Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Gilbert And Sullivan shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Gilbert And Sullivan offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Gilbert And Sullivan at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Gilbert And Sullivan? Wrong! If the Gilbert And Sullivan is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Gilbert And Sullivan then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Gilbert And Sullivan? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Gilbert And Sullivan and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Gilbert And Sullivan wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Gilbert And Sullivan then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Gilbert And Sullivan site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Gilbert And Sullivan, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Gilbert And Sullivan, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the
Victorian era partnership of
librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Together, they wrote fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
The Mikado are among the best known.
New York Magazine review
Gilbert, who wrote the words, created fanciful topsy-turvy worlds for these operas, where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion—fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates turn out to be noblemen who have gone wrong. Mike Leigh 2006 interview in
The Guardian Sullivan, seven years younger than Gilbert, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies Obituary: Arthur Sullivan 1842–1900.
The Musical Times, December 1900, at the internet archive, 2005-11-04. Note the quote from George Grove. that could convey both humour and pathos.Gian Andrea Mazzucato in
The Musical Standard of
December 16 1899: "... will... be classed among the epoch-making composers, the select few whose genius and strength of will empowered them to find and found a national school of music, that is, to endow their countrymen with the undefinable, yet positive means of evoking in a man's soul, by the magic of sound, those delicate nuances of feeling which are characteristic of the emotional power of each different race. Quoted in the
Sir Arthur Sullivan Society Journal, No. 34, Spring 1992, pp. 11-12
Producer
Richard D'Oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration.Crowther, Andrew. The Carpet Quarrel Explained. The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on
2007-05-21. He built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their joint works—which came to be known as the
Savoy opera—and he founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which performed and promoted their works for over a century.
The Gilbert and Sullivan operas have enjoyed broad and enduring international success and are still performed frequently throughout the English-speaking world.Bradley (2005), Chapter 1 The collaboration introduced innovations in content and form that directly influenced the development of musical theatre through the 20th century.Downs, Peter. "Actors Cast Away Cares".
Hartford Courant,
October 18 2006.
Beginnings
Gilbert before Sullivan
Gilbert was born in London on
November 18, 1836. His father William Gilbert (author) was a naval surgeon who later wrote novels and short stories, some of which included illustrations by his son.Crowther, Andrew.
The Life of W. S. Gilbert. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21. In 1861, the younger Gilbert began to write illustrated stories, poems and articles of his own to supplement his income. Many of these would later be mined as a source of ideas for his plays and operas, particularly his series of illustrated poems called the Bab Ballads.Stedman, pp. 26–29, 123–24, and the introduction to Gilbert's
Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales. "Gentle Alice Brown"In the Bab Ballads and his early plays, Gilbert developed a unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd.
Mike Leigh describes the "Gilbertian" style as follows:, during the rehearsals for which
Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to Sullivan.Gilbert developed his innovative theories on the art of stage direction, following theatrical reformer Thomas William Robertson. At the time Gilbert began writing, theatre in Britain was in disrepute.Bond, Jessie.
The Reminiscenes of Jessie Bond: Introduction The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21. Bond created the
mezzo-soprano roles in most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and is here leading in to a description of Gilbert's role in reforming the Victorian theatre. Gilbert helped to reform and elevate the respectability of the theatre, especially beginning with his six short family-friendly comic operas, or "German Reed Entertainments," for Thomas German Reed.Stedman, pp. 62–68; Bond, Jessie, The Reminiscenes of Jessie Bond: Introduction. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on
2007-05-21.
At a rehearsal for one of these entertainments,
Ages Ago (1869), the composer
Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to his friend, the young composer
Arthur Sullivan.Crowther, Andrew. Ages Ago — Early Days. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on
2007-05-21. Two years later, Gilbert and Sullivan would write their first work together. Those two intervening years continued to shape Gilbert's theatrical style. He continued to write humorous verse, stories and plays, including the comic operas
Our Island Home (1870) and
A Sensation Novel (1871), and the blank verse comedies
The Princess (1870),
The Palace of Truth (1870), and
Pygmalion and Galatea.
Sullivan before Gilbert
Sullivan was born in London on
May 13 1842. His father was a military bandmaster, and by the time Arthur had reached the age of 8, he was proficient with all the instruments in the band. In school he began to compose anthems and songs. In 1856, he received the first Mendelssohn Prize and studied at the Royal Academy of Music and at
Leipzig, where he also took up conducting. His graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a suite of The Tempest (Sullivan) to William Shakespeare
The Tempest. Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1862 and was an immediate sensation. He began building a reputation as England's most promising young composer, composing a symphony, a concerto, and several overtures, among them the
Overture di Ballo, in 1870. Interview by Arthur H. Lawrence, Part 1,
The Strand Magazine, Volume xiv, No.84 (December 1897) See also Sullivan's Letter to
The Times, October 27 1881, Issue 30336, pg. 8 col C, where several early Sullivan works premiered.His early major works for the voice included
The Masque at Kenilworth (1864); an oratorio,
The Prodigal Son (1869); and a dramatic cantata,
On Shore and Sea (1871). He composed a ballet,
L'Île Enchantée and incidental music for a number of Shakespeare plays. Other early pieces that were praised were his
Symphony in E, Irish,
Cello Concerto (Sullivan), and
Overture in C (In Memoriam) (all three of which premiered in 1866).Shepherd, Marc,
Discography of Sir Arthur Sullivan: Orchestral and Band Music at The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography. Includes descriptions of the works. Retrieved
2007-06-10. These commissions, however, were not sufficient to keep Sullivan afloat. He worked as a church organist and composed numerous
hymns, popular songs, and
parlour ballads. Stephen Turnbull's Biography of W. S. Gilbert at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Retrieved 2006-11-22
Sullivan's first foray into comic opera was
Cox and Box (1866), written with librettist Francis Cowley Burnand for an informal gathering of friends. Public performance followed, with W. S. Gilbert (then writing dramatic criticism for
Fun) saying that Sullivan's score "is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded."Harris, Roger, ed. (1999). Cox and Box. Chorleywood, Herts., UK: R. Clyde. pp. X–XI. Sullivan and Burnand followed their success with a second comic opera,
The Contrabandista (1867).
Operas
First collaborations:
Thespis and
Trial by Jury
Thespis
of January 6, 1872In 1871, producer John Hollingshead brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to produce a Christmas entertainment,
Thespis (opera), at his Gaiety Theatre, London, a large
West End theatre house. The piece was an extravaganza in which the classical Greek gods, grown elderly, are temporarily replaced by a troupe of nineteenth-century actors and actresses, one of whom is the eponymous Thespis, the Greek father of the drama. Its mixture of political satire and grand opera parody mimicked
Jacques Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld and
La belle Hélène, which (in translation) then dominated the English musical stage.Tillett, Selwyn and Spencer, Roderic (2002). . Chimes Musical Theatre. Retrieved on 2007-05-21Jean-Bernard Piat:
Guide du mélomane averti, Le Livre de Poche 8026, Paris 1992.
Thespis opened on Boxing Day and ran for 63 performances. It outran five of its nine competitors for the 1871 holiday season, but no one at the time anticipated that this was the beginning of a great collaboration. Unlike the later G&S works, it was hastily prepared, and its nature was more risqué, like Gilbert's earlier
travesty, with a broader style of comedy that allowed for improvisation by the actors. Two of the male characters were played by women, whose shapely legs were put on display in a fashion that Gilbert later condemned. The musical score to
Thespis was never published and is now lost, except for one song that was published separately, a chorus that was re-used in
The Pirates of Penzance, and the Act II ballet.
Over the next four years, Gilbert and Sullivan did not have occasion to work together again, but each man became more eminent in his field. Gilbert worked with Clay on
Happy Arcadia (1872) and with Alfred Cellier on
Topsyturveydom (1874), as well as writing several other libretti, farces, extravaganzas, fairy comedies, dramas, adaptations from novels, and translations from the French. Sullivan completed his
Festival Te Deum (1872); another oratorio,
The Light of the World (1873); his only song cycle,
The Window; or, The Song of the Wrens (1871);
incidental music to
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1874); and more songs, parlour ballads, and
hymns, including "Onward, Christian Soldiers" (1872).
Trial by Jury
In 1874, Gilbert wrote a short libretto on commission from producer–composer
Carl Rosa, whose wife would have played the leading role, but her death in childbirth cancelled the project and left the libretto an orphan. Not long afterwards,
Richard D'Oyly Carte was managing the
Royalty Theatre, and he needed a short opera to be played as an afterpiece to Jacques Offenbach's
La Périchole. Gilbert already had available the libretto he had written for Rosa, and Carte suggested that Sullivan write the score. The composer was delighted with it, and
Trial by Jury was composed in a matter of weeks.Barker, John W. "Gilbert and Sullivan", Madison Savoyards, Ltd. Retrieved on 2007-05-21, quotes Sullivan's recollection of Gilbert reading the libretto of
Trial by Jury to him: "As soon as he had come to the last word he closed up the manuscript violently, apparently unconscious of the fact that he had achieved his purpose so far as I was concerned, in as much as I was screaming with laughter the whole time."
The piece is one of Gilbert’s humorous spoofs of the law and the legal profession, based on his brief experience as a barrister. It concerns a
breach of promise of marriage suit. The defendant argues that damages should be slight, since "he is such a very bad lot," while the plaintiff argues that she loves the defendant fervently and seeks "substantial damages." After much argument, the judge resolves the case by marrying the lovely plaintiff himself. With Sullivan's brother,
Fred Sullivan, as the Learned Judge, the opera was a runaway hit, outlasting the run of
La Périchole. Provincial tours and productions at other theatres quickly followed.Walbrook, H. M. (1922),
Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, a History and Comment (Chapter 3). The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on
2007-05-21.
Fred Sullivan was the prototype for the "patter song" (comic)
baritone roles in the later operas. F. C. Burnand wrote that he "was one of the most naturally
comic little men I ever came across. He, too, was a first-rate practical musician.... As he was the most absurd person, so was he the very kindliest...."Ayer p. 408 Fred's creation would serve as a model for the rest of the collaborators' works, and each of them has a crucial
comic little man role, as Burnand had put it. The "patter" baritone (or "principal comedian", as these roles later were called) would often assume the leading role in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, and was usually allotted the speedy
patter songs.
After the success of
Trial by Jury, Gilbert and Sullivan were suddenly in demand to write more operas together. Over the next two years, Richard D'Oyly Carte was one of several theatrical managers who negotiated with the team but were unable to come to terms. Carte also proposed a revival of
Thespis for the 1875 Christmas season, which Gilbert and Sullivan would have revised, but he was unable to obtain financing for the project.
Sorcerer to
Pirates
The Sorcerer
Carte's real ambition was to develop an English form of light opera that would displace the bawdy
burlesque (genre) and badly translated French
operettas then dominating the London stage. He assembled a syndicate and formed the Comedy Opera Company, with Gilbert and Sullivan commissioned to write a comic opera that would serve as the centrepiece for an evening's entertainment.
Gilbert found a subject in one of his own short stories, "The Elixir of Love," which concerned the complications arising when a love potion is distributed to all the residents of a small village. The leading character was a
Cockney businessman who happened to be a sorcerer, a purveyor of blessings (not much called for) and curses (very popular). Gilbert and Sullivan were tireless taskmasters, seeing to it that
The Sorcerer opened as a fully polished production, in marked contrast to the under-rehearsed
Thespis.
The Sorcerer at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. While
The Sorcerer won critical acclaim, it did not duplicate the success of
Trial by Jury. Nevertheless, Carte and his syndicate were sufficiently encouraged to commission another full-length opera from the team.
H.M.S. Pinafore
Gilbert and Sullivan scored their first international hit with
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), satirising the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority and poking good-natured fun at the Royal Navy and the English obsession with social status (building on a theme introduced in
The Sorcerer, love between members of different social classes). As with many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise twist changes everything dramatically near the end of the story.
Gilbert oversaw the designs of sets and costumes, and he directed the performers on stage.Gilbert was strongly influenced by the innovations in 'stagecraft', now called stage direction, by the playwrights James Planche and especially Thomas William Robertson. See Gilbert, W. S.,
A Stage Play; and Bond, Jessie, Introduction, etc. He sought realism in acting, shunned self-conscious interaction with the audience, and insisted on a standard of characterisation where the characters were never aware of their own absurdity.Cox-Ife, William.
W. S. Gilbert: Stage Director. Dobson, 1978 ISBN 0-234-77206-9. Gilbert insisted that his actors know their words perfectly and obey his stage directions, which was something new to many actors of the day. Sullivan personally oversaw the musical preparation. The result was a new crispness and polish in the English musical theatre."That Gilbert was a good director is not in doubt. He was able to extract from his actors natural, clear performances, which served the Gilbertian requirements of outrageousness delivered straight."
Mike Leigh interview]Baily, p. 335
H.M.S. Pinafore ran in London for 571 performances, the second longest run of any musical theatre piece in history up to that time (after the
operetta Les cloches de Corneville). List of longest running London shows up to 1920 Hundreds of unauthorized, or "pirated", productions of
Pinafore appeared in America.Rosen, Zvi S. The Twilight of the Opera Pirates: A Prehistory of the Right of Public Performance for Musical Compositions.
Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 24, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. See also Prestige, Colin. "D'Oyly Carte and the Pirates", a paper presented at the International Conference of G&S held at the
University of Kansas, May 1970 During the run of
Pinafore, Richard D'Oyly Carte split up with his former investors. The disgruntled former partners, who had each invested in the production with no return, staged a public fracas, sending a group of thugs to seize the scenery during a performance. Stagehands successfully managed to ward off their backstage attackers. Article about the fracas during
Pinafore at the Opera Comique This event cleared the way for Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan to form the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which then produced all of their succeeding operas.
The libretto of
H.M.S. Pinafore relied on
stock character types, many of which were familiar from European opera (and some of which grew out of Gilbert's earlier association with the German Reeds): the heroic protagonist (
tenor) and his love-interest (soprano); the older woman with a secret or a sharp tongue (
contralto); the baffled lyric baritone – the girl's father; and a classic villain (
bass-baritone). Gilbert and Sullivan added the element of the comic patter song. With the success of
H.M.S. Pinafore, the D'Oyly Carte repertory and production system was cemented, and each opera would make use of these stock character types. Before
The Sorcerer, Gilbert had constructed his plays around the established stars of whatever theatre he happened to be writing for, as had been the case with
Thespis and
Trial by Jury. Building on the team he had assembled for
The Sorcerer, Gilbert no longer hired stars; he created them. He and Sullivan selected the performers, writing their operas for ensemble casts rather than individual stars.
The repertory system ensured that the comic patter character who performed the role of the sorcerer, John Wellington Wells, would become the ruler of the Queen's navy as Sir Joseph Porter in
H.M.S. Pinafore, then join the army as Major-General Stanley in
The Pirates of Penzance, and so on. Similarly, Mrs. Partlet in
The Sorcerer transformed into Little Buttercup in
Pinafore, then into Ruth, the piratical maid-of-all-work in
Pirates. Relatively unknown performers whom Gilbert and Sullivan engaged early in the collaboration would stay with the company for many years, becoming stars of the Victorian stage. These included George Grossmith, the principal comic; Rutland Barrington, the lyric baritone; Richard Temple (opera singer), the bass-baritone; and Jessie Bond, the
mezzo-soprano soubrette.
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance (New Year's eve, 1879), conceived in a fit of pique at the
United States copyright pirates, Article about copyright pirating, focusing on Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte's efforts also poked fun at
grand opera conventions, sense of duty, family obligation, the "respectability" of civilisation and the peerage, and the relevance of a liberal education. The story also revisits
Pinafore's theme of unqualified people in positions of authority, in the person of the
Major General's Song who has up-to-date knowledge about everything except the military. The Major-General and his many daughters escape from the tender-hearted Pirates of Penzance, who are all orphans, on the false plea that he is an orphan himself. The pirates learn of the deception and re-capture the Major-General, but when it is revealed that the pirates are all peerage, the Major-General bids them: "resume your ranks and legislative duties, and take my daughters, all of whom are beauties!"
The piece premiered first in New York rather than London, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to secure the American copyright, and was another big success with both critics and audiences. Transcription of an opening night review in New York Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried for many years to control the American performance copyrights over their operas, without success. Article on the pirating of G&S operas (and other works) and the development of performance copyrights Nevertheless,
Pirates was a hit in both New York, again spawning numerous imitators, and then in London, and it became one of the most frequently performed, translated and parodied Gilbert and Sullivan works, also enjoying a successful 1981
Broadway theatre revival by
Joseph Papp.
In 1880, Sullivan wrote the
cantata The Martyr of Antioch, presented at the Leeds Triennial Music Festival, with a libretto modified by Gilbert from an 1822 epic poem by
Henry Hart Milman concerning the martyrdom of
Margaret the Virgin in the 3rd century. Sullivan became the conductor of the Leeds festival beginning in 1880 and conducted the performance. It could be said that
Martyr was the 15th opera of the partnership, since the Carl Rosa Opera Company presented the work as an opera in 1898. Web page devoted to
Martyr at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
Savoy Theatre opens:
Patience to
Princess Ida
Patience
as Bunthorne in
Patience (opera)Patience (operetta) (1881) satirised the
aesthetic movement in general and its colourful poets, in particular, combining aspects of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Oscar Wilde,
James McNeill Whistler and others in the rival poets Bunthorne and Grosvenor. Grossmith, who created the role of Bunthorne, based his makeup, wig and costume on Swinburne and especially Whistler, as seen in the adjacent photo.Ellmann, Richard
Oscar Wilde, (Knopf, 1988) pp. 135 and 151-152 ISBN 0-394-55484-1 The work also lampoons male vanity and chauvinism in the military. The story concerns two rival "aesthetic" poets, who attract the attention of the young ladies of the village, who had been engaged to the members of a cavalry regiment. But the two poets are each in love with Patience, the village milkmaid, who detests one of them and feels that it is her duty to avoid the other despite her love for him. Richard D'Oyly Carte was the booking manager for Oscar Wilde, a then lesser-known proponent of aestheticism, and dispatched Wilde on an American lecture tour in conjunction with the opera's U.S. run, so that American audiences might better understand what the satire was all about.
During the run of
Patience, Carte built the large, modern
Savoy Theatre, which became the partnership's permanent home. It was the first theatre (indeed the world's first public building) to be lit entirely by electric lighting.See this article on the Savoy Theatrefrom arthurlloyd.co.uk, retrieved on
2007-07-20. See also this article from the Ambassador Theatre Group Limited
Patience moved into the Savoy after six months at the Opera Comique and ran for a total of 578 performances, surpassing the run of
H.M.S. Pinafore and becoming the second longest-running work of musical theatre up to that time in history.The longest was the operetta
Les Cloches de Corneville, which held the title until
Dorothy (opera) in 1886. See this article on longest runs in the theatre up to 1920
Iolanthe
Iolanthe (1882) was the first of the operas to open at the Savoy. The fully electric Savoy made possible numerous special effects, such as sparkling magic wands for the female chorus of fairies. The opera poked fun at English law and the
House of Lords and made much of the war between the sexes. The critics felt that Sullivan's work in
Iolanthe had taken a step forward.
The Daily Telegraph wrote, "The composer has risen to his opportunity, and we are disposed to account
Iolanthe his best effort in all the Gilbertian series."Quoted in Allen 1975b, p. 176 Similarly, the
Theatre asserted that "the music of
Iolanthe is Dr Sullivan's
chef d'oeuvre. The quality throughout is more even, and maintained at a higher standard, than in any of his earlier works...."William Beatty-Kingston,
Theatre,
1 January 1883, quoted in Baily 1966, p. 246
Iolanthe is one of a number of Gilbert's works, including
The Wicked World (1873),
Broken Hearts (1875),
Princess Ida (1884) and
Fallen Fairies (1909), where the introduction of men and "mortal love" into a tranquil world of women wreaks havoc with the status quo. Article on
Broken Hearts from the G&S Archive Gilbert had created several "fairy comedies" at the Haymarket Theatre in the early 1870s. These plays, influenced by the fairy work of
James Planché, are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XIII. "The Victorian Age", Part One. VIII. Nineteenth-Century Drama, § 15. W. S. Gilbert.
as The Fairy QueenIn 1882, Gilbert had a telephone installed in his home and at the prompt desk at the Savoy Theatre so that he could monitor performances and rehearsals from his home study. Gilbert had referred to the new technology in
Pinafore in 1878, only two years after the device was invented and before London even had telephone service. Sullivan had one installed as well, and on
May 13 1883, at a party to celebrate the composer's 41st birthday, the guests, including the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), heard a direct relay of parts of
Iolanthe from the Savoy. This was probably the first live "broadcast" of an opera.Bradley (1996), p. 176
During the run of
Iolanthe, in 1883, Sullivan was
British honours systemed by Victoria of the United Kingdom. Although it was the operas with Gilbert that had earned him the broadest fame, the honour was conferred for his services to serious music. The musical establishment, and many critics, believed that this should put an end to his career as a composer of comic opera — that a musical
knighthood should not stoop below oratorio or
grand opera.Baily, p. 250 Sullivan, despite the financial security of writing for the Savoy, increasingly viewed his work with Gilbert as unimportant, beneath his skills, and repetitious. Furthermore, he was unhappy that he had to simplify his music to ensure that Gilbert's words could be heard. But paradoxically, in February 1883, just after
Iolanthe opened, Sullivan had signed a five-year agreement with Gilbert and Carte requiring him to produce a new comic opera on six months' notice.
Princess Ida
Princess Ida (1884) spoofed women's education and male chauvinism and continued the theme from
Iolanthe of the war between the sexes. The opera is based on
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson's poem
The Princess: A Medley. Gilbert had written a blank verse farce based on the same material in 1870, called
The Princess (play), and he reused a good deal of the dialogue from his earlier play in the libretto of
Princess Ida.
Ida is the only Gilbert and Sullivan work with dialogue entirely in blank verse and is also the only one of their works in three acts.
Lillian Russell had been engaged to create the title role, but Gilbert did not believe that she was dedicated enough, and when she missed a rehearsal, she was dismissed.Stedman, pp. 200-01
Princess Ida was the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas that, by the partnership's previous standards, was not a success. A particularly hot summer in London did not help ticket sales. The piece ran for a comparatively short 246 performances and was not revived in London until 1919. Sullivan had been satisfied with the libretto, but two months after
Ida opened, Sullivan told Carte that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself." As
Princess Ida showed signs of flagging, Carte realized that, for the first time in the partnership's history, no new opera would be ready when the old one closed. On
22 March 1884, he gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required in six months' time.Jacobs, p. 187 In the meantime, when
Ida closed, Carte produced a revival of
The Sorcerer.
Dodging the magic lozenge:
The Mikado to
The Gondoliers
The Mikado
The most successful of the Savoy Operas was
The Mikado (1885), which made fun of English bureaucracy, thinly diguised by a Japanese setting. Gilbert initially proposed a story for a new opera about a magic lozenge that would change the characters,Gilbert eventually found another opportunity to present his "lozenge plot" in
The Mountebanks (opera), written with
Alfred Cellier in 1892 which Sullivan found artificial and lacking in "human interest and probability", as well as being too similar to their earlier opera,
The Sorcerer. As dramatised in the film
Topsy-Turvy,albeit with the repetition of the apocryphal sword-falling story, see Jones, Brian (Spring 1985), "The sword that never fell",
W. S. Gilbert Society Journal 1 (1): 22–25, the author and composer were at an impasse until
8 May 1884, when Gilbert dropped the lozenge idea and agreed to provide a libretto without any supernatural elements.
The story focuses on a "cheap tailor," Ko-Ko, who is promoted to the position of Lord High Executioner of the town of Titipu. Ko-Ko loves his ward, Yum-Yum, but she loves a musician, who is really the son of the emperor of Japan (the Mikado), and who is in disguise to escape the attentions of the elderly and amorous Katisha. The Mikado has decreed that executions must resume without delay in Titipu. When news arrives that the Mikado will be visiting the town, Ko-Ko assumes that he is coming to ascertain whether Ko-Ko has carried out the executions. Too timid to execute anyone, Ko-Ko cooks up a conspiracy to misdirect the Mikado, which goes awry. Eventually, Ko-Ko must persuade Katisha to marry him, in order to save his own life and the lives of the other conspirators.
With the opening of trade between England and Japan, Japanese imports, art and styles became fashionable in London, making the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert said,
Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert and Sullivan to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by clothing them in superficial Japanese trappings. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution." Review of
The Mikado discussing the depiction of Japan in
The Mikado G. K. Chesterton compared it to Jonathan Swift's
Gulliver's Travels: "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England till they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as Swift did.... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fits the Japanese. But all the jokes in the play fit the English.... About England Pooh-bah is something more than a satire; he is the truth." Lyric Opera San Diego site Several of the later operas are similarly set in foreign or fictional locales, including
The Gondoliers,
Utopia Limited, and
The Grand Duke.
The Mikado became the partnership's longest-running hit, enjoying 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre, which was the second longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.The longest-running piece of musical theatre was the
operetta Les Cloches de Corneville, which held the title until
Dorothy (opera) in 1886. See this article on longest runs in the theatre up to 1920
The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera. Note on the popularity of
The Mikado It has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. See here and here
Ruddigore
Ruddigore (1887), a topsy-turvy take on Victorian melodrama, was less successful than most of the earlier collaborations with a run of 288 performances. The original title,
Ruddygore, together with some of the plot devices, including the revivification of ghosts, drew negative comments from critics. See the
Pall Mall Gazette's satire of
Ruddygore.] Gilbert's response to being told the two spellings meant the same thing was: "Not at all, for that would mean that if I said that I admired your ruddy countenance, which I do, I would be saying that I liked your bloody cheek, which I don't." See this article at Harvard's website and this information from the Australian G&S site. Gilbert and Sullivan respelled the title and made a number of changes and cuts.A copy of the
Ruddigore libretto, including material cut before the first night and during the initial run, is Nevertheless, the piece was profitable, Information from the book
Tit-Willow or Notes and Jottings on Gilbert and Sullivan Operas by Guy H. and Claude A. Walmisley (Privately Printed, Undated, early 20th century) and the reviews were not all bad. For instance, the
Illustrated London News praised the work and both Gilbert and, especially, Sullivan: "Sir Arthur Sullivan has eminently succeeded alike in the expression of refined sentiment and comic humour. In the former respect, the charm of graceful melody prevails; while, in the latter, the music of the most grotesque situations is redolent of fun."
Illustrated London News Review of
Ruddygore dated 9 January 1887 Further changes were made, including a new overture, when
Rupert D'Oyly Carte revived
Ruddigore after the
First World War, and the piece was regularly performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company thereafter.Critical apparatus in Hulme, David Russell, ed.,
Ruddigore. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
Some of the plot elements of
Ruddigore were introduced by Gilbert in his earlier one-act opera,
Ages Ago (1869), including the tale of the wicked ancestor and the device of the ghostly ancestors stepping out of their portraits. When Ruddigore closed, no new opera was ready. Gilbert again proposed a version of the "lozenge" plot for their next opera, and Sullivan reiterated his desire to leave the partnership. While the two men worked out their artistic differences, Carte produced revivals of such old favourites as
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
The Mikado.
The Yeomen of the Guard
as Wilfred and
Jessie Bond as Phoebe in
YeomenThe Yeomen of the Guard (1888), their only joint work with a serious ending, concerns a pair of strolling players—a jester and a singing girl—who are caught up in a risky intrigue at the
Tower of London during the 16th century. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-
William Shakespeare, or Early Modern English, in style, and there is no satire of British institutions. For some of the plot elements, Gilbert had reached back to his 1875 tragedy,
Broken Hearts.
The Times praised the libretto: "It should... be acknowledged that Mr. Gilbert has earnestly endeavoured to leave familiar grooves and rise to higher things." Quoted, at the Australian G&S website. Although not a grand opera, the new libretto provided Sullivan with the opportunity to write his most ambitious score to date. The critics, who had recently lauded the composer for his successful oratorio,
The Golden Legend (oratorio), considered the score to
Yeomen to be Sullivan's finest, including its overture, which was written in
sonata form, rather than as a sequential pot-pourri of tunes from the opera, as in most of his other overtures. The
Daily Telegraph wrote:
Yeomen was a hit, running for over a year, with strong New York and touring productions. During the run, on 12 March 1889, Sullivan wrote to Gilbert, Sullivan insisted that the next opera must be a grand opera. Gilbert did not feel that he could write a grand opera libretto, but he offered a compromise that Sullivan ultimately accepted. The two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan a grand opera (
Ivanhoe (opera)) for a new theatre that Carte was constructing to present British grand opera. After a brief impasse over the choice of subject, Sullivan accepted an idea connected with
Venice and Venetian life, as "this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music."Jacobs, p. 288
The Gondoliers
and Courtice Pounds as Giuseppe and Marco in
The GondoliersThe Gondoliers (1889) takes place partly in Venice and partly in a kingdom ruled by a pair of gondoliers who attempt to remodel the monarchy in a spirit of "republican equality."
The Gondoliers at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Retrieved on 2007-07-21. Gilbert recapitulates a number of his earlier themes, including the satire of class distinctions figuring in many of his earlier librettos. The libretto also reflects Gilbert's fascination with the "Stock Company Act", highlighting the absurd convergence of natural persons and legal entities, which plays an even larger part in the next opera,
Utopia Limited. Press accounts were almost entirely favourable. The
Illustrated London News reported:
Sullivan's old collaborator on
Cox and Box (later the editor of
Punch (magazine) magazine), Francis Burnand, wrote to the composer: "Magnificento!...I envy you and W.S.G. being able to place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion."Baily, p. 344 The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for
H.M.S. Pinafore and
The Mikado. There was a command performance of
The Gondoliers for
Queen Victoria and the royal family at
Windsor Castle in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured.
The Gondoliers was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success.
The carpet quarrel
Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes had a strained working relationship, partly caused by the fact that each man saw himself allowing his work to be subjugated to the other's, and partly caused by the opposing personalities of the two—Gilbert was often confrontational and notoriously thin-skinned (though prone to acts of extraordinary kindness), while Sullivan eschewed conflict.See, e.g., Stedman, pp. 254-56 and 323-24 and Ainger, pp. 193-94. In addition, Gilbert imbued his
libretto with "topsy-turvy" situations in which the social order was turned upside down. After a time, these subjects were often at odds with Sullivan's desire for realism and emotional content.See, e.g. Ainger, p. 288, or Wolfson, p. 3 Also, Gilbert's political satire often poked fun at the wealthy and powerful whom Sullivan sought out for friendship and patronage.See, e.g. Jacobs, p. 73; Crowther, Andrew, The Life of W.S. Gilbert. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21; and Bond, Jessie, The Reminiscences of Jessie Bond: Chapter 16. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State university, Retrieved on
2007-05-21 c.1881Gilbert and Sullivan quarrelled several times over the choice of a subject. After both
Princess Ida and
Ruddigore, which were less successful than the seven other operas from
H.M.S. Pinafore to
The Gondoliers, Sullivan asked to leave the partnership, saying that he found Gilbert's plots repetitive and that the operas were not artistically satisfying to him. While the two artists worked out their differences, Carte kept the Savoy open with revivals of their earlier works. On each occasion, after a few months' pause, Gilbert responded with a libretto that met Sullivan's objections, and the partnership was able to continue successfully.
During the run of
The Gondoliers, however, Gilbert challenged Carte over the expenses of the production. Carte had charged the cost of a new carpet for the Savoy Theatre lobby to the partnership. Gilbert believed that this was a maintenance expense that should be charged to Carte alone. As scholar Andrew Crowther has explained:
Sullivan sided with Carte, who was building a theatre in London for the production of new English grand operas, with Sullivan's
Ivanhoe (opera) as the inaugural work. While the protracted quarrel worked itself out in the courts and in public, Gilbert wrote
The Mountebanks (opera) with Alfred Cellier and the flop
Haste to the Wedding with George Grossmith, Gilbert's Plays. The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. and Sullivan also wrote
Haddon Hall (opera) with Sidney Grundy.
In 1891, after many failed attempts at reconciliation by the pair and their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan's music publisher, William Chappell, stepped in to mediate between two of his most profitable artists, and within two weeks he had succeeded.Wolfson, p. 7
Last works and legacy
Utopia, Limited (1893), their penultimate opera, was a very modest success, and
The Grand Duke (1896) was an outright failure.Wolfson, passim Neither work entered the "canon" of regularly-performed Gilbert and Sullivan works until the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made the first complete professional recordings of the two operas in the 1970s. Gilbert also offered Sullivan
His Excellency (opera) (1894), but Gilbert's insistence on casting Nancy McIntosh, his protégée from
Utopia, led to Sullivan's refusal, and it was instead composed by
F. Osmond Carr. Wolfson, pp. 61-65
After
The Grand Duke, the partners saw no reason to work together again. Sullivan, by this time in exceedingly poor health, died four years later, although to the end he continued to write new comic operas for the Savoy with other librettists, most successfully with
Basil Hood in
The Rose of Persia (1899), and
The Emerald Isle (1901) (finished by
Edward German after Sullivan's death). By the time of Sullivan's death, Gilbert wrote that any memory of their rift had been "completely bridged over," and "the most cordial relations existed between us." He stated that Sulivan was
"A composer of the rarest genius — who, because he was a composer of the rarest genius, was as modest and as unassuming as a neophyte should be, but seldom is.... I remember all that he has done for me in allowing his genius to shed some of its lustre upon my humble name."http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/books/walbrook/chap18.html Walbrook, Chapter 18] Gilbert went into semi-retirement, although he continued to direct revivals of the Savoy Operas and wrote new plays occasionally. He wrote only one more comic opera,
Fallen Fairies (1909; music by Edward German), which was not a success. Bailey, p. 425 Richard D'Oyly Carte died in 1901, and his widow,
Helen D'Oyly Carte, and then his son, Rupert D'Oyly Carte, followed by his granddaughter, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, continued to direct the activities of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which staged revivals of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas until it closed in 1982.
Sir
Henry Wood explained the enduring success of the collaboration as follows:
Because of the unusual success of the operas, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company were able, from the start, to license the works to other professional companies, such as the
J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, and to amateur societies. For almost a century, until the British copyrights expired in 1961, and even afterwards, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company influenced productions of the operas worldwide, creating a "performing tradition" for most of the operas that is still referred to today by many directors. D'Oyly Carte produced several well-regarded recordings of most of the operas, helping to keep them popular through the decades.
Today, numerous professional repertory companies,For example,NYGASP,
Carl Rosa Opera Company, Somerset Opera,
Opera della Luna, Opera a la Carte, Skylight opera theatre,
Ohio Light Opera, and Washington Savoyards opera companies, amateur societies, churches, schools and universities continue to produce the works. Websites of Performing Groups. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State university, Retrieved on
2007-05-21 The most popular G&S works are still performed from time to time by major opera companies, Performances, by city — Composer: Arthur Sullivan. operabase.com, Retrieved on 2007-05-21 A three-week long
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every August in
Buxton.
Cultural influence
In the past 125 years, Gilbert and Sullivan have pervasively influenced popular culture in the English-speaking world,Bradley (2005), Chapter 1. and lines and quotations from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas have become part of the English language, such as "
short, sharp shock", "What never? Well, hardly ever!", "let the punishment fit the crime", and "A policeman's lot is not a happy one".Green, Edward. "Ballads, songs, and speeches" (sic). BBC,
20 September 2004. Retrieved on
2007-05-21.Lawrence, Arthur H. "An illustrated interview with Sir Arthur Sullivan" Part 3, from
The Strand Magazine, Vol. xiv, No.84 (December 1897). Retrieved on
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the
Victorian era partnership of
librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and
composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Together, they wrote fourteen
comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
The Mikado are among the best known.
New York Magazine review
Gilbert, who wrote the words, created fanciful topsy-turvy worlds for these operas, where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion—fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates turn out to be noblemen who have gone wrong. Mike Leigh 2006 interview in
The Guardian Sullivan, seven years younger than Gilbert, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies Obituary: Arthur Sullivan 1842–1900.
The Musical Times, December 1900, at the internet archive,
2005-11-04. Note the quote from George Grove. that could convey both humour and pathos.Gian Andrea Mazzucato in
The Musical Standard of
December 16 1899: "... will... be classed among the epoch-making composers, the select few whose genius and strength of will empowered them to find and found a national school of music, that is, to endow their countrymen with the undefinable, yet positive means of evoking in a man's soul, by the magic of sound, those delicate nuances of feeling which are characteristic of the emotional power of each different race. Quoted in the
Sir Arthur Sullivan Society Journal, No. 34, Spring 1992, pp. 11-12
Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration.Crowther, Andrew. The Carpet Quarrel Explained. The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on
2007-05-21. He built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their joint works—which came to be known as the Savoy opera—and he founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which performed and promoted their works for over a century.
The Gilbert and Sullivan operas have enjoyed broad and enduring international success and are still performed frequently throughout the English-speaking world.Bradley (2005), Chapter 1 The collaboration introduced innovations in content and form that directly influenced the development of musical theatre through the 20th century.Downs, Peter. "Actors Cast Away Cares".
Hartford Courant, October 18
2006.
Beginnings
Gilbert before Sullivan
Gilbert was born in London on November 18,
1836. His father William Gilbert (author) was a naval surgeon who later wrote novels and short stories, some of which included illustrations by his son.Crowther, Andrew.
The Life of W. S. Gilbert. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21. In 1861, the younger Gilbert began to write illustrated stories, poems and articles of his own to supplement his income. Many of these would later be mined as a source of ideas for his plays and operas, particularly his series of illustrated poems called the
Bab Ballads.Stedman, pp. 26–29, 123–24, and the introduction to Gilbert's
Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales. "Gentle Alice Brown"In the Bab Ballads and his early plays, Gilbert developed a unique "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. Mike Leigh describes the "Gilbertian" style as follows:, during the rehearsals for which Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to Sullivan.Gilbert developed his innovative theories on the art of stage direction, following theatrical reformer Thomas William Robertson. At the time Gilbert began writing, theatre in Britain was in disrepute.Bond, Jessie.
The Reminiscenes of Jessie Bond: Introduction The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on
2007-05-21. Bond created the mezzo-soprano roles in most of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and is here leading in to a description of Gilbert's role in reforming the Victorian theatre. Gilbert helped to reform and elevate the respectability of the theatre, especially beginning with his six short family-friendly comic operas, or "German Reed Entertainments," for Thomas German Reed.Stedman, pp. 62–68; Bond, Jessie, The Reminiscenes of Jessie Bond: Introduction. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
At a rehearsal for one of these entertainments,
Ages Ago (1869), the composer Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to his friend, the young composer Arthur Sullivan.Crowther, Andrew. Ages Ago — Early Days. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on 2007-05-21. Two years later, Gilbert and Sullivan would write their first work together. Those two intervening years continued to shape Gilbert's theatrical style. He continued to write humorous verse, stories and plays, including the comic operas
Our Island Home (1870) and
A Sensation Novel (1871), and the blank verse comedies
The Princess (1870),
The Palace of Truth (1870), and
Pygmalion and Galatea.
Sullivan before Gilbert
Sullivan was born in London on
May 13 1842. His father was a military bandmaster, and by the time Arthur had reached the age of 8, he was proficient with all the instruments in the band. In school he began to compose anthems and songs. In 1856, he received the first Mendelssohn Prize and studied at the
Royal Academy of Music and at Leipzig, where he also took up conducting. His graduation piece, completed in 1861, was a suite of The Tempest (Sullivan) to
William Shakespeare The Tempest. Revised and expanded, it was performed at the Crystal Palace in 1862 and was an immediate sensation. He began building a reputation as England's most promising young composer, composing a symphony, a concerto, and several overtures, among them the
Overture di Ballo, in 1870. Interview by Arthur H. Lawrence, Part 1,
The Strand Magazine, Volume xiv, No.84 (December 1897) See also Sullivan's Letter to
The Times,
October 27 1881, Issue 30336, pg. 8 col C, where several early Sullivan works premiered.His early major works for the voice included
The Masque at Kenilworth (1864); an oratorio,
The Prodigal Son (1869); and a dramatic cantata,
On Shore and Sea (1871). He composed a ballet,
L'Île Enchantée and incidental music for a number of Shakespeare plays. Other early pieces that were praised were his
Symphony in E, Irish,
Cello Concerto (Sullivan), and
Overture in C (In Memoriam) (all three of which premiered in 1866).Shepherd, Marc,
Discography of Sir Arthur Sullivan: Orchestral and Band Music at The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography. Includes descriptions of the works. Retrieved 2007-06-10. These commissions, however, were not sufficient to keep Sullivan afloat. He worked as a church organist and composed numerous hymns, popular songs, and
parlour ballads. Stephen Turnbull's Biography of W. S. Gilbert at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Retrieved 2006-11-22
Sullivan's first foray into comic opera was
Cox and Box (1866), written with librettist
Francis Cowley Burnand for an informal gathering of friends. Public performance followed, with W. S. Gilbert (then writing dramatic criticism for
Fun) saying that Sullivan's score "is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded."Harris, Roger, ed. (1999). Cox and Box. Chorleywood, Herts., UK: R. Clyde. pp. X–XI. Sullivan and Burnand followed their success with a second comic opera,
The Contrabandista (1867).
Operas
First collaborations:
Thespis and
Trial by Jury
Thespis
of January 6, 1872In 1871, producer John Hollingshead brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to produce a Christmas entertainment,
Thespis (opera), at his
Gaiety Theatre, London, a large West End theatre house. The piece was an
extravaganza in which the classical Greek gods, grown elderly, are temporarily replaced by a troupe of nineteenth-century actors and actresses, one of whom is the eponymous
Thespis, the Greek father of the drama. Its mixture of political satire and grand opera parody mimicked
Jacques Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld and
La belle Hélène, which (in translation) then dominated the English musical stage.Tillett, Selwyn and Spencer, Roderic (2002). . Chimes Musical Theatre. Retrieved on
2007-05-21Jean-Bernard Piat:
Guide du mélomane averti, Le Livre de Poche 8026, Paris 1992.
Thespis opened on
Boxing Day and ran for 63 performances. It outran five of its nine competitors for the 1871 holiday season, but no one at the time anticipated that this was the beginning of a great collaboration. Unlike the later G&S works, it was hastily prepared, and its nature was more risqué, like Gilbert's earlier travesty, with a broader style of comedy that allowed for improvisation by the actors. Two of the male characters were played by women, whose shapely legs were put on display in a fashion that Gilbert later condemned. The musical score to
Thespis was never published and is now lost, except for one song that was published separately, a chorus that was re-used in
The Pirates of Penzance, and the Act II ballet.
Over the next four years, Gilbert and Sullivan did not have occasion to work together again, but each man became more eminent in his field. Gilbert worked with Clay on
Happy Arcadia (1872) and with Alfred Cellier on
Topsyturveydom (1874), as well as writing several other libretti, farces, extravaganzas, fairy comedies, dramas, adaptations from novels, and translations from the French. Sullivan completed his
Festival Te Deum (1872); another oratorio,
The Light of the World (1873); his only song cycle,
The Window; or, The Song of the Wrens (1871);
incidental music to
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1874); and more songs, parlour ballads, and hymns, including "Onward, Christian Soldiers" (1872).
Trial by Jury
In 1874, Gilbert wrote a short libretto on commission from producer–composer Carl Rosa, whose wife would have played the leading role, but her death in childbirth cancelled the project and left the libretto an orphan. Not long afterwards,
Richard D'Oyly Carte was managing the Royalty Theatre, and he needed a short opera to be played as an afterpiece to
Jacques Offenbach's
La Périchole. Gilbert already had available the libretto he had written for Rosa, and Carte suggested that Sullivan write the score. The composer was delighted with it, and
Trial by Jury was composed in a matter of weeks.Barker, John W. "Gilbert and Sullivan", Madison Savoyards, Ltd. Retrieved on
2007-05-21, quotes Sullivan's recollection of Gilbert reading the libretto of
Trial by Jury to him: "As soon as he had come to the last word he closed up the manuscript violently, apparently unconscious of the fact that he had achieved his purpose so far as I was concerned, in as much as I was screaming with laughter the whole time."
The piece is one of Gilbert’s humorous spoofs of the law and the legal profession, based on his brief experience as a
barrister. It concerns a breach of promise of marriage suit. The defendant argues that damages should be slight, since "he is such a very bad lot," while the plaintiff argues that she loves the defendant fervently and seeks "substantial damages." After much argument, the judge resolves the case by marrying the lovely plaintiff himself. With Sullivan's brother, Fred Sullivan, as the Learned Judge, the opera was a runaway hit, outlasting the run of
La Périchole. Provincial tours and productions at other theatres quickly followed.Walbrook, H. M. (1922),
Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, a History and Comment (Chapter 3). The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
Fred Sullivan was the prototype for the "patter song" (comic)
baritone roles in the later operas. F. C. Burnand wrote that he "was one of the most naturally
comic little men I ever came across. He, too, was a first-rate practical musician.... As he was the most absurd person, so was he the very kindliest...."Ayer p. 408 Fred's creation would serve as a model for the rest of the collaborators' works, and each of them has a crucial
comic little man role, as Burnand had put it. The "patter" baritone (or "principal comedian", as these roles later were called) would often assume the leading role in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, and was usually allotted the speedy
patter songs.
After the success of
Trial by Jury, Gilbert and Sullivan were suddenly in demand to write more operas together. Over the next two years, Richard D'Oyly Carte was one of several theatrical managers who negotiated with the team but were unable to come to terms. Carte also proposed a revival of
Thespis for the 1875 Christmas season, which Gilbert and Sullivan would have revised, but he was unable to obtain financing for the project.
Sorcerer to
Pirates
The Sorcerer
Carte's real ambition was to develop an English form of light opera that would displace the bawdy burlesque (genre) and badly translated French operettas then dominating the London stage. He assembled a syndicate and formed the Comedy Opera Company, with Gilbert and Sullivan commissioned to write a comic opera that would serve as the centrepiece for an evening's entertainment.
Gilbert found a subject in one of his own short stories, "The Elixir of Love," which concerned the complications arising when a love potion is distributed to all the residents of a small village. The leading character was a
Cockney businessman who happened to be a sorcerer, a purveyor of blessings (not much called for) and curses (very popular). Gilbert and Sullivan were tireless taskmasters, seeing to it that
The Sorcerer opened as a fully polished production, in marked contrast to the under-rehearsed
Thespis.
The Sorcerer at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. While
The Sorcerer won critical acclaim, it did not duplicate the success of
Trial by Jury. Nevertheless, Carte and his syndicate were sufficiently encouraged to commission another full-length opera from the team.
H.M.S. Pinafore
Gilbert and Sullivan scored their first international hit with
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), satirising the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority and poking good-natured fun at the Royal Navy and the English obsession with social status (building on a theme introduced in
The Sorcerer, love between members of different social classes). As with many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise twist changes everything dramatically near the end of the story.
Gilbert oversaw the designs of sets and costumes, and he directed the performers on stage.Gilbert was strongly influenced by the innovations in 'stagecraft', now called stage direction, by the playwrights
James Planche and especially
Thomas William Robertson. See Gilbert, W. S.,
A Stage Play; and Bond, Jessie, Introduction, etc. He sought realism in acting, shunned self-conscious interaction with the audience, and insisted on a standard of characterisation where the characters were never aware of their own absurdity.Cox-Ife, William.
W. S. Gilbert: Stage Director. Dobson, 1978 ISBN 0-234-77206-9. Gilbert insisted that his actors know their words perfectly and obey his stage directions, which was something new to many actors of the day. Sullivan personally oversaw the musical preparation. The result was a new crispness and polish in the English musical theatre."That Gilbert was a good director is not in doubt. He was able to extract from his actors natural, clear performances, which served the Gilbertian requirements of outrageousness delivered straight." Mike Leigh interview]Baily, p. 335
H.M.S. Pinafore ran in London for 571 performances, the second longest run of any musical theatre piece in history up to that time (after the operetta
Les cloches de Corneville). List of longest running London shows up to 1920 Hundreds of unauthorized, or "pirated", productions of
Pinafore appeared in America.Rosen, Zvi S. The Twilight of the Opera Pirates: A Prehistory of the Right of Public Performance for Musical Compositions.
Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 24, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. See also Prestige, Colin. "D'Oyly Carte and the Pirates", a paper presented at the International Conference of G&S held at the University of Kansas, May 1970 During the run of
Pinafore, Richard D'Oyly Carte split up with his former investors. The disgruntled former partners, who had each invested in the production with no return, staged a public fracas, sending a group of thugs to seize the scenery during a performance. Stagehands successfully managed to ward off their backstage attackers. Article about the fracas during
Pinafore at the Opera Comique This event cleared the way for Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan to form the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which then produced all of their succeeding operas.
The libretto of
H.M.S. Pinafore relied on
stock character types, many of which were familiar from European opera (and some of which grew out of Gilbert's earlier association with the German Reeds): the heroic protagonist (
tenor) and his love-interest (
soprano); the older woman with a secret or a sharp tongue (
contralto); the baffled lyric baritone – the girl's father; and a classic villain (bass-baritone). Gilbert and Sullivan added the element of the comic patter song. With the success of
H.M.S. Pinafore, the D'Oyly Carte repertory and production system was cemented, and each opera would make use of these stock character types. Before
The Sorcerer, Gilbert had constructed his plays around the established stars of whatever theatre he happened to be writing for, as had been the case with
Thespis and
Trial by Jury. Building on the team he had assembled for
The Sorcerer, Gilbert no longer hired stars; he created them. He and Sullivan selected the performers, writing their operas for ensemble casts rather than individual stars.
The repertory system ensured that the comic patter character who performed the role of the sorcerer, John Wellington Wells, would become the ruler of the Queen's navy as Sir Joseph Porter in
H.M.S. Pinafore, then join the army as Major-General Stanley in
The Pirates of Penzance, and so on. Similarly, Mrs. Partlet in
The Sorcerer transformed into Little Buttercup in
Pinafore, then into Ruth, the piratical maid-of-all-work in
Pirates. Relatively unknown performers whom Gilbert and Sullivan engaged early in the collaboration would stay with the company for many years, becoming stars of the Victorian stage. These included George Grossmith, the principal comic;
Rutland Barrington, the lyric baritone; Richard Temple (opera singer), the bass-baritone; and Jessie Bond, the
mezzo-soprano soubrette.
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance (New Year's eve, 1879), conceived in a fit of pique at the
United States copyright pirates, Article about copyright pirating, focusing on Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte's efforts also poked fun at grand opera conventions, sense of duty, family obligation, the "respectability" of civilisation and the peerage, and the relevance of a liberal education. The story also revisits
Pinafore's theme of unqualified people in positions of authority, in the person of the Major General's Song who has up-to-date knowledge about everything except the military. The Major-General and his many daughters escape from the tender-hearted Pirates of Penzance, who are all orphans, on the false plea that he is an orphan himself. The pirates learn of the deception and re-capture the Major-General, but when it is revealed that the pirates are all peerage, the Major-General bids them: "resume your ranks and legislative duties, and take my daughters, all of whom are beauties!"
The piece premiered first in New York rather than London, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to secure the American copyright, and was another big success with both critics and audiences. Transcription of an opening night review in New York Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried for many years to control the American performance copyrights over their operas, without success. Article on the pirating of G&S operas (and other works) and the development of performance copyrights Nevertheless,
Pirates was a hit in both New York, again spawning numerous imitators, and then in London, and it became one of the most frequently performed, translated and parodied Gilbert and Sullivan works, also enjoying a successful 1981
Broadway theatre revival by Joseph Papp.
In 1880, Sullivan wrote the cantata
The Martyr of Antioch, presented at the Leeds Triennial Music Festival, with a libretto modified by Gilbert from an 1822 epic poem by Henry Hart Milman concerning the martyrdom of Margaret the Virgin in the 3rd century. Sullivan became the conductor of the Leeds festival beginning in 1880 and conducted the performance. It could be said that
Martyr was the 15th opera of the partnership, since the Carl Rosa Opera Company presented the work as an opera in 1898. Web page devoted to
Martyr at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
Savoy Theatre opens:
Patience to
Princess Ida
Patience
as Bunthorne in
Patience (opera)Patience (operetta) (1881) satirised the
aesthetic movement in general and its colourful poets, in particular, combining aspects of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Oscar Wilde, James McNeill Whistler and others in the rival poets Bunthorne and Grosvenor. Grossmith, who created the role of Bunthorne, based his makeup, wig and costume on Swinburne and especially Whistler, as seen in the adjacent photo.Ellmann, Richard
Oscar Wilde, (Knopf, 1988) pp. 135 and 151-152 ISBN 0-394-55484-1 The work also lampoons male vanity and chauvinism in the military. The story concerns two rival "aesthetic" poets, who attract the attention of the young ladies of the village, who had been engaged to the members of a cavalry regiment. But the two poets are each in love with Patience, the village milkmaid, who detests one of them and feels that it is her duty to avoid the other despite her love for him. Richard D'Oyly Carte was the booking manager for
Oscar Wilde, a then lesser-known proponent of aestheticism, and dispatched Wilde on an American lecture tour in conjunction with the opera's U.S. run, so that American audiences might better understand what the satire was all about.
During the run of
Patience, Carte built the large, modern Savoy Theatre, which became the partnership's permanent home. It was the first theatre (indeed the world's first public building) to be lit entirely by electric lighting.See this article on the Savoy Theatrefrom arthurlloyd.co.uk, retrieved on 2007-07-20. See also this article from the Ambassador Theatre Group Limited
Patience moved into the Savoy after six months at the Opera Comique and ran for a total of 578 performances, surpassing the run of
H.M.S. Pinafore and becoming the second longest-running work of musical theatre up to that time in history.The longest was the operetta
Les Cloches de Corneville, which held the title until
Dorothy (opera) in 1886. See this article on longest runs in the theatre up to 1920
Iolanthe
Iolanthe (1882) was the first of the operas to open at the Savoy. The fully electric Savoy made possible numerous special effects, such as sparkling magic wands for the female chorus of fairies. The opera poked fun at English law and the
House of Lords and made much of the war between the sexes. The critics felt that Sullivan's work in
Iolanthe had taken a step forward.
The Daily Telegraph wrote, "The composer has risen to his opportunity, and we are disposed to account
Iolanthe his best effort in all the Gilbertian series."Quoted in Allen 1975b, p. 176 Similarly, the
Theatre asserted that "the music of
Iolanthe is Dr Sullivan's
chef d'oeuvre. The quality throughout is more even, and maintained at a higher standard, than in any of his earlier works...."William Beatty-Kingston,
Theatre,
1 January 1883, quoted in Baily 1966, p. 246
Iolanthe is one of a number of Gilbert's works, including
The Wicked World (1873),
Broken Hearts (1875),
Princess Ida (1884) and
Fallen Fairies (1909), where the introduction of men and "mortal love" into a tranquil world of women wreaks havoc with the status quo. Article on
Broken Hearts from the G&S Archive Gilbert had created several "fairy comedies" at the Haymarket Theatre in the early 1870s. These plays, influenced by the fairy work of James Planché, are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume XIII. "The Victorian Age", Part One. VIII. Nineteenth-Century Drama, § 15. W. S. Gilbert.
as The Fairy QueenIn 1882, Gilbert had a telephone installed in his home and at the prompt desk at the Savoy Theatre so that he could monitor performances and rehearsals from his home study. Gilbert had referred to the new technology in
Pinafore in 1878, only two years after the device was invented and before London even had telephone service. Sullivan had one installed as well, and on May 13 1883, at a party to celebrate the composer's 41st birthday, the guests, including the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), heard a direct relay of parts of
Iolanthe from the Savoy. This was probably the first live "broadcast" of an opera.Bradley (1996), p. 176
During the run of
Iolanthe, in 1883, Sullivan was British honours systemed by
Victoria of the United Kingdom. Although it was the operas with Gilbert that had earned him the broadest fame, the honour was conferred for his services to serious music. The musical establishment, and many critics, believed that this should put an end to his career as a composer of comic opera — that a musical
knighthood should not stoop below oratorio or
grand opera.Baily, p. 250 Sullivan, despite the financial security of writing for the Savoy, increasingly viewed his work with Gilbert as unimportant, beneath his skills, and repetitious. Furthermore, he was unhappy that he had to simplify his music to ensure that Gilbert's words could be heard. But paradoxically, in February 1883, just after
Iolanthe opened, Sullivan had signed a five-year agreement with Gilbert and Carte requiring him to produce a new comic opera on six months' notice.
Princess Ida
Princess Ida (1884) spoofed
women's education and male chauvinism and continued the theme from
Iolanthe of the war between the sexes. The opera is based on Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson's poem
The Princess: A Medley. Gilbert had written a blank verse farce based on the same material in 1870, called
The Princess (play), and he reused a good deal of the dialogue from his earlier play in the libretto of
Princess Ida.
Ida is the only Gilbert and Sullivan work with dialogue entirely in blank verse and is also the only one of their works in three acts. Lillian Russell had been engaged to create the title role, but Gilbert did not believe that she was dedicated enough, and when she missed a rehearsal, she was dismissed.Stedman, pp. 200-01
Princess Ida was the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas that, by the partnership's previous standards, was not a success. A particularly hot summer in London did not help ticket sales. The piece ran for a comparatively short 246 performances and was not revived in London until 1919. Sullivan had been satisfied with the libretto, but two months after
Ida opened, Sullivan told Carte that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself." As
Princess Ida showed signs of flagging, Carte realized that, for the first time in the partnership's history, no new opera would be ready when the old one closed. On 22 March 1884, he gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required in six months' time.Jacobs, p. 187 In the meantime, when
Ida closed, Carte produced a revival of
The Sorcerer.
Dodging the magic lozenge:
The Mikado to
The Gondoliers
The Mikado
The most successful of the Savoy Operas was
The Mikado (1885), which made fun of English bureaucracy, thinly diguised by a Japanese setting. Gilbert initially proposed a story for a new opera about a magic lozenge that would change the characters,Gilbert eventually found another opportunity to present his "lozenge plot" in
The Mountebanks (opera), written with Alfred Cellier in 1892 which Sullivan found artificial and lacking in "human interest and probability", as well as being too similar to their earlier opera,
The Sorcerer. As dramatised in the film
Topsy-Turvy,albeit with the repetition of the apocryphal sword-falling story, see Jones, Brian (Spring 1985), "The sword that never fell",
W. S. Gilbert Society Journal 1 (1): 22–25, the author and composer were at an impasse until 8 May 1884, when Gilbert dropped the lozenge idea and agreed to provide a libretto without any supernatural elements.
The story focuses on a "cheap tailor," Ko-Ko, who is promoted to the position of Lord High Executioner of the town of Titipu. Ko-Ko loves his ward, Yum-Yum, but she loves a musician, who is really the son of the emperor of Japan (the Mikado), and who is in disguise to escape the attentions of the elderly and amorous Katisha. The Mikado has decreed that executions must resume without delay in Titipu. When news arrives that the Mikado will be visiting the town, Ko-Ko assumes that he is coming to ascertain whether Ko-Ko has carried out the executions. Too timid to execute anyone, Ko-Ko cooks up a conspiracy to misdirect the Mikado, which goes awry. Eventually, Ko-Ko must persuade Katisha to marry him, in order to save his own life and the lives of the other conspirators.
With the opening of trade between England and Japan, Japanese imports, art and styles became fashionable in London, making the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert said,
Setting the opera in
Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert and Sullivan to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by clothing them in superficial Japanese trappings. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution." Review of
The Mikado discussing the depiction of Japan in
The Mikado G. K. Chesterton compared it to
Jonathan Swift's
Gulliver's Travels: "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England till they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as Swift did.... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fits the Japanese. But all the jokes in the play fit the English.... About England Pooh-bah is something more than a satire; he is the truth." Lyric Opera San Diego site Several of the later operas are similarly set in foreign or fictional locales, including
The Gondoliers,
Utopia Limited, and
The Grand Duke.
The Mikado became the partnership's longest-running hit, enjoying 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre, which was the second longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.The longest-running piece of musical theatre was the operetta
Les Cloches de Corneville, which held the title until
Dorothy (opera) in 1886. See this article on longest runs in the theatre up to 1920
The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera. Note on the popularity of
The Mikado It has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. See here and here
Ruddigore
Ruddigore (1887), a topsy-turvy take on Victorian melodrama, was less successful than most of the earlier collaborations with a run of 288 performances. The original title,
Ruddygore, together with some of the plot devices, including the revivification of ghosts, drew negative comments from critics. See the
Pall Mall Gazette's satire of
Ruddygore.] Gilbert's response to being told the two spellings meant the same thing was: "Not at all, for that would mean that if I said that I admired your ruddy countenance, which I do, I would be saying that I liked your bloody cheek, which I don't." See this article at Harvard's website and this information from the Australian G&S site. Gilbert and Sullivan respelled the title and made a number of changes and cuts.A copy of the
Ruddigore libretto, including material cut before the first night and during the initial run, is Nevertheless, the piece was profitable, Information from the book
Tit-Willow or Notes and Jottings on Gilbert and Sullivan Operas by Guy H. and Claude A. Walmisley (Privately Printed, Undated, early 20th century) and the reviews were not all bad. For instance, the
Illustrated London News praised the work and both Gilbert and, especially, Sullivan: "Sir Arthur Sullivan has eminently succeeded alike in the expression of refined sentiment and comic humour. In the former respect, the charm of graceful melody prevails; while, in the latter, the music of the most grotesque situations is redolent of fun."
Illustrated London News Review of
Ruddygore dated 9 January 1887 Further changes were made, including a new overture, when
Rupert D'Oyly Carte revived
Ruddigore after the
First World War, and the piece was regularly performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company thereafter.Critical apparatus in Hulme, David Russell, ed.,
Ruddigore. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
Some of the plot elements of
Ruddigore were introduced by Gilbert in his earlier one-act opera,
Ages Ago (1869), including the tale of the wicked ancestor and the device of the ghostly ancestors stepping out of their portraits. When Ruddigore closed, no new opera was ready. Gilbert again proposed a version of the "lozenge" plot for their next opera, and Sullivan reiterated his desire to leave the partnership. While the two men worked out their artistic differences, Carte produced revivals of such old favourites as
H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance, and
The Mikado.
The Yeomen of the Guard
as Wilfred and
Jessie Bond as Phoebe in
YeomenThe Yeomen of the Guard (1888), their only joint work with a serious ending, concerns a pair of strolling players—a jester and a singing girl—who are caught up in a risky intrigue at the Tower of London during the 16th century. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-William Shakespeare, or
Early Modern English, in style, and there is no satire of British institutions. For some of the plot elements, Gilbert had reached back to his 1875 tragedy,
Broken Hearts.
The Times praised the libretto: "It should... be acknowledged that Mr. Gilbert has earnestly endeavoured to leave familiar grooves and rise to higher things." Quoted, at the Australian G&S website. Although not a grand opera, the new libretto provided Sullivan with the opportunity to write his most ambitious score to date. The critics, who had recently lauded the composer for his successful oratorio,
The Golden Legend (oratorio), considered the score to
Yeomen to be Sullivan's finest, including its overture, which was written in sonata form, rather than as a sequential pot-pourri of tunes from the opera, as in most of his other overtures. The
Daily Telegraph wrote:
Yeomen was a hit, running for over a year, with strong New York and touring productions. During the run, on 12 March 1889, Sullivan wrote to Gilbert, Sullivan insisted that the next opera must be a
grand opera. Gilbert did not feel that he could write a grand opera libretto, but he offered a compromise that Sullivan ultimately accepted. The two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan a grand opera (
Ivanhoe (opera)) for a new theatre that Carte was constructing to present British grand opera. After a brief impasse over the choice of subject, Sullivan accepted an idea connected with
Venice and Venetian life, as "this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music."Jacobs, p. 288
The Gondoliers
and Courtice Pounds as Giuseppe and Marco in
The GondoliersThe Gondoliers (1889) takes place partly in Venice and partly in a kingdom ruled by a pair of gondoliers who attempt to remodel the monarchy in a spirit of "republican equality."
The Gondoliers at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Retrieved on 2007-07-21. Gilbert recapitulates a number of his earlier themes, including the satire of class distinctions figuring in many of his earlier librettos. The libretto also reflects Gilbert's fascination with the "Stock Company Act", highlighting the absurd convergence of natural persons and legal entities, which plays an even larger part in the next opera,
Utopia Limited. Press accounts were almost entirely favourable. The
Illustrated London News reported:
Sullivan's old collaborator on
Cox and Box (later the editor of
Punch (magazine) magazine), Francis Burnand, wrote to the composer: "Magnificento!...I envy you and W.S.G. being able to place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion."Baily, p. 344 The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for
H.M.S. Pinafore and
The Mikado. There was a command performance of
The Gondoliers for Queen Victoria and the royal family at Windsor Castle in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured.
The Gondoliers was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success.
The carpet quarrel
Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes had a strained working relationship, partly caused by the fact that each man saw himself allowing his work to be subjugated to the other's, and partly caused by the opposing personalities of the two—Gilbert was often confrontational and notoriously thin-skinned (though prone to acts of extraordinary kindness), while Sullivan eschewed conflict.See, e.g., Stedman, pp. 254-56 and 323-24 and Ainger, pp. 193-94. In addition, Gilbert imbued his libretto with "topsy-turvy" situations in which the social order was turned upside down. After a time, these subjects were often at odds with Sullivan's desire for realism and emotional content.See, e.g. Ainger, p. 288, or Wolfson, p. 3 Also, Gilbert's political satire often poked fun at the wealthy and powerful whom Sullivan sought out for friendship and patronage.See, e.g. Jacobs, p. 73; Crowther, Andrew, The Life of W.S. Gilbert. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State University, Retrieved on
2007-05-21; and Bond, Jessie, The Reminiscences of Jessie Bond: Chapter 16. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State university, Retrieved on 2007-05-21 c.1881Gilbert and Sullivan quarrelled several times over the choice of a subject. After both
Princess Ida and
Ruddigore, which were less successful than the seven other operas from
H.M.S. Pinafore to
The Gondoliers, Sullivan asked to leave the partnership, saying that he found Gilbert's plots repetitive and that the operas were not artistically satisfying to him. While the two artists worked out their differences, Carte kept the Savoy open with revivals of their earlier works. On each occasion, after a few months' pause, Gilbert responded with a libretto that met Sullivan's objections, and the partnership was able to continue successfully.
During the run of
The Gondoliers, however, Gilbert challenged Carte over the expenses of the production. Carte had charged the cost of a new carpet for the Savoy Theatre lobby to the partnership. Gilbert believed that this was a maintenance expense that should be charged to Carte alone. As scholar Andrew Crowther has explained:
Sullivan sided with Carte, who was building a theatre in London for the production of new English grand operas, with Sullivan's
Ivanhoe (opera) as the inaugural work. While the protracted quarrel worked itself out in the courts and in public, Gilbert wrote
The Mountebanks (opera) with
Alfred Cellier and the flop
Haste to the Wedding with George Grossmith, Gilbert's Plays. The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive at Boise State University. Retrieved on
2007-05-21. and Sullivan also wrote
Haddon Hall (opera) with Sidney Grundy.
In 1891, after many failed attempts at reconciliation by the pair and their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan's music publisher, William Chappell, stepped in to mediate between two of his most profitable artists, and within two weeks he had succeeded.Wolfson, p. 7
Last works and legacy
Utopia, Limited (1893), their penultimate opera, was a very modest success, and
The Grand Duke (1896) was an outright failure.Wolfson, passim Neither work entered the "canon" of regularly-performed Gilbert and Sullivan works until the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made the first complete professional recordings of the two operas in the 1970s. Gilbert also offered Sullivan
His Excellency (opera) (1894), but Gilbert's insistence on casting Nancy McIntosh, his protégée from
Utopia, led to Sullivan's refusal, and it was instead composed by F. Osmond Carr. Wolfson, pp. 61-65
After
The Grand Duke, the partners saw no reason to work together again. Sullivan, by this time in exceedingly poor health, died four years later, although to the end he continued to write new comic operas for the Savoy with other librettists, most successfully with Basil Hood in
The Rose of Persia (1899), and
The Emerald Isle (1901) (finished by
Edward German after Sullivan's death). By the time of Sullivan's death, Gilbert wrote that any memory of their rift had been "completely bridged over," and "the most cordial relations existed between us." He stated that Sulivan was
"A composer of the rarest genius — who, because he was a composer of the rarest genius, was as modest and as unassuming as a neophyte should be, but seldom is.... I remember all that he has done for me in allowing his genius to shed some of its lustre upon my humble name."http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/books/walbrook/chap18.html Walbrook, Chapter 18] Gilbert went into semi-retirement, although he continued to direct revivals of the Savoy Operas and wrote new plays occasionally. He wrote only one more comic opera,
Fallen Fairies (1909; music by
Edward German), which was not a success. Bailey, p. 425
Richard D'Oyly Carte died in 1901, and his widow,
Helen D'Oyly Carte, and then his son,
Rupert D'Oyly Carte, followed by his granddaughter, Bridget D'Oyly Carte, continued to direct the activities of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which staged revivals of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas until it closed in 1982.
Sir
Henry Wood explained the enduring success of the collaboration as follows:
Because of the unusual success of the operas, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company were able, from the start, to license the works to other professional companies, such as the
J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, and to amateur societies. For almost a century, until the British copyrights expired in 1961, and even afterwards, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company influenced productions of the operas worldwide, creating a "performing tradition" for most of the operas that is still referred to today by many directors. D'Oyly Carte produced several well-regarded recordings of most of the operas, helping to keep them popular through the decades.
Today, numerous professional repertory companies,For example,
NYGASP, Carl Rosa Opera Company, Somerset Opera, Opera della Luna,
Opera a la Carte, Skylight opera theatre, Ohio Light Opera, and Washington Savoyards opera companies, amateur societies, churches, schools and universities continue to produce the works. Websites of Performing Groups. The Gilbert and Sullivan archive at Boise State university, Retrieved on
2007-05-21 The most popular G&S works are still performed from time to time by major opera companies, Performances, by city — Composer: Arthur Sullivan. operabase.com, Retrieved on
2007-05-21 A three-week long International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every August in Buxton.
Cultural influence
In the past 125 years, Gilbert and Sullivan have pervasively influenced popular culture in the English-speaking world,Bradley (2005), Chapter 1. and lines and quotations from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas have become part of the English language, such as "
short, sharp shock", "What never? Well, hardly ever!", "let the punishment fit the crime", and "A policeman's lot is not a happy one".Green, Edward. "Ballads, songs, and speeches" (sic). BBC,
20 September 2004. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.Lawrence, Arthur H. "An illustrated interview with Sir Arthur Sullivan" Part 3, from
The Strand Magazine, Vol. xiv, No.84 (December 1897). Retrieved on
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society, London UK
an appreciation society for all those who are interested in the lives and works of gilbert & sullivan
Introduction to Gilbert & Sullivan
Deals with all matters connected with the pair with special emphasis on the annual International Gilbert and Sullivan Festivals held in Buxton, England.
Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
Gilbert and Sullivan Festival ... Welcome. Welcome to the wonderful world of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival.
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society, London UK
In the Dusk with the Light Behind Them" Tue, 23 Sep 2008 Time: 7:15 pm Venue: The Club for Acts and Actors, 20 Bedford Street, London. WC2E 9HP
Gilbert and Sullivan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian era partnership of librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Together, they wrote fourteen ...
Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Home Page
The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive is devoted to the operas and other works of William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, who wrote 14 light operas during the last quarter of the ...
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston | Home Page
Our 2008 production is Yeomen of the Guard: Alistair Donkin of D'Oyly Cart, Director
Christchurch Gilbert And Sullivan Society
Musical society. Includes information on members and current productions.
The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Houston | Home Page
Our 2008 production is Yeomen of the Guard: Alistair Donkin of D'Oyly Cart, Director ... Incorporated in 1999, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston Foundation has, as one of ...
Dunfermline Gilbert and Sullivan Society: Home page
Welcome to the Dunfermline Gilbert & Sullivan Society website. Our next production will be “Yeomen of the Guard” 18th–21st February 2009 at the Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline
