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W.S. Gilbert’s Childhood Family Drama
Children abducted, children hidden, children mixed up by their caretakers—in William S. Gilbert’s librettos, childhood was a dangerous time. In H. M. S. Pinafore, two babies were mixed up by a careless “baby farmer” (day care provider). In The Pirates of Penzance, the young hero’s silly nursemaid apprenticed the boy to a pirate instead of a pilot, dooming him to a life of crime. In Iolanthe, the Lord Chancellor doesn’t know that he even has a son, much less that his child is the half-mortal, half-fairy Strephon. In The Gondoliers, the infant heir to the throne of Barataria was stolen by the Grand Inquisitor and raised in Venice as a…
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Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Ivanhoe
Which has more artistic merit: Drama or Comedy? I bet most people would say that Drama, being more serious, sheds more light on the human condition. They might add that Comedy is more entertaining but less illuminating. This was the question Sir Arthur Sullivan faced around 1888 to 1891: Should England’s most highly lauded composer continue to write comic operas with W.S. Gilbert (the musical equivalent, one might say, of being a graphic novel illustrator who provides images that suit someone else’s story), or should he devote his time to Serious Music in the form of a grand opera (perhaps comparable to creating an original oil painting worthy of…
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W.S. Gilbert: For the Birds (and Beasts)
W.S. Gilbert was known for his irascible disposition, quick temper and readiness to fight any person whom he thought deserved to be taken down. But he had a soft spot for animals and birds of all kinds, and his home of Grim’s Dyke was also home to a wide variety of creatures. Hesketh Pearson says in W.S. Gilbert, His Life and Strife: “His estate became a sort of zoological gardens… In his idyllic oasis of lawns, flowers, trees, bracken, rhododendrons, fruit gardens, ferns and beehives, he had made a lake of one-and-a-half acres, and the whole place was a sanctuary for birds and animals, many of which were quite at…
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Arthur Sullivan and The Golden Legend
Even successful artists like Sir Arthur Sullivan struggle with procrastination, goal-setting, and getting things done! In 1886, 44-year-old Arthur Sullivan was at the top of his career. He’d been knighted in 1883 for his services to music, his collaborations with WSGilbert had brought him a lot of success and financial reward, but success brought increasing pressure into his life. First, there was the pressure to write “serious music,” not comic operas or other popular stuff. High-minded critics thought that an ordinary tunesmith could write a comic opera, but a Knight of the Realm had to compose masterpieces, music for the ages. Second, success at any level comes with its own…
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Christmas with the Gilberts
Though William and Kitty Gilbert never had any children of their own, they both enjoyed the company of young people and loved to give lavish parties for the children of friends and family. One young lady who enjoyed their parties was Kate Terry Gielgud – the daughter of actress Kate Terry and Arthur James Lewis (a silk merchant of the firm of Lewis & Allenby), and the mother of famed actor Sir John Gielgud. In Kate Terry Gielgud: An Autobiography (1953), she explained, “Both author and composer were friends of my parents, and Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert invited us every year to Christmas parties in their house…” Born in 1868,…
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Victorian Drawing Rooms – Private Refuges from Public Life
With more people today working from home, it’s interesting to note that, thanks to the Industrial Revolution, the Victorian era marks the separation of the workplace from the domestic sphere. In Dickens’ Great Expectations, the law clerk Wemmick says, “The office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle [his home] behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.” Ah, the Industrial Revolution! Who would have guessed that those “dark satanic mills” of Byron’s poem would have revolutionized every aspect of the way people lived, down to the very style of their houses? Before the…
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Sullivan and the Crowned Heads of Europe
I love the old Victorian phrase, “the crowned heads of Europe” as a description of the members of the various royal families. It reminds me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz, where the wizard’s little wooden trailer is decorated on the side with the following legend: PROFESSOR MARVEL ACCLAIMED By The CROWNED HEADS of EUROPE Dorothy, of course, can’t help but read this boast, and since she wants to get away from Kansas, she pleads: DOROTHY: Oh, please, Professor, why can’t we go with you and see all the Crowned Heads of Europe? PROFESSOR: Do you know any? Oh, you mean the thing – Yes, well, I –…
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W.S. Gilbert vs. Shakespeare’s Hamlet
“If you promise me faithfully not to mention this to a single person, not even to your dearest friend,” W.S. Gilbert confessed to his actor friend George Grossmith, “I don’t think Shakespeare rollicking.” Wait, what? Shakespeare, not a laugh-a-minute dramatist? What about all those zany jesters like Touchstone and Feste? Dogsberry, not funny? Just because Victorians, who were centuries away from to the Tudors, found some of Shakespeare’s in-jokes incomprehensible doesn’t mean that audiences shouldn’t laugh at the right places, if they pretend to be cultured individuals. However, Gilbert being Gilbert, what do you think he did? He wrote a parody of Hamlet, of course! Gilbert’s play was called Rosencrantz and…
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W.S. Gilbert’s Political Snarkiness
W.S. Gilbert lampooned Victorian politics in Iolanthe, a topsy-turvy tale in which a troupe of fairies take over Parliament after their Fairy Queen is insulted by the Lord Chancellor. He mistook her for the Headmistress of a Ladies’ Seminary, and in revenge the fairies use their powers to pass all the laws the House of Peers can’t stand to see on the books. All the political “hot potato” issues of the day are blithely passed into law — from Marriage to Deceased Wife’s Sister to making a Dukedom attainable by Competitive Examination, the fairies ruthlessly suppress all objections from the peers. How can the legislators rescue themselves and the nation…
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Jilted Brides and “Trial By Jury”
During the Victorian era, only a woman could break off an engagement without suffering any consequences. A romantic relationship wasn’t over until the woman said it was over. This was mostly the result of Victorian views about the proper roles of men and women: Men were supposed to be strong and protective, while women were weak and emotional. (See more on Gender Roles here) Because Victorian women required protection, when a man offered or promised such protection, he had to honor that promise. The breach of promise suit – a legal claim that allowed a jilted person to obtain financial damages from their intended – grew into the standard remedy for…
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Young Arthur Sullivan, the Choirboy
Arthur Sullivan’s parents were poor but loving – his Irish father Thomas Sullivan was a music teacher and bandmaster at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and his mother, Maria Clementina Coghlan, was the granddaughter of Joseph Righi, an Italian from what was then the Kingdom of Sardinia. Having experienced financial difficulties, Thomas and Clementina hoped that both their sons would enter into stable and respectable professions that would allow them to live comfortably. Their hopes never exactly turned out the way they planned! The older son, Frederick, started out as an architect but switched to acting and eventually made a name for himself as an actor and singer. In fact,…
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W. S. Gilbert and the Secret Admirer
William S. Gilbert was known for being a strict and demanding director—a martinet, in fact. But he was respected by the actors who worked for him. One awed member of his chorus noted, “He’s the only man I ever met who could swear straight on for five minutes without stopping to think or repeating himself.” Also, many of the women he worked with really liked him. He defended the ladies of his chorus against “stage-door johnnies” and “mashers” who thought actresses were loose women. He hated the Victorian double-standard of behavior that punished women for the same actions that men were praised for, and wrote a couple of plays to point…
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Arthur Sullivan’s Best and Worst Day
The worst of days and the best of days – that’s probably how Arthur Sullivan would describe the premiere of Iolanthe on November 25, 1882. The weeks leading up to the premiere were fraught with tension. To avoid American theatrical companies from pirating their work, Gilbert and Sullivan had arranged for two sets of casts—one in New York and one in London, so the premieres could be held at the same time and thus establish copyright in both places. Letters and transatlantic messages flew back and forth. The music was locked up every night to keep it safe from prying eyes, and during the rehearsals the main character was called…
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W.S. Gilbert – The Dragon at the Stage Door
Many Victorians assumed that actresses were “no better than they should be” (i.e. very bad indeed). According to Hesketh Pearson, in Gilbert and Sullivan, “In those days actresses were considered to be saleable property. Their social status was extremely low, and the average middle-class Englishman scarcely differentiated the back of a stage from a brothel.” However, that certainly wasn’t the case for the actresses in the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. William S. Gilbert insisted on all his players behaving with utmost propriety. Jessie Bond, the long-time Savoyard actress who created many of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most delightful contralto roles, from Hebe in HMS Pinafore to Pitti-Sing in The Mikado to…
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A Composer in the Wild, Wild West
When I think about the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, I see the courtier who entertained the crowned heads of Europe, playing the piano as an accompanist to Prince Albert’s violin, joking with the future Kaiser Wilhelm, or rubbing elbows with Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie in France. But Sir Arthur Sullivan also traveled across the American continent in 1885, heading for California to visit his brother’s children. This was during the wild, wild days of the Old West, and as he told his biographer Arthur Lawrence, along the way he had a little adventure at one particular stagecoach stop: Well, … some of my experiences have been very curious. Amongst…
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W.S. Gilbert — a Stage-struck Kid
W.S. Gilbert was a stage-struck kid. As a youngster, he used to write plays that the family performed at home, and his mother and his two younger sisters were interested in amateur dramatics. (Gilbert and Sullivan: A Dual Biography, by Michael Ainger) When he attended the well-regarded public school, the Great Ealing School in London, he would write plays, direct them, and even paint the scenery. One of the plays he produced was called Guy Fawkes, in which he also played the principal role. In February 1852, the 15-year-old Gilbert went to see The Corsican Brothers by Dion Boucicault, at the Princess’ Theater in Oxford Street. He was so impressed…
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Gilbert & Sullivan & Pirates, Oh, My!
Arrgh, matey! Since the International Talk Like a Pirate Day was celebrated just a couple of days ago on Monday, September 19, I think that the time is ripe to consider these swashbuckling fellows. So, let us consider why we like pirates. It’s their devil-may-care attitude Along with highwaymen, spies and other rule-breaking rogues, pirates seem to hold a special place in our popular mythology. We know what they do is wrong, and yet … there’s just something about them. I believe that pirates appeal to regular people because: They defy conventions. When society is particularly rigid, or when ordinary folk are systematically denied justice, then the rule-breakers who impose…
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W.S. Gilbert – Tilting at Social Windmills
Nothing succeeds like success! Although W. S. Gilbert is known mainly for his brilliant comic operas with Arthur Sullivan, he wrote many other plays, some of which addressed serious social issues and which turned out to be the inspiration for later works by other playwrights. Here are a few examples: Charity (1874) is a play about Mrs. Van Brugh, a good woman who, in her youth, lived with a man without benefit of marriage, and they had an illegitimate child. Now a widow of 35 years’ standing, she has dedicated her life to helping those in need. She has almshouses, and scandalizes the village by letting in not only good Anglicans,…
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Sir Arthur Sullivan and the Lady
Arthur Sullivan’s early love affair with Rachel Scott Russell was doomed by “[her] vain mother who thought the young composer not good enough for her daughter to take in marriage.” (B.W. Findon, Sir Arthur Sullivan, p. 170) He never married. But he did have a life-long friend and lover—the American socialite and accomplished amateur contralto, Mary Frances “Fanny” Ronalds. She was considered a great beauty, with small and exquisitely regular features, abundant dark hair of a shade called châtain foncé (deep chestnut), a generous smile and beautiful teeth. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1839, by age 20 the beautiful Mary Frances Carter was already known for her singing ability when…
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W.S. Gilbert – Kidnapped!
Sometimes real life imitates art. Or it inspires art. William S. Gilbert’s plots involving stolen babies were inspired by his own life: As a baby, he was kidnapped by bandits. When Gilbert was not yet 2 years old (as the story goes), and a few months before his sister Jane was born in October 1838, his parents were traveling around the Continent and they stopped in Naples, Italy. In Naples, his parents had hired a maid to look after their young son. As the maid and baby were out on a walk, a couple of men approached her and said that the “English gentleman” wanted his child returned to him right…
