Gilbert and Sullivan

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190877958.003.0002 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 14-27

Author(s):

Ethan Mordden

Keyword(s):

Family Business ◽

Spoken Dialogue ◽

Comic Opera ◽

Fresh Material ◽

Arthur Sullivan ◽

One Act

This chapter discusses Richard D'Oyly Carte's “Gilbert and Sullivan” (G & S) program, which was named after W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Carte's G & S program combined the appeal of superb craftsmanship with that of fresh material, replacing the previous derivative nature of extravaganza and burlesque. First of all, Carte commissioned Trial By Jury, G & S's only one-act production. It was a miniature comic opera. This led to the famous series of shows, now all with spoken dialogue, that changed the course of the Anglophone musical. However, by his involvement with Gilbert and Sullivan Carte had tasked himself weightily, as he now faced years of delicate diplomacy, keeping the act together when Gilbert got too prickly or Sullivan felt unappreciated. Next, Carte recruited G & S performers into the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. The aim was to tour internationally in the G & S canon and this tradition lasted for over one hundred years. The business became a family business. After Carte retired the business was managed by his son Rupert, and then by Rupert's daughter Bridget, before disbanding in 1982, albeit with sporadic initiatives thereafter. The chapter finally looks into more detail at the G & S canon, including titles such as The Pirates Of Penzance (1879) and Patience (1881).

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Comic Opera

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199988747.013.3 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Carolyn Williams

Keyword(s):

Social Class ◽

Everyday Life ◽

Gender Relations ◽

Musical Theatre ◽

Comic Opera ◽

Exhibition Culture ◽

English Society ◽

The Law ◽

Gender And Nationalism ◽

Arthur Sullivan

W. S. Gilbert (librettist) and Arthur Sullivan (composer) wrote fourteen works of musical theatre from 1871 to 1896, often called the ‘Savoy operas’ after 1881, when producer Richard D’Oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre to house them. They crafted a distinctive genre of English comic opera through parodies of previous genres both high and low, both English and Continental. The operas are absurdist, parodic, and satirical, but are played in a deadpan style and are punctuated with resonantly affecting numbers. The comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan are an essential precursor of the modern musical, and their depiction of English society is humorous yet critical, replete with satire of English institutions, the law, the professions, gender relations, and empire. They examine the theatricality of everyday life, the dynamics of socialization, accidents of birth and circumstance, the effects of tutelage and authority, Victorian exhibition culture, social class, gender, and nationalism.

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Arthur Sullivan

10.1093/oso/9780198863267.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ian Bradley

Keyword(s):

Church Music ◽

Sacred Music ◽

Christian Faith ◽

Anglican Church ◽

Comic Opera ◽

Hymn Tunes ◽

Arthur Sullivan ◽

And Training ◽

Unique Ability

Arthur Sullivan is almost certainly the best loved and most widely performed British composer in history. Although best known for his comic opera collaborations with W.S. Gilbert, it was his substantial corpus of sacred music which meant most to him and for which he wanted to be remembered. Both his upbringing and training in church music and his own religious beliefs substantially affected both his compositions for the theatre and his more serious work, which included oratorios, cantatas, sacred ballads, liturgical pieces, and hymn tunes. Focusing on the spiritual aspects of Sullivan’s life, which included several years as a church organist, involvement in Freemasonry, and an undying attachment to Anglican church music, Ian Bradley uses hitherto undiscovered or un-noticed letters, diary entries, and other sources to reveal the important influences on his faith and his work. No saint and certainly no ascetic, Sullivan was a lover of life and enjoyed its pleasures to the full. At the same time he had a rare spiritual sensitivity, a simple and sincere Christian faith, an unusually generous disposition, and a unique ability to uplift, soften, and assure through both his character and his music that can best be described as a quality of divine emollient.

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