How Sullivan’s promotion made “HMS Pinafore” a Success

H.M.S. Pinafore, the beloved Gilbert and Sullivan opera, was almost a flop.

Pinafore opened on May 25, 1878, at a London playhouse called the Opera Comique. The production was well-received, but within a week or two London was engulfed in a summer heat wave. Nobody wanted to sit in a hot, stuffy theater in their Victorian wool suits or tight corsets, so people began to stay home in droves. Box office profits dropped precipitously.

In July, one of the Opera Comique’s directors, Edward Bayley, wrote complaining to theatrical manager Rupert D’Oyly Carte, “I hope you will get Gilbert & Sullivan’s agreement in writing to a break at once. I do not care to go on as a company without it. I object to putting my head in a noose.” But taking a break could have doomed the production entirely—the energy and excitement of the first run would have evaporated, and it is likely that H.M.S. Pinafore never would have recovered from the interruption.

Luckily, that summer, Arthur Sullivan was hired to conduct an eight-week season of “Promenade Concerts” at Covent Garden. In an inspired move, he included in the program a medley of Pinafore’s breezy, tuneful songs.  The strategy worked.

On Saturday August 24, The Times reported, “the chief attraction [of the Promenade Concert] was a highly effective selection from Mr. Sullivan’s comic opera HMS Pinafore … comprising some of its most striking melodies—such as the opening chorus, Josephine’s first song, the songs of Sir J. Porter and Captain Corcoran, that of “little Buttercup,” and a large portion of the finale to Act I.”

The Promenade Concerts were a success, and after several performances of the Pinafore medley, the success of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera was assured. The initial run of the opera lasted an impressive 571 performances.

It seems to me that Arthur Sullivan was a savvy promoter in his own right – when people got a taste of the ‘bright and popular” music of H.M.S. Pinafore, they very likely went home humming the songs. And having enjoyed the musical samples they got at the concert, their interest in seeing the entire comic opera may have been piqued. And the rest is theatrical history.

So would you call that “word of mouth” promotion?

Or maybe “word of ear”?