988, and they also made history by being the first operatic society to sing in Verulamium's Roman theatre (well, since the Romans), when they performed Merrie England for the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

With three shows a year there members are kept busy - but Mary believes it is the backstage social life that makes the society so popular.

"People have met here, fallen in love, got married - and divorced as well," she says.

Over the years she has taken on all sorts of jobs, in particular making costumes in the wardrobe department. While she no longer sings, and is stepping down as Chairman after 11 years, she will carry on as a member.

Come rehearsal nights, Mary will be there, determined to reach her own half century with the society next year. As she says: "I can still carry a spear or make the coffee."

*If you are interested in joining St Albans Operatic as a performer or back stage phone Don Scott on 01923 856935.

December 19, 2001 12:00