SAVOY OPERAS BY THE SAME AUTHOR I Crown 4/0, 5-r. net THE PINAFORE PICTURE BOOK THE STORY OF " H.M.S. PINAFORE " TOLD BY W. S. GILBERT With 1 6 Illustrations in Colour, numerous Black-and-White Drawings, and Special Cover and End Papers by ALICE B. WOODWARD "A delightful book, absolutely bubbling over with the author's genial and characteristic humour. Miss Woodward has adorned it with illustrations which have caught the very spirit of the bright play, and 'The Pinafore Picture Book' is a gift-book which we have never, or, at any rate, 'hardly ever,' known surpassed." Glasgow Herald. LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS W&G1L&ERT LONDON GEORGE BELL^SONS PR CO. CHISWICK PRESS : CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. FOREWORD of the four Savoy Libretti which Messrs. Bell EACHhave selected for publication in this volume has a little history of its own which, in their opinion, may have some interest for its readers. " The first of these, the Pirates of Penzance," was pro- duced at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, after a " perfunctory scratch" performance at Paignton, on the previous night, for supposed copyright purposes. The price of admission was fixed, I believe, at a guinea, and only one person was sufficiently enterprising to pay that sum. The performers read their parts from printed copies and the music of the songs was largely extemporized by " " them. Whether this performance did or did not serve to ensure copyright in the United States I do not know, but threats of procedure against intending violators were based upon it and had the necessary deterring effect. The opera was first produced at the OpeYa Comique, London, on the 3rd April, 1880. A tragic incident occurred at the last rehearsal but one. Miss Everard (the admirable Mrs. Partlet of "The " Sorcerer" and Little Buttercup of H.M.S. Pinafore") " was standing in the middle of the stage when a heavy set piece" which had been carelessly "footed," fell forward upon her and caused a fracture of the skull of which the poor lady died in a week. A telegram was immediately despatched to a very clever actress-contralto, Miss Emily vi FOREWORD Cross, who played the part, letter-perfect and note-perfect, two days later, with great success. The part of Mabel was played by Miss Marion Hood, a singularly beautiful young lady, and a brilliant vocalist. I believe it was her first appearance on the professional stage, and her excellent performance served to secure her many valuable offers. Two or three important members of the company claimed to be foreigners, and although they con- sented, under pressure, to appear under English names, spoke nevertheless with strong Italian or French accents. " One of them, an Italian," was brought to a sense of the situation by Mr. R. Barker, the stage manager, who was celebrated for his frank and unceremonious methods of address. Mr. Barker bore with the Italian gentleman for a week or two, but at last his patience was exhausted and " he said to him Look here, my boy, we shall get on much better if you'll give us a little more Whitechapel and a little less of the Mediterranean." The Italian gentleman took the hint; he became a native of Whitechapel, and the Mediterranean knew him no more. " In Patience," as originally constructed, Grosvenor and Bunthorne were to have been two curates, one of them jealous of the other's exceeding meekness (the libretto was, " in point of fact, suggested by my Bab Ballad the Rival Curates,") and the Cavalry Officers, whose pretensions to the young ladies of the piece were nullified by the superior attractions of the Curates, finished by resigning their com- missions and taking orders. In the course of its composi- tion I became conscious of the fact that a chorus of comic clergymen would very properly be resented as a serious violation of the canons of good taste, so I converted Grosvenor and Bunthorne into aesthetic absurdities, with- " out any very violent departure from the root idea" of the FOREWORD vii piece. One would have thought that when the so-called "aesthetic craze" died out, the popularity of the Opera it would have died with it, but, in point of fact, has sur- vived that social folly nearly thirty years and, at the time of writing, it is as popular as any of the series. It must be admitted, however, that this is mainly referable to the delightful music with which Sir Arthur Sullivan has en- dowed the libretto, and which, happily, is not dependent for its popularity on the absurdities of a fleeting craze. "Princess Ida," in its original form, was an extrava- ganza founded on Tennyson's "Princess" and was pro- duced at the Olympic, with already existing music, in (I think) 1870. It was chiefly remarkable for the admirable performance of the name-part by a remarkably beautiful and talented actress, Miss Mattie Reinhardt, who, if she had not married and left the stage, would assuredly have become one of its principal ornaments. King Gama was superbly played by a very clever comedian, Mr. Elliot, who had just distinguished himself by an admirable performance " of Uriah Heep in an adaptation of David Copperfield." " In my "respectful per-version of Tennyson's poem the three stalwart sons of King Gama were represented by three very slight and delicate young ladies. Hilarion, Cyril, and Florian were also represented by young ladies, and the effect of three girls playing the parts of men who were disguised as girls involved difficulties which nothing short of the aid of a musical setting by Sir Arthur Sullivan would have overcome. This was an advantage, however, that the piece, in its then form, did not possess. At the Savoy, the part of Princess Ida was excellently played and sung by Miss Leonora Braham, who had already distinguished herself by her delightful impersona- tion of Patience, in the opera of that name. The part in viii FOREWORD "The Princess" required a tall, dignified lady, and such a of her health lady was engaged, but the state prevented her attending rehearsals, and the part was given to Miss Braham at almost the last moment. Miss Braham was somewhat short in stature, but in every other respect she and author. That fully realized the intentions of composer superb singer and excellent actress, Miss Rosina Brandram, made her first distinct success as Lady Blanche, and the delightful Jessie Bond revealed a sense of exquisite humour in her joyous impersonation of Melissa. In the last act the principal ladies were dressed in very imposing armour which was supplied by a Paris armurier. On the first night I was sitting in the green-room during the progress of the last act, reading a newspaper, when this gentleman, who had come over from Paris to enjoy the effect of his armour upon the stage, broke in upon me in a wild state " of delight, Mais savez-vous, Monsieur," said he, "que vous avez la un succes solide?" I replied to the effect that the piece seemed to be going very well. "Mais vous etes si calme!" he exclaimed with a look of unbounded astonish- ment. I suppose he expected to see me kissing all the carpenters. "The Yeomen of the Guard" was somewhat of a departure from the class of piece which was expected of us by the Savoy audience the story being more of a consist- ent drama with a certain note of pathos in the development of the character of Jack Point, and as a consequence we awaited the result of the first night's performance with somewhat anxious minds. However, both press and public accepted the opera with enthusiasm, so all was well. The genesis of this libretto was a placard advertisement of the Tower Furnishing Company, in which a Beefeater was a conspicuous figure. I was on my way from Uxbridge to FOREWORD ix Paddington and, having missed my train at Uxbridge, I had an hour to wait, and so it came to pass that I had plenty of time in which to study the advertisement on the walls. The Beefeater on the placard suggested to me that an effective libretto might be constructed, the scenes in which should represent two views of the Tower of London, with a body of Beefeaters as male chorus. My first idea was to make the piece modern, with young ladies, guards- a and forth but a of men, Lieutenant of the Tower, ; picture a jester in a Magazine which I bought to read while I was waiting suggested to me the advisability of putting the piece back into the sixteenth century in order that I might be able to weave that effectively dramatic figure into the story. I had christened the piece "The Beefeaters," but " Sir Arthur Sullivan considered Beefeaters" to be an ugly word; so at his urgent instance the title was altered to "The Yeomen of the Guard," notwithstanding the fact that the Yeomen of the Guard, properly so called, have no association whatever with the Tower of London. I believe that this piece was a special favourite of Sir Arthur Sullivan's, and I am certainly disposed to regard it as the best piece of work that he and I have produced in collabora- tion. I am also disposed to believe that, if I had not missed that train, I should never have written that piece. I may " mention that some lines from one of the songs Is life a boon?" were especially honoured by having been selected by the committee of the Sullivan Memorial on the Embank- ment as worthy to be inscribed on its pedestal.