Gilbert & Sullivan and Their Victorian World

Front Cover
American Heritage Publishing Company : book trade distribution by Putnam, 1976 - Biography & Autobiography - 279 pages
Not one of some seventy plays written by the most popular playwright of the English stage in Victoria's time is known to anyone but archivists today. That same fate befell the works of England's most honored composer of the period. His oratorios, odes, symphonic music, an opera--are all but silent now, save two incidental pieces (you have heard of them: "The Lost Chord" and "Onward Christian Soldiers"). But rarely have the serious works of contemporary geniuses more roundly flunked the test of time. Fame is fleeting. Yet join these two forgotten names with an ampersand, and you get Gilbert & Sullivan. Now fame is forever - or for a century and more, at least, and surely that's forever on a comic-opera stage. Gilbert & Sullivan revolutionized the theatre world, and to this day that world is a happier place because of their innovations. It was 1875 when Trial by Jury first dazzled London and (in a pirated version) New York audiences with the color and with and bounce of a Gilbert & Sullivan show. So the start of Gilbert & Sullivan's second century provides a fine occasion to look again at the story behind these amazing comic operas. The lives of William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) were as dramatic, amusing, far-fetched, throat-catching--and scenic--as their stagecraft. Beneath the two men's enormously popular collaborations were two hearts that beat as two. They simply did not get along. The trigger-tempered Gilbert, with his razor tongue and steady work habits, couldn't understand Sullivan's amiable procrastinations and easy social successes. Sullivan was convinced that his real genius was expressed by his prestigious music. Yet success after success forced the team to stay together for fifteen glorious years under the aegis of the polished Richard D'Oyly Carte. Then the whole thing blew up in a tragicomic quarrel about a carpet. If that plot resembles a Victorian romana a clef, so be it. Fictional romances exhibit no more posh settings, beautiful women, and crackling argument. There's even a touch of royalty, and a few absurdities, as well as a tragic climax. --from dust jacket.

From inside the book

Contents

Table of Contents W S Gilbert Arthur Sullivan Introduction
6
Gaslight and Greasepaint
8
A Dealer in Magic and Spells
24
Copyright

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