THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Faculty of Arts ‘Respectable Capers’ – Class, Respectability and the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 1877-1909 Michael Stephen Goron Doctor of Philosophy June 2014 The Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research Degree of the University of Winchester The word count is: 98,856 (including abstract and declarations.) THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT FOR THESIS ‘Respectable Capers’: Class, Respectability and the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 1877-1909 Michael Stephen Goron This thesis will demonstrate ways in which late Victorian social and cultural attitudes influenced the development and work of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the early professional production and performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The underlying enquiry concerns the extent to which the D’Oyly Carte Opera organisation and its work relate to an ideology, or collective mentalité, maintained and advocated by the Victorian middle- classes. The thesis will argue that a need to reflect bourgeois notions of respectability, status and gender influenced the practices of a theatrical organisation whose success depended on making large-scale musical theatre palatable to ‘respectable’ Victorians. It will examine ways in which managerial regulation of employees was imposed to contribute to both a brand image and a commercial product which matched the ethical values and tastes of the target audience. The establishment of a company performance style will be shown to have evolved from behavioural practices derived from the absorption and representation of shared cultural outlooks. The working lives and professional preoccupations of authors, managers and performers will be investigated to demonstrate how the attitudes and working lives of Savoy personnel exemplified concerns typical to many West End theatre practitioners of the period, such as the drive towards social acceptability and the recognition of theatre work as a valid professional pursuit, particularly for women. The notion of a ‘circularity of influence’, in which cultural production is regarded as both a result and a reinforcement of ideology, will be proposed to explain the cultural ubiquity of the Savoy Operas in the middle-class consciousness, during and after their initial West End success. 2 CONTENTS List of Illustrations 4 Declaration of authorship and Copyright Statement 5 West End Productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas under the Management of Richard D’Oyly Carte and Helen Carte, 1875 – 1909 6 Acknowledgments/A Note on Nomenclature 8 Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Social Context: The Middle-Classes and their Values 33 Chapter 2: The West End: Middle-Class Standards and Commercialisation 70 Chapter 3: Patience at the Savoy – a Semiotic-Materialist Reading 93 Chapter 4: Savoy Audiences 1881 – 1909 132 Chapter 5: The ‘D’Oyly Carte Boarding School’- Female Respectability at the Savoy 166 Chapter 6: ‘The Placid English Style’ – Ideology and Performance 195 Conclusion 250 Bibliography 259 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Savoy Theatre Somerset Street entrance 98 Figure 2. Savoy interior, during Act 1 of Patience 106 Figure 3. Patience programme, '1881 or 1882' 117 Figure 4. Back page of Patience programme, Opera Comique, '1881' 120 Figure 5. Four pages from the ten-page Mikado Souvenir programme 123 of October 1885 Figure 6. Merrie England programme, 19th December, 1902 124 Figure 7. A view of a theatre pit, 1877 142 Figure 8. Stage level plan of the backstage area at the Savoy Theatre 173 Figure 9. Level 3 plan of the backstage area of the Savoy Theatre 174 Figure 10. Rutland Barrington (Giuseppe) and Courtice Pounds (Marco) in The Gondoliers, 1889 204 Figure 10. Richard Temple as Dick Deadeye in HMS Pinafore, 1879 205 Figure 11. Scene from Act II of HMS Pinafore by David Friston, 1878 206 4 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, Michael Stephen Goron, declare that the thesis entitled ‘Respectable Capers’ – Class, Respectability and the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 1877-1909 and the work presented in the thesis are both my own, and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research. I confirm that: this work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; I have acknowledged all main sources of help; Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed myself; Part of this work (a shorter version of chapter 5) has been published as: ‘The D’Oyly Carte Boarding School’ – Female Respectability in the Theatrical Workplace, 1877- 1903. New Theatre Quarterly, 26 (03), 217-231. Copyright in text of this Thesis rests with the author. Copies (by any process) either in full, or extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the author. Details may be obtained from the RKE office. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the author. Signed: Michael Stephen Goron Date: 26.05.2014 5 West End Productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas under the management of Richard D’Oyly Carte and Helen Carte, 1875 – 1909. (The list does not include non G&S ‘curtain raisers’) Title Dates Number of Theatre (original productions performances in bold type) Trial By Jury March 25th – December18th 131 Royalty 1875 The Sorcerer November 17th 1877 – May 24th 178 Opera Comique 1878 Trial By Jury March 23rd – May 24th 1878 56 Opera Comique HMS Pinafore May 25th 1878 – February 20th 571 Opera Comique 1880 HMS Pinafore (Child December 16th 1879 – March 78 Opera Comique cast) 20th 1880 (Matinees) The Pirates of April 3rd 1880 – April 2nd 1881 363 Opera Comique Penzance HMS Pinafore (Child December 22nd 1880 – January 28 Opera Comique cast) 28th 1881 (Matinees ) Patience April 23rd – October 8th 1881 170 Opera Comique transferred October 10th 1881 – November 408 Savoy 22nd 1882 Iolanthe November 25th 1882 – January 398 Savoy 1st 1884 Princess Ida January 5th 1884 – October 1884 246 Savoy The Sorcerer, Trial By October 11th 1884 – March 12th 150 Savoy Jury (Double bill) 1885 The Pirates of December 26th 1884 – February ? Savoy Penzance (Child cast) 14th 1885 The Mikado March 14th 1885 – January 19th 672 Savoy 1887 Ruddigore January 22nd – November 5th 288 Savoy 1887 HMS Pinafore November 12th 1887 – March 120 Savoy 10th 1888 The Pirates of March 17th – June 6th 1888 80 Savoy Penzance The Mikado June 7th – September 29th 1888 116 Savoy The Yeomen of the October 3rd 1888 – November 423 Savoy Guard 30th 1889 The Gondoliers December 7th 1889 – June 20th 554 Savoy 1891 Non G&S full length works presented by the D’Oyly Carte company between June 1891 and October 1896 were The Nautch Girl, The Vicar of Bray, Haddon Hall and Jane Annie. 6 Utopia, Limited October 7th 1893 – June 9th 1894 245 Savoy Non G&S works presented by the D’Oyly Carte company between July 1894 and March 1895 were Mirette, The Chieftain and Cox and Box. The Mikado November 6th 1895 – March 4th 127 Savoy 1896 The Grand Duke March 7th 1896 – July 10th 1896 123 Savoy Non G&S works presented by the D’Oyly Carte company between February 1897 and May 1903 were His Majesty, The Grand Duchess, The Beauty Stone, The Lucky Star, The Rose of Persia, The Emerald Isle , Ib and Little Christina, Willow Pattern, Merrie England and A Princess of Kensington. These were interspersed with further revivals of The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, The Sorcerer, Trial by Jury, HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience and Iolanthe. Repertory Seasons at the Savoy Theatre 1906-1909 – Produced under the supervision of W.S. Gilbert: December 8th 1906 – August 24th 1907: Patience, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers. April 28th 1908 – March 27th 1909: HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers. 7 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my Director of Studies, Professor Millie Taylor, and the other members of my supervisory team, Professor Roger Richardson, and Doctor Stevie Simkin, for their invaluable encouragement and guidance during the past seven years. I would also like to thank Doctor Helen Grime and Doctor Cecily O’Neill for their support and advice - and, in the case of the former - for suggesting I do a PhD in the first place. Finally, thanks to Rachel, Alex and Ronan for patiently putting up with it all. A Note on Nomenclature The business syndicate, headed by Richard D’Oyly Carte which presented The Sorcerer in 1877 and HMS Pinafore in 1879 was called ‘The Comedy-Opera Company’. After Carte’s legal separation from the syndicate in 1879, the name was changed to ‘Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s Opera Company’. The name ‘The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company’ was not professionally used before 1889. Touring companies prior to 1889 had various naming systems, involving letter or number prefixes/suffixes. For the purpose of this study, except when specific touring companies are mentioned, the term ‘The D’Oyly Carte company’ is used to cover all Carte’s theatrical activities related to the Gilbert and Sullivan/Savoy operas. For convenience, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas produced under the D’Oyly Carte management will be referred to as the ‘Savoy Operas’.