Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert's 1871 play Pygmalion and Galatea . The libretto was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz.
The work was premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, London on 26 December 1883. It starred Nellie Farren and Edward Terry.
This type of work, Victorian burlesque, was popular in Britain in the late 19th century. Other examples include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Little Jack Sheppard (1885), Monte Cristo Jr. (1886), Miss Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim (1887), Faust up to Date (1888), Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué (1888), Carmen up to Data (1890), and Cinder Ellen up too Late (1891). [1] Gilbert himself had written a series of burlesques of opera early in his career, including Robert the Devil (1868), which was the Gaiety's first burlesque. [2]
John Hollingshead had managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental operetta, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses." [3] In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Nellie Farren, as the theatre's "principal boy", and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. [4] In the early 1890s, as burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy. [5]
Galatea or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a parody of W.S. Gilbert's blank verse romantic play Pygmalion and Galatea . The Morning Post described the piece as "A short burlesque of Mr. Gilbert's classic drama in which Miss Mary Anderson is now delighting the public at the Lyceum." [6] It was the second item in a double bill with the three-act comedy The Rocket by Arthur Wing Pinero. [6] Songs arranged or composed for the piece by Meyer Lutz included "The Masher King" (Pygmalion), "The Bashful Maiden" (Myrine) and "The Modern Swell" (Galatea). [7]
The plot turns on its head the plot of Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea, which involves a married sculptor who falls in love with his statue, Galatea. When the statue comes to life, her very innocence leads to complications. The following synopsis of Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed was printed in The Era :
The title will perhaps suggest that in this instance Galatea is the sculptor and Pygmalion the statue – the ideal man endowed with life and able to toddle, though a very earnest appeal to the "gods" perched up aloft in the gallery. The living statue is very angular in movement, and its face is not exactly handsome; but Pygmalion with his first breath becomes filled up with vanity. He exclaims with rapture, "How beautiful I am!" and given a hand-mirror he seems never tired of gazing upon his own loveliness, and of breaking forth into ecstatic song with, "Just look at that and look at this." Pygmalion is a classical masher. He "mashes" not only Galatea who made him, but Myrine and Daphne, who, bewitched by his manly beauty, give the "cold shoulder" to their respective and respectable husbands, Cyniscos, Leucippe and Chrysos, who, being thereby enraged, resolve not to mash, but to smash Pygmalion and to begin by chipping him. This treatment of course soon inclines Pygmalion to return to his old position, and then peace and happiness are restored.
The Era was not impressed, calling the piece, "A very tame affair. Mr Stephens seems to have had a funny idea, but has not funnily put it into shape." [7] Other papers took a more favourable view. The Morning Post called it "this amusing burlesque". The Standard thought that although the plot "lacks both interest and variety", Edward Terry was "convulsively funny" as Pygmalion. [8] Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper wrote, "The burlesque is not remarkable for its jokes, though they are plentiful. It affords opportunity for a good laugh and is a capital skit on the original." [9]
Frederick George Hobson, known as Fred Leslie, was an English actor, singer, comedian and dramatist.
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager and producer of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond.
The Gaiety Theatre was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was first established as the Strand Musick Hall in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. In 1868, it became known as the Gaiety Theatre and was, at first, known for music hall and then for musical burlesque, pantomime and operetta performances. From 1868 to the 1890s, it had a major influence on the development of modern musical comedy.
Henry Pottinger Stephens, was an English dramatist and journalist.
Pygmalion and Galatea, an Original Mythological Comedy is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts based on the Pygmalion story. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 9 December 1871 and ran for a very successful 184 performances. It was revived many times, including an 1883 production in New York starring Mary Anderson as Galatea.
Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian England and in the New York theatre of the mid-19th century. It is a form of parody in which a well-known opera or piece of classical theatre or ballet is adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, usually risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and often quoting or pastiching text or music from the original work. Victorian burlesque is one of several forms of burlesque.
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun.
Cinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were written by Basil Hood. The show was a burlesque of the well-known pantomime and fairy tale, Cinderella.
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born British composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works.
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque in three acts written by Richard Henry. The music was composed by Meyer Lutz. The piece is a burlesque loosely based on the 1818 Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and the Adelphi Theatre drama based on the novel.
Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt, and a score written by Meyer Lutz. Set in Nuremberg, it is a spoof of Gounod's opera, Faust, which had first been performed in London in 1864. The burlesque followed on from an earlier Lutz musical, Mephistopheles, or Faust and Marguerite.
Ellen "Nellie" Farren was an English actress and singer best known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre in London.
John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. After a journalism career, Hollingshead managed the Alhambra Theatre and was later the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London. Hollingshead also wrote several books during his life.
Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke. The comedy lampooned the serious plays based on the life of Jack Sheppard, especially the popular 1839 play by John Buckstone, which was in turn based on the novel of that year by William Harrison Ainsworth.
Robert the Devil, or The Nun, the Dun, and the Son of a Gun is an operatic parody by W. S. Gilbert of Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand opera Robert le diable, which was named after, but bears little resemblance to, the medieval French legend of the same name. Gilbert set new lyrics to tunes by Meyerbeer, Bellini, Offenbach and others.
The Forty Thieves is a "Pantomime Burlesque" written by Robert Reece, W. S. Gilbert, F. C. Burnand and Henry J. Byron, created in 1878 as a charity benefit, produced by the Beefsteak Club of London. The Beefsteak Club still meets in Irving Street, London. It was founded by actor John Lawrence Toole and others in 1876, in rooms above the Folly Theatre, King William IV Street. It became an essential after theatre club for the bohemian theatre set, such as Henry Irving, Toole, John Hare, W. H. Kendal, F. C. Burnand, Henry Labouchère, W. S. Gilbert and two hundred of their peers. It soon moved to Green Street. The Club occasionally performed amateur plays for their own amusement and to raise funds for charities.
Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. Set in Seville, the piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt.
Miss Esmeralda is a Victorian burlesque, in two acts, with music by Meyer Lutz and Robert Martin and a libretto by Fred Leslie, under his pseudonym "A. C. Torr", and Horace Mills. It is based on Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris.
Monte Cristo Jr. was a Victorian burlesque with a libretto written by Richard Henry, a pseudonym for the writers Richard Butler and Henry Chance Newton. The score was composed by Meyer Lutz, Ivan Caryll, Hamilton Clarke, Tito Mattei, G. W. Hunt and Henry J. Leslie. The ballet and incidental dances were arranged by John D'Auban, and the theatre's musical director, Meyer Lutz, conducted. The play's doggerel verse was loosely based on The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole is a musical burlesque in two acts, with a score by Meyer Lutz to a libretto by Henry James Byron, which played under the management of John Hollingshead at the Gaiety Theatre in London in 1877. It was a parody of the popular opera The Bohemian Girl composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn.