Signor Brocolini

right|frame|Signor Brocolini as Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore John Clark, better known as Signor Brocolini (September 26, 1841 – June 7, 1906), was an Irish-born American operatic singer and actor remembered for creating the role of the Pirate King in the original New York City production of The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan, in 1879–80.

After moving to Brooklyn, New York, as a child, Brocolini became interested in baseball and music. He began his career in the early 1870s as a journalist, then a baseball player, while also beginning a part-time singing career. After brief study in Italy in 1875, he was engaged to sing opera in London and on tour by James Henry Mapleson, adopting his stage name from the borough of Brooklyn, and Italianizing it. In 1879, he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with which he returned to the United States, where he originated the role of the Pirate King. Over the next decade, he mostly toured in America, briefly visiting Australia, and played mostly in Gilbert and Sullivan roles, often with E. E. Rice and John Stetson companies. He eventually returned to Brooklyn.

Life and career Brocolini was the son of John P. Clark of Glasgow (died 1874), a printer, and his wife Lilias (or Lillian) née Morison from Linton, Perthshire, Scotland (died 1892). He was born in County Cork, Ireland. After returning to Scotland, the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn, New York, in 1852. Young Brocolini became an avid baseball fan and player. By his teens, he was also learning the printing trade from his father, who was working for the Brooklyn publishing firm Harper & Brothers. He also developed an interest in singing, eventually studying with Antonio Bagioli, among others. At the same time, still under the name John Clark, he began taking professional singing engagements, including with several touring opera companies and with Bowers and Prendergast's Minstrels in 1864. The Advertiser and Tribune reported closely on baseball, and Brocolini eventually began to write editorials. He became club director of the Detroit team. Brocolini helped his team to become the dominant club in Michigan and the region.

In 1868, Brocolini moved back to Brooklyn and continued his journalism career, eventually writing editorials for the Brooklyn Eagle by the 1870s. He continued to sing in concerts, appearing as bass soloist at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and at various churches and other venues, and toured with Susan Galton's operetta company. He even produced some opera in Brooklyn. The same year, he was leading the newly formed Brooklyn Operatic Association and performed in The Pearl of Baghdad, an opera by John M. Loretz. Through the early 1870s, he became increasingly well known as a singer in New York City. In Italy, he studied voice with Antonio Sangiovanni. While there, he wrote "Observations by a Brooklyn Student of Music", for the Brooklyn Eagle, complaining of the treatment of foreign music students by their Italian teachers. In mid-1879, he sang at the Alexandra Palace with Blanche Cole's opera and concert group, with whom he made his last appearances in serious opera. In November, he traveled to New York to appear as Captain Corcoran in the first authorized American production of Pinafore at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, which premiered on December 1, 1879. He then created the role of the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance on December 31, 1879 at the same theatre, earning a good notice from The New York Times. He continued to play the Pirate King in New York and on tour through June 1880. After Carte's production closed, Brocolini played the Pirate King in a non-D'Oyly Carte production, including in Boston the last two weeks of July.

Brocolini rejoined D'Oyly Carte and E. E. Rice in a tour of Billee Taylor in April 1881, playing Christopher Crab. The tour continued into the summer of 1881, later under the auspices of the Rice-Goodwin Lyric Comedy Company. From late 1882 to the spring of 1883, he appeared with Collier's Standard Opera Company in the role of Strephon in Iolanthe, the first work produced at the Boston Bijou Theatre. With Collier's at the Bijou, he next appeared in the musical Pounce & Co., and then in The Sorcerer, as Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre.

By 1884, Brocolini's marriage had ended in divorce, and Lizzie had remarried the former singer Carlos Florentine, who had appeared in Sullivan's The Zoo (1875), and whom the Clarks had known in London. Florentine and Lizzie, according to the press, had fallen on hard times and were being helped by The Salvation Army. The press made Brocolini seem wealthy and heartless while his ex-wife starved. Florentine, however, was working as a church musician in 1888, so it appears that the press coverage was unfair. In October 1885 he was back in Boston, appearing in "Stradella" at the Bijou Theatre.

He next toured as Pooh-Bah in The Mikado from November 1885 through May 1886. In late 1886, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, he reprised the roles of Pooh Bah and King Hildebrand. In early 1887, he toured in New England, with producer John Stetson, playing the roles of Colonel Calverley in Patience, King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, and Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore.

Later years By 1887, Brocolini had begun to suffer from acute rheumatism, which forced him to reduce his performing schedule over the next few years.

In 1897, Brocolini married Sarah (born 1856), the daughter of Connecticut confectioner and grocer, George D. Bradley. In 1905, he began to manage the Millard Opera Company, which starred Laura Millard. Brocolini died in Brooklyn, of liver disease, in 1906.