Westport Public Library MOVIE & MUSIC Blog

One of the most enduring partnerships of the English theater was the pairing of Gilbert & Sullivan, the masters of mayhem, mistaken identity, and marvelous musical tunes. What is it about their music that keeps us listening and enjoying their boisterous satire and hummable melodies? Why do their words and music still resonant in our sophisticated 21st century lives and situations?

William Schwenck Gilbert was a comic journalist, drama critic, and playwright whose works included burlesques that were parodies of popular operas or plays. His Dulcamara or The Little Duck and The Great Quack of 1866 was a successful spoof of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. His emergence as a lyricist was evident in the six miniature operettas that he wrote for Thomas German Reed's Royal Gallery of Illustration in the 1870's. His mastery of drama was seen in his plays The Palace of Truth, Pygmalion and Galatea, The Wicked World, and Sweethearts, all written in the early 1870's.

Arthur Seymour Sullivan was a pianist, composer, and professor at the Royal Academy of Music. While a twenty-year-old student at the Leipzig Conservatory, his incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest was successfully performed at London's Crystal Place. During the 1860's he composed concerti, piano music, a Symphony in E, overtures, an oratorio, and two comic operas, Cox and Box and The Contrabandista.

Although they had a perfunctory meeting in 1869, it was not until 1871 that impresario John Hollingshead sent Gilbert's libretto of Thespis to Sullivan for musical accompaniment. Unfortunately, this collaboration proved to be a huge flop. However, four years later, they made theatrical history at the suggestion of Richard D'Oyly Carte with the operas Trial By Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. Carte later built the Savoy Theater for their work; eventually, the Savoy Theater represented the culmination of their creative endeavors.

During the month of January, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players will be performing The Rose of Persia, The Yeoman of the Guard, and The Mikado. Before attending these operas, come to the library to familiarize yourself with the plots and lyrics of these works in Frank Ledlie Moore's Crowell's Handbook of Gilbert and Sullivan or W. S. Gilbert's The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan. Feel free to borrow the compact discs of The Yeoman of the Guard or The Mikado before the performance. For those unable to attend a live production, the Library has a DVD of The Pirates of Penzance, a video of The Gondoliers, H.M.S. Pinafore, or Ruddigore. Additionally, the 1999 movie Topsy Turvy does a superb job of portraying the music and the teamwork of Gilbert & Sullivan.

One of the most timely lines from H.M.S. Pinafore is sung by Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He sings about his job qualifications for serving in such an important position and ends the song with this astute advice:
"Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee."
The Chorus then repeats these closing lines.

Once you explore the world of Gilbert & Sullivan, you may become an aficionado of their delightful, satirical melodramas and parodies of human nature.