James F. Stuart was an American opera director and opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

. He began his career performing and touring with Dorothy Raedler’s American Savoyards

American Savoyards

American Savoyards was an Off-Broadway and touring repertory theatre company that produced light operas, principally the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, in New York City between 1948 and 1967.-Beginnings:...

. He became a specialist in the patter roles

Patter song

The patter song is characterized by a moderately fast to very fast tempo with a rapid succession of rhythmic patterns in which each syllable of text corresponds to one note...

 of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

, including both Sir Joseph Porter and K. C. B. in H.M.S. Pinafore

H.M.S. Pinafore

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...

, Ko-Ko in The Mikado

The Mikado

The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...

, and Reginald Bunthorne in Patience

Patience (opera)

Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...

among others. In 1979 he founded the Ohio Light Opera

Ohio Light Opera

The Ohio Light Opera is a professional opera company based in Wooster, Ohio that performs the light opera repertory, including Gilbert and Sullivan, American, British and continental operettas, and other musical theatre works, especially of the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 in Wooster, Ohio

Wooster, Ohio

Wooster is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Wayne County. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio approximately SSW of Cleveland and SW of Akron. Wooster is noted as the location of The College of Wooster...

, serving as the company's artistic director for two decades. During his tenure there he also often worked as producer, stage director, translator, and performer. He himself performed in fifty of the more than two hundred productions mounted by the company while he was director. He also sang on twenty of the company's live operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

recordings which encompassed works by both Americans and Europeans.