Sylvia Cecil was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with whom she performed, off and on, from 1918 until 1937. She also performed in musical theatre, concerts, music hall and variety from 1921, and broadcast on radio. In the 1940s and 1950s she starred in several musicals by Ivor Novello and Noël Coward.
Cecil circa 1920
Cecil with Henry Lytton in The Yeomen of the Guard
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The company was revived for short seasons and tours from 1988 to 2003, and since 2013 it has co-produced four of the operas with Scottish Opera.
Theatre poster for The Mikado
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Helen Lenoir, later Helen Carte
Scene from 1886 Savoy Theatre souvenir programme