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Social Discourse in the Savoy Theatre's SOCIAL DISCOURSE IN THE SAVOY THEATRE’S PRODUCTIONS OF THE NAUTCH GIRL (1891) AND UTOPIA LIMITED (1893): EXOTICISM AND VICTORIAN SELF-REFLECTION William L. Hicks, B.M. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF MUSIC UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2003 APPROVED: John Michael Cooper, Major Professor Margaret Notley, Committee Member Mark McKnight, Committee Member James C. Scott, Dean of the College of Music C. Neal Tate, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Hicks, William L, Social Discourse in the Savoy Theatre’s Productions of The Nautch Girl (1891) and Utopia Limited (1893): Exoticism and Victorian Self-Reflection. Master of Music (Musicology), August 2003, 107 pp., 4 illustrations, 12 musical examples, references, 91 titles. As a consequence to Gilbert and Sullivan’s famed Carpet Quarrel, two operettas with decidedly “exotic” themes, The Nautch Girl; or, The Rajah of Chutneypore, and Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress were presented to London audiences. Neither has been accepted as part of the larger Savoy canon. This thesis considers the conspicuous business atmosphere of their originally performed contexts to understand why this situation arose. Critical social theory makes it possible to read the two documents as overt reflections on British imperialism. Examined more closely, however, the operettas reveal a great deal more about the highly introverted nature of exotic representation and the ambiguous dialogue between race and class hierarchies in late nineteenth-century British society. Copyright, 2003 by William L. Hicks ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Because of the obscurity of The Nautch Girl and Utopia Limited, I am greatly indebted to the booksellers Christopher Browne and Wilfred M. de Freitas for facilitating access to primary documents. Gilbert, ever the wise businessman, would be proud. Similarly, I would like to thank Clifton Coles for providing me with a set of midi files that he created from The Nautch Girl's vocal score. The effort he invested in their creation is apparent and I believe Edward Solomon too, would be impressed. I am very appreciative of Mary Gilhooly from the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company as well as Ray Steinnerd and Jason D Stratman of the Missouri Historical Society for the efforts they undertook in attempts to locate information in their respective archives. I would also like to thank Robin Gordon-Powell for insight into the Chappell fire of 1965, a topic of considerable importance that has received little notice thus far. Many thanks are also given to Denis Paz for introducing me to the Victorians, and my friends and colleagues at the University of North Texas Libraries. Most importantly, I would like to thank Drs. John Michael Cooper, Margaret Notley, and Mark McKnight, as well as my wife Jennifer and my parents for both the wisdom they have offered and for the generous editorial assistance they have provided in the writing of this thesis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES . vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION: “UNMUSICAL ENGLAND” . 1 2. A WHORE BY ANY OTHER NAME: DANCE, DESPREZ, AND SOLOMON’S THE NAUTCH GIRL . 11 Production and People Under the Carpet . 15 Exotica Within the Score . 20 Social Discourse Within the Libretto . 28 Misreading India . 36 3. “TO WHICH SOME ADD (BUT OTHERS DO NOT)”: GILBERT AND SULLIVAN’S UTOPIA LIMITED . 45 Basic Premises, Reception, Grounding . 48 Isle of the Tropics? . 52 Subtlety of Names . 56 Act I and Imagined Social Structures . 61 Act II and Benign Minstrelsy? . 63 Isles at Home? . 71 iv Chapter 4. CONCLUSION: RACE, CLASS, AND CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION OF MUSICAL TEXTS . 80 Appendix 1. SYNOPSIS OF THE NAUTCH GIRL . 87 2. SYNOPSIS OF UTOPIA LIMITED . 93 3. PROGRAM FROM UTOPIA LIMITED . 98 REFERENCES . 102 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE PAGE 1. “The Garden of Sleep; or, Put That In Your Pipe and Smoke It!” Punch, or the London Charivari, 2 May 1891, 206 . 13 2. “The Union of Arts.” Punch, or the London Charivari, 28 October 1893, 204 . 51 3. “Blackie and Son Introducing Themselves to the Baron de Book-Worms.” Punch, or the London Charivari, 21 November 1891, 252 . 64 4. “The Music in our streets.” Punch, or the London Charivari, 30 January 1892, 57 . 82 vi MUSICAL EXAMPLES EXAMPLE PAGE 1.1 Edward Solomon, The Nautch Girl: Act I Finale, (no. 10, 68-69), Rehearsal letter D, eight ms . 25 1.2 The Nautch Girl: Melos, (no. 14a, 115), ms 3-4 . 25 1.3 The Nautch Girl: Chorus and Solo of Nautch Girls (no. 4, 20), ms 1-18 . 26 1.4 The Nautch Girl: Entrance and Song, “Room for Punka,” (no. 7, 36), m. 1-18 . 27 1.5 The Nautch Girl: Quartette, “A Different Kind of Person Altogether,” (no. 8, 52-3), eight ms before rehearsal letter C . 38 1.6 The Nautch Girl: Act II Opening Chorus and Solo, “We Are Punka’s Poor Relations,” (no. 11, 92 and 97), ms 1-9; final eight ms . 38 1.7 The Nautch Girl: Trio “Crocodile,”(no. 18, 145), sixth m. of the second double bar . 39 2.1 Arthur Sullivan, Trial By Jury: “When First My Old, Old Love I Knew,” (no. 2, 16-17), 8 ms before 1st ending. 66 2.2 Monroe Rosenfeld, “Johnny Get Your Gun,” Dance, ms 1-8 . 68 2.3 Arthur Sullivan, Utopia Limited: Song with Chorus, “Society Has Quite Forsaken,” (no. 14, 100), ms 1-8 . 68 2.4 Utopia Limited: Song with Chorus, “Society Has Quite Forsaken,” (no. 14, 102), Rehearsal Letter K . 69 2.5 Utopia Limited: Act II Finale, (no. 26, 153), ms 2-4 . 78 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: “UNMUSICAL ENGLAND” Art and Music, say what you will, are exotics. They are the luxuries, not the necessaries, of English life, got from abroad like Paris bonnets. Our popular applications of both are deplorable. The art of our streets is atrocious—so is the music of our music-halls.1 When American musicologists of today consider musical achievements of the late Victorian era, which they rarely do, the general consensus seems to be that there is little worth writing about. They, like critics of nineteenth-century Britain, hear only noise and triviality. An exception to this trend may be found in a continued interest in the canonical operettas written by Sir Arthur Sullivan and William Gilbert for Richard D’Oyly Carte’s Savoy Theater. Sadly, only a fraction of the attention paid to these works by enthusiastic amateur performance societies is devoted to scholarly discourse. Concurrent music theatrical texts unable to withstand the tests of time have, not surprisingly, received far less scrutiny. The purpose of this thesis is to reevaluate these long-held traditions by applying critical social theory to two genuinely obscure documents from the British (primarily London) musical stage as it existed during the decade of the 1890s. Doing so reveals a polemic that has otherwise been obscured. Rather than focusing solely on the famed compositional pair, I have chosen to view a specific feature of the generic idiom to which they contributed, i.e. an apparent Savoy “intertext” where issues of class and race manifested into a particular “brand” of consumed entertainment. This thesis will consider two operettas created specifically for that stage: The Nautch Girl; or, The Rajah of Chutneypore (1891) by George Dance, Franz Desprez and Edward Solomon, and Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress (1893) by Gilbert and Sullivan. What would 1 H.R. Haweis, “Unmusical England,” Illustrated London News, 27 June 1891, 854. 1 perhaps strike most readers, save for the most devout Gilbert and Sullivan aficionado, is that neither piece has, to date, been regularly performed by professional or amateur theater companies. Both are, in effect, postscripts to the glories of a preceding decade’s successes. Their absence from current performed repertoires, however, does not preclude one from finding problematic issues in their originally performed contexts. More than a century after their productions, the politics of race and class and the business generated by them, remain underestimated and difficult concepts to adequately grasp. In order to establish the basis for my subsequent arguments, it would be prudent to directly quote material from the opening choruses of both operettas. The Nautch Girl opens on a peripheral street in the mythical town of Chutneypore, India.2 There, a chorus of Sudras sings: Beneath the sky of Blue, the indolent Hindu, reclines the whole day long. He scorns all worldly trouble, for life’s a fragile bubble, and death a sweet sweet song. He scorns ambitious schemes, he weaves no lofty dreams, his glance is on the ground. Why tinge today with sorrow, when with the dark tomorrow grim Siva’s call may sound” (italics for emphasis).3 Two years later, audiences at the Savoy were presented with tropical maidens reclining in paradise “enjoying themselves in lotos-eating fashion,”4 who openly declare in Utopia Limited’s introductory song: In lazy languor—motionless, we lie and dream of nothingness; for visions come from Poppydom direct at our command. Or, delicate alternative, in open idleness we live, with lyre and lute and silver flute, the life of Lazyland” (italics for emphasis).5 2 Chutneypore is, of course, not a real name of a town, but rather a comical abstraction. “Chutney” is a pickled condiment usually made of spices, fruits, and herbs. “Pore” is an Anglicization of the Sanskrit “pur,” which is roughly equivalent to the term “city.” 3 Edward Solomon, The Nautch Girl or, The Rajah of Chutneypore, Vocal Score, Libretto by George Dance and Frank Desprez (London: Chappell and Company, 1891); In the Hindu caste system Sudras represent the laboring classes of people who serve at the discretion of the upper classes of Brahmins, Ksatriyas, and Vaiśyas and are not eligible to learn Sanskrit or study the Vedas.
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