Voices of 1888

[Mayerling]

If you go to YOU TUBE and look up Sir Arthur Sullivan, there is, in existence a recording of his voice dated from October 1888, and sent to Thomas Edison. Sullivan was at a friend's dinner party and the friend was a kind of agent for Edison in England - he had phonograph equipment available. He recorded Sullivan and several others that night. In the course of introducing Sullivan the host (a man named Gourand) mentioned that "The Yeoman of the Guard" had opened up to a successful house only a few days earlier (which is true).

It's worth listening to, even if the You Tube video was padded by old recordings of Walter Padmore singing "Jack Point's" role in "Yeoman" in an 1897 recording of "I Have a Song to Sing-O". There are also some early films of the period, including a brief one from 1888.

In any event it actually brings the listener to within aural call of the autumn of terror.

Jeff

[Graham]

Remarkable, Jeff! I performed (amateur) G&S for over 30 years. My favourite by a long chalk is "Yeomen", and it was Sullivan's favourite, being the nearest he got to successfully producing grand opera. I played Wilfred Shadbolt three times - a great part. I also learned "The Lost Chord", as sugary a bit of Victorian sentimentality as was ever written.

"Yeomen" was the only G&S operetta to curtain-up with just one player on stage, rather than a chorus number. At the time, this was considered almost revolutionary. Jessie Bond, who as Phoebe Merryll opened the show with "When Maiden Loves", said she was driven almost crazy prior to curtain-up on first night by Gilbert, who was a bag of nerves. He was also a very different character to Sullivan, and probably would have declined an invitation to such an evening as recorded.

Great find, Jeff.

Graham

[GUT]

Thanks Jeff great one.

[Mayerling]

Remarkable, Jeff! I performed (amateur) G&S for over 30 years. My favourite by a long chalk is "Yeomen", and it was Sullivan's favourite, being the nearest he got to successfully producing grand opera. I played Wilfred Shadbolt three times - a great part. I also learned "The Lost Chord", as sugary a bit of Victorian sentimentality as was ever written.

"Yeomen" was the only G&S operetta to curtain-up with just one player on stage, rather than a chorus number. At the time, this was considered almost revolutionary. Jessie Bond, who as Phoebe Merryll opened the show with "When Maiden Loves", said she was driven almost crazy prior to curtain-up on first night by Gilbert, who was a bag of nerves. He was also a very different character to Sullivan, and probably would have declined an invitation to such an evening as recorded.

Great find, Jeff.

Graham

Hi Graham and GUT,

The first time I had a lead role in any school productions was in the sixth grade, when I played "Sir Joseph Porter" in "H.M.S. Pinafore". Ever since I have had an interest in G & S.

The interesting thing to me is that "Yeoman" was the closest thing to a tragic piece that Gilbert did for the Savoy, although there is some question as to whether Jack Point dies or not in the end (most productions today assume he does). Gilbert was a stern director and producer of the operas, and he did have a bad effect on the nerves of his players. Grossmith (who played Point) developed a morphine habit to calm his nerves (it is shown in the film "Topsy Turvey").

Given the possibly tragic conclusion of "Yeoman", it's production in the fall of 1888, and Gilbert's habit on opening nights of taking two hour walks to work off his tensions, I once wondered if our "Jack" could have been our "William". But the opening night of "Yeoman" was not the night of the double homicide - the closest Ripper event to the opening. Since "Yeoman" was a success Gilbert would have been relaxed after it's opening night. He still had "The Gondoliers' ahead of him and Sullivan in 1889 before the tempest over the carpet. After that "Utopia" and finally "The Grand Duke".

Interesting final point to mull over regarding Sullivan. Alfred Cellier was the collaborator (I believe) on the ill-fated "Ivanhoe" in 1891. Although he was still productive into the last of the 1890s, Sullivan's health was worsening due to his kidney stones. But I noted that one of his last triumphs was his work with Rudyard Kipling, setting to music "The Absent-Minded Beggar" which became very popular with the public (and it is a lively piece - if dated by the references to the Second Boer War). If Sullivan had been smarter, I feel, and switched his balladeer from Bab to the Barrack Room poet, he might have had a successful second opera - imagine an opera based on "The Light that Failed" or "Kim".

Jeff

[Graham]

Hi Jeff,

the producer of the G&S society I was in always cast himself as Jack Point, and played it like he died at the end. Very moving and poignant, actually - usually some snivelling amongst the members of the chorus, both ladies and gents!

Gilbert could be a total tyrant during rehearsals, hurling insults left, right and centre. However, he was also a perfectionist, as in:

Principal Player to Gilbert: "Look here, sir, I will not be bullied - I know my lines".

Gilbert: "Maybe, but you don't know mine".

I don't think Gilbert was particularly proud of any of the Savoy operettas he wrote; rather, he thought much more of his 'serious' literary stuff, now all but forgotten. I've got an old book of plays by Gilbert, and believe me most of them are unreadable.

Sullivan was the same. He was always highly proud of "Ivanhoe", his only grand opera with libretto by Julian Sturgis. I borrowed a recording of it some time back, but couldn't get into it. "Haddon Hall" was more in the style of a G&S Savoy light opera, but I don't think it's been staged (in the UK) for years and years, either professional or amateur. In fact, as I well know, trying to sell tickets these days for a production of any G&S piece is a thankless task.

Graham

[Mayerling]

Hi Jeff,

the producer of the G&S society I was in always cast himself as Jack Point, and played it like he died at the end. Very moving and poignant, actually - usually some snivelling amongst the members of the chorus, both ladies and gents!

Gilbert could be a total tyrant during rehearsals, hurling insults left, right and centre. However, he was also a perfectionist, as in:

Principal Player to Gilbert: "Look here, sir, I will not be bullied - I know my lines".

Gilbert: "Maybe, but you don't know mine".

I don't think Gilbert was particularly proud of any of the Savoy operettas he wrote; rather, he thought much more of his 'serious' literary stuff, now all but forgotten. I've got an old book of plays by Gilbert, and believe me most of them are unreadable.

Sullivan was the same. He was always highly proud of "Ivanhoe", his only grand opera with libretto by Julian Sturgis. I borrowed a recording of it some time back, but couldn't get into it. "Haddon Hall" was more in the style of a G&S Savoy light opera, but I don't think it's been staged (in the UK) for years and years, either professional or amateur. In fact, as I well know, trying to sell tickets these days for a production of any G&S piece is a thankless task.

Graham

Hi Graham,

Thanks for correcting me about Sturgis and the libretto for "Ivanhoe".

I recall that the record label company "Pearl" did put out "Haddon Hall" back in the 1980s (when records were still sold). But I don't know if they put it on any CD set.

The only Gilbert play that they try to put on stage today is "Engaged", which (on paper) seems to be promising, but it is frequently the cause of moaning by critics. Gilbert always felt his best play was a piece called "Broken Hearts" which has a set of young women in the care of an elderly dwarf as the situation at the beginning of it's first act. Gilbert said more of himself was in that play than in any other - which given critical response since the 1870s makes me wonder: one critic called it "Broken Parts".

There is a loyal cadre of G & S people still around but it's a thin one. Still, Gilbert with Sullivan remains the only English speaking dramatist of the 19th Century (prior to Shaw, Wilde, Pinero, and Jones at the tail end) who still are revived. When did they put on Tom Robertson's "Caste" last? Or Boucicault's "The Colleen Bawn"? It was truly a dismal period for English drama, although several poets (Tennyson, Browning, Shelley) tried to write for the stage. So did Poe in the U.S. (there are fragments of a work called "Politian" that he wrote in the 1830s that are in his collected poems). To be fair, the continental dramatists did little better. Some of the plays of Hugo, Dumas (father and son), and Sardou get revived, but the French don't get living plays again until the end of the century, when Rostand and Feydeau show up. As for Russia - just "The Inspector General" by Gogol.
It was a dismal century for theater. Opera just about saved it.

Jeff