Ages Ago, sometimes stylised as Ages Ago! or Ages Ago!!, is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven-year collaboration between Gilbert and Clay. The piece was a critical and popular success and was revived many times, including at St. George's Hall, London in 1870 and 1874, and in New York in 1880.
By the 1850s, the London stage had fallen into disrepute. Shakespeare's plays were staged, but most of the entertainments consisted of poorly translated French operettas, risque Victorian burlesques and vulgar broad farces. [1] To bring family-friendly entertainment back to the theatre, Thomas German Reed and his wife Priscilla opened their Gallery of Illustration in 1855 and brought in Gilbert in 1869 as one of their many playwrights. The Gallery of Illustration was a 500-seat theatre with a small stage that only allowed for four or five characters with accompaniment by a piano, harmonium and sometimes a harp.
After Gilbert's first offering for the Gallery of Illustration – No Cards , with music by Reed, Gilbert paired with Clay on Ages Ago, the first of a successful series of collaborations between the author and composer that would continue for the next seven years. In the eight months between the productions of No Cards, and Ages Ago, Gilbert's dramatic style had developed. Ages Ago, with its double-layered plot and its complex relationships among the characters, is more sophisticated than No Cards, which was a simple farce. In addition, the lyrics move the plot forward more than in the earlier work. [2]
Ages Ago earned praise from the critics, outran its companion piece, the popular Cox and Box , and was frequently revived over the next decade. It was Gilbert's and the Gallery's greatest success to that date, running for 350 performances from November 1869 to June 1870. [3] [4] A review in the Penny Illustrated Paper described the piece as "a very brilliant, sparkling operetta, full of ingenious fun in the plot and dialogue, and exhibiting a good deal of grace and freshness in the music. ... The piece went off most successfully, a satisfactory proof that extravaganzas written without vulgarity can be relished by the public. The dialogue is smart as well as polished, and contains several hits on current town topics, not one of which misses fire." [5]
The work was revived at St. George's Hall in 1870 and again in 1874, among others. [4] At the 1874 revival, Mrs. German Reed, Leonora Braham, Alfred Reed, Stanley Betjeman, Corney Grain, and the piece itself all received warm praise from the Era's critic. [6] New York's reopened Broadway Opera House was inaugurated in 1880 with a double bill of Ages Ago and Charity Begins at Home. [7] Ages Ago has been revived from time to time by amateur companies. In 2014, a production at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, in the Harrogate Theatre, was billed as the first professional production in 130 years. [8]
Gilbert produced four more pieces for Reed, including A Sensation Novel in 1871 and Eyes and No Eyes in 1875. He also wrote several comic operas with Clay, the last of which was Princess Toto in 1876. Thomas German Reed played Ebenezer Tare, while his wife played Mrs. MacMotherly. The piece also introduced Fanny Holland, who would play in many pieces for the German Reeds for years to come.
At a rehearsal for Ages Ago, Clay formally introduced the composer Arthur Sullivan to Gilbert. [9] [10] The two later collaborated on fourteen comic operas that became the most enduring pieces of musical theatre from the Victorian era. Gilbert would later reuse many ideas and plot elements from these earlier works in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
In the haunted Scottish Castle of Glen Cockaleekie, where the title deed to the castle, much like Brigadoon , is only found once every hundred years, Sir Ebenezer Tare has decided that, as "possession is nine-tenths of the law," he might as well be in possession of the castle until such time as the deed shows up again. Being the type of a Victorian money-grubbing elderly relative, he refuses to let his niece Rosa marry her poor suitor, Columbus Hebblethwaite, who is staying for the night. The Scottish housekeeper, Mrs. MacMotherly, has second sight. She tells a tale of the original wicked Sir Roger Bohun (similarly to Dame Hannah's tale in Gilbert and Sullivan's later Ruddigore ).
That night, the paintings of the castle's former owners come to life and step out of their frames (as would happen again in Ruddigore). However, a problem ensues: They were all painted at different ages, so Lord Carnaby, painted in the 17th century at age 65, lusts after his grandmother (Lady Maud), painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century at age 17. Lady Maude finds more in common with Sir Cecil Blount, painted in the 16th century by Michelangelo at age 20. Eventually, though, and after some wrangling, Dame Cherry (painted by Joshua Reynolds in the 18th century at age 56 [11] and Lord Carnaby settle into middle-aged affection, while the "old" young people pair off romantically and get a painting of Brown, a solicitor, to marry them.
At daybreak, they return to their frames, leaving the deed behind, which gives the property to Hebblethwaite, the poor suitor. He strikes a deal whereby if uncle Tare he permits Rosa to marry him, then he will allow Tare to stay on at the castle, and all ends happily.
The numbering of the songs follows that of the vocal score. The printed libretto does not include the songs through number 4, and numbers the song labelled as song 5 below as song 1. Thus, to determine the number given to a song in the printed libretto, subtract 4 from the number assigned to that song below.
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan. It was first performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre in London on 22 January 1887.
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero was an English playwright and, early in his career, actor.
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades. As a writer and composer, he created 18 comic operas, nearly 100 musical sketches, some 600 songs and piano pieces, three books and both serious and comic pieces for newspapers and magazines.
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876. A young man, Alexis, is obsessed with the idea of love levelling all ranks and social distinctions. To promote his beliefs, he invites the proprietor of J. W. Wells & Co., Family Sorcerers, to brew a love potion. This causes everyone in the village to fall in love with the first person they see and results in the pairing of comically mismatched couples. In the end, Wells must sacrifice his life to break the spell.
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two lodgers, one who works at night and one who works during the day. When one of them has the day off, they meet each other in the room and tempers flare. Sullivan wrote this piece five years before his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis.
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.
The German Reed Entertainments were founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed (1817–1888) together with his wife, Priscilla German Reed (1818–1895). At a time when the theatre in London was seen as a disreputable place, the German Reed family provided family-friendly entertainments for forty years, showing that respectable theatre could be popular.
The Contrabandista, or The Law of the Ladrones, is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874 and America in 1880. In 1894, it was revised into a new opera, The Chieftain, with a completely different second act.
Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Rowe". He was author or co-author of several long-running shows of the Victorian theatre. His biggest hit was the comic opera Dorothy, which set records for the length of its original run.
A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts written by the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, with music composed by Thomas German Reed. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. Only four of German Reed's songs survive. Nearly 25 years later, the music was rewritten and published by Florian Pascal. The story concerns an author suffering from writer's block who finds that the characters in his novel are dissatisfied.
The Messenger Boy is a musical comedy in two acts by James T. Tanner and Alfred Murray, lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, with music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, with additional numbers by Paul Rubens. The story concerned a rascally financier who tries to discredit a rival in love. After a tryout in Plymouth, it opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London, managed by George Edwardes, on 3 February 1900 and ran for a very successful 429 performances. Harry Grattan and Edmund Payne starred. Marie Studholme later joined the cast. It had a Broadway run of 128 performances, at Daly's Theatre, from 16 September 1901 to 4 January 1902. The director was Herbert Gresham, and the musical director was Louis F. Gottschalk. The cast included Georgia Caine as Nora, Jobyna Howland as Lord Punchestown, May Robson as Mrs. Bang and Flora Zabelle as Isabel Blyth.
No Cards is a "musical piece in one act" for four characters, written by W. S. Gilbert, with music composed and arranged by German Reed. It was first produced at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, London, under the management of German Reed, opening on 29 March 1869 and closing on 21 November 1869. The work is a domestic farce of mistaken identities and inept disguises, as two men desperately compete to marry a wealthy young lady. One is young and poor, and the other is a rich miser. Each disguises himself as her guardian.
Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.
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.
Our Island Home is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Thomas German Reed that premiered on 20 June 1870 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. The piece has five characters and is "biographical", in that the characters in the original production played themselves, except that they were given personalities opposite to their actual personalities.
Happy Arcadia is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Frederic Clay that premiered on 28 October 1872 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It was one of four collaborations between Gilbert and Clay between 1869 and 1876. The music is lost. The piece is a satire on the genre of pastoral plays in which the characters, who each wish that they could be someone else, have their wish granted, with unhappy results.
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.
St. George's Hall was a theatre located in Langham Place, off Regent Street in the West End of London. It was built in 1867 and closed in 1966. The hall could accommodate between 800 and 900 persons, or up to 1,500 persons including the galleries. The architect was John Taylor of Whitehall.
The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a 19th-century performance venue located at 14 Regent Street in London. It was in use between 1850 and 1873.
Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil, was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand, at the Royal Gallery of Illustration.