thumb|upright=1.0|Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte (; 3 May 1844 – 3 April 1901) was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer, and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era. He built two of London's theatres and a hotel empire, while also establishing an opera company that ran continuously for over a hundred years and a management agency representing some of the most important artists of the day.
Carte started his career working for his father, Richard Carte, in the music publishing and musical instrument manufacturing business. As a young man he conducted and composed music, but he soon turned to promoting the entertainment careers of others through his management agency. Carte believed that a school of wholesome, well-crafted, family-friendly, English comic opera could be as popular as the risqué French works dominating the London musical stage in the 1870s. To that end he brought together the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan and nurtured their collaboration on a series of thirteen Savoy operas. He founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and built the state-of-the-art Savoy Theatre to host the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
Eight years after opening the Savoy Theatre, Carte built the Savoy Hotel next to it, and later acquired other luxury hotels. In 1891 he erected the Palace Theatre, London (originally called the Royal English Opera House), which he intended to be the home of a new school of English grand opera, but this ambition was not realised beyond the production of a single work by Sullivan, Ivanhoe. Nevertheless, his partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan, and his careful management of their operas and relationship, created a series of works whose success was unprecedented in the history of musical theatre. His opera company, later run by his widow Helen and then by his son, Rupert, and granddaughter, Bridget, promoted those works for more than a century, and they are still performed regularly today.
Early years
thumb|left|upright|Carte's father, Richard
Carte was born at his parents' house in Greek Street, Soho, in the West End of London on 3 May 1844;), Henry Williams (1856–1926) and Eliza (1860–1941).|group= n His father, Richard Carte, was a flautist, and his mother was the former Eliza Jones (1814–1885); they had eloped, to the disappointment of her father, Thomas Jones, a clergyman. Carte was of Welsh and probably Norman ancestry; D'Oyly is a Norman French name which the biographer Arthur Jacobs emphasises was in this case "a forename (not part of a double surname)". To supplement his income as a performer, Carte's father joined the firm of Rudall, Rose & Co., musical instrument makers and music publishers, in 1850. After he became a partner in the business, it changed its name to Rudall, Rose, Carte and Co. and later to Rudall, Carte & Co. The family moved away from Soho when Carte was a boy. He was brought up in their large detached house in Dartmouth Park in north London. His cultured mother exposed her family to art, music and poetry, and young Carte studied the violin and then the flute at an early age. The family spoke French at home two days a week, and his parents often took their children to the theatre. but did not take up the place; in deference to his parents' wishes he joined his father's business, along with his brother, Henry. As the name Richard Carte was by now well known in, and beyond, the musical profession, Carte dropped the use of his own first name and styled himself "D'Oyly Carte" or, more formally, "R. D'Oyly Carte". He studied music and composed some pieces, which he dedicated to the actress Kate Terry. He also acted in amateur theatricals. "Diamond Eyes", words by L. H. F. du Terraux; "A Faded Flower", words by Desprez; "The Maiden's Watch", words by Amy Thornton; "Wake, Sweet Bird" (with obbligato flute accompaniment); and "Why so pale and wan, fond lover". The Era said of the first of these, "Mr. D'Oyly Carte's music is a vast deal better than his words. The song ... musically speaking, is a creditable production."|group= n Marie (1871), and Happy Hampstead (1876).