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Gilbert and Sullivan were a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created 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.
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan was an English composer. He is best known for 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".
Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house the Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of the non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas were seminal influences on the creation of the modern musical.
Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.
Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for songs and his music written for the stage. Although from a musical family, for 16 years Clay made his living as a civil servant in HM Treasury, composing in his spare time, until a legacy in 1873 enabled him to become a full-time composer. He had his first big stage success with Ages Ago (1869), a short comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert, for the small Gallery of Illustration; it ran well and was repeatedly revived. Clay, a great friend of his fellow composer Arthur Sullivan, introduced the latter to Gilbert, leading to the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership.
Richard Barker Cobb Temple was an English opera singer, actor and stage director, best known for his performances in the bass-baritone roles in the famous series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.
Rosina Brandram was an English opera singer and actress primarily known for creating many of the contralto roles in the Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Bertha Amy Lewis was an English opera singer and actress primarily known for her work as principal contralto in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Frederic Sullivan was an English actor and singer. He is best remembered as the creator of the role of the Learned Judge in Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, providing a model for the comic roles in the later Savoy Operas composed by his brother Arthur Sullivan.
Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.
Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales is an 1890 book by W. S. Gilbert, collecting several of the short stories and essays he wrote in his early career as a magazine writer. A number of them were later adapted as plays or opera librettos.
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas are still frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.
Creatures of Impulse is a stage play by the English dramatist W. S. Gilbert, with music by the composer-conductor Alberto Randegger, which Gilbert adapted from his own short story. Both the play and the short story concern an unwanted and ill-tempered old fairy who enchants people to behave in a manner opposite to their natures, with farcical results.
The Gentleman in Black is a two-act comic opera written in 1870 with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay. The "musical comedietta" opened at the Charing Cross Theatre on 26 May 1870. It played for 26 performances, until the theatre closed at the end of the season. The plot involves body-switching, facilitated by the magical title character. It also involves two devices that Gilbert would re-use: baby-switching and a calendar oddity.
David Henry Friston (1820–1906) was a British illustrator and figure painter in the Victorian Era. He is best remembered as the creator of the first illustrations of Sherlock Holmes in 1887, as well as his illustrations of the female vampire story Carmilla (1872). He is also remembered for his illustrations accompanying reviews of Gilbert and Sullivan operas and plays of W. S. Gilbert in The Illustrated London News and the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in the 1870s and 1880s.
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. The story concerns a "breach of promise of marriage" lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. Gilbert based the libretto of Trial by Jury on an operetta parody that he had written in 1868.
Frederick John D'Auban was an English dancer, choreographer and actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Famous during his lifetime as the ballet-master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he is best remembered as the choreographer of many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
Christene M. Palmer is a retired Australian singer and actress, known for her performances in the contralto roles of Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company during the 1960s. Her performance as Katisha in The Mikado is preserved in the D'Oyly Carte 1967 film version of that opera.
Jessie Kate Rose was an English opera singer and actress primarily known for her performances as principal mezzo-soprano in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. From 1896 to 1899 she originated several mostly smaller roles in Savoy operas and then continued to play a variety of smaller and larger roles in repertory with the company. She was its principal mezzo-soprano from 1904 to 1909.
References
- Allen, Reginald (1963), W. S. Gilbert: An Anniversary Survey and Exhibition Checklist with Thirty-five Illustrations, The Biographical Society of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
- Bradley, Ian (1996). The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan . Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816503-3.
- Crowther, Andrew (2000). Contradiction Contradicted – The Plays of W. S. Gilbert. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8386-3839-2.
- Gilbert, W. S. (1890). Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales . London: George Routledge and Sons.
- Gilbert, W. S. (1875). Original Plays: First Series. London: Chatto and Windus.
- Stedman, Jane W. (1996). W. S. Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theatre. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816174-3.
- Wolfson, John (c. 1976). Final Curtain: The Last Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. London: Chappell & Company Ltd. ISBN 0-903443-12-0.
