GILBERT—SULLIVAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22262, 9 November 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

GILBERT—SULLIVAN

THE OPERAS

BY KOTARK

Mr. Ilesketh Pearson's study of Gilbert and Sullivan emphasises the curious contemporary criticisms that were 1 hurled at the operas by people who sur- ' rendered to their charm, but who, in tho typical Victorian fashion, saved 1 their faces by finding things to condemn. It was somehow indecorous to enjoy stage performances so much. Tho strong moral prepossession of tho ago > asserted itself by dissociating the words from tho music. Sullivan was, of course, of the elect. Had he not writ- , ten " The Lost Chord "? Was he not in particular favour with tho Duke of Edinburgh and tho Princo of Wales ? Had not even the great Queen deigned to express her appreciation of tho music of the operas? So the opinion grew that Sullivan, tho great musician, was unequally yoked with the ribald jester Gilbert. It was such a pity he could not find a librettist with a better sense of the fitness of things. Gilbert had actually poked fun at the peerage, and poor Sullivan had to write the music foi words that must have made his noble soul squirm with disgust. Why, nothing was sacred to this terrible fellow Gilbert. When a com- • mand performance of one of the operas was given in the Royal presence the authorities did their best by suppressing Gilbert's namo altogether. For the only time the Gilbert and Sullivan label was replaced by one that gave all the credit to Sullivan. Gilbert had to wait until old age for a knighthood he then did not want, while Sullivan had his honours heaped upon him in the pride of his years. Victorian Views If there was one thing Gilbert insisted on it was that there should be nothing in any of his works that would bring a " blush to the cheek of innocence." That is practically his own phrase, for in his general values he was a Victorian of the Victorians. Yet he had to endure this sort of thing. A theatrical journal spoke thus of "Pinafore": " Actually children are playing in this terrible stuff. One passage is sad beyond words. It occurs when the Captain utters the oath 'Damn me,' and forthwith a bevy of sweet, innocentlooking girls sing with bright and happy ;looks, ' He said Damn me.' I can't find words to convey to the reader the pain I felt in seeing theso dear children taught to utter such words to amuse cars grown callous to their ghastly meaning. How Mr. Gilbert could have stooped to write or Sir Arthur Sullivan could have prostituted his noble art to set to music such vile trash it passes my skill to understand." And that pained voice from the heart of Victorian England is none other than Lewis Carroll's. One suspects a gigantic leg-pull on the part of the amiable author of " Alice in Wonderland," but ho was writing in all seriousness. Sir Arthur Quiller-Ccuch takes another line with Gilbert. Gilbert, he thinks, is not a gentleman. In almost all his plays there is an elderly woman who is made fun of because sho is a woman and because she is old. Sir Arthur, from his lofty eminence, considers such characters as Ruth in "The Pirates of Penzanco " as the last word in caddinhness. It is hard to understand this high and mighty attitude. The elderly woman in love with a .youth is a legitimate figure of satirical comedy; and seen through the Gilbertian atmosphere his characters are sufficiently distorted from human semblance to occupy a world of their own where the ordinary standards of judgment cannot be made to apply. A Sadist? Sir Arthur Quiller-Coueh shows the same critical ineptitude in his second indictment. Gilbert, he declares, was a sadist. He loved cruelty because some morbid streak in him was gratified by tho contemplation of suffering. The executioner's song in " The Mikado " is quoted as an especially "flagrant example. But Gilbertia is not Oxford of the present year of grace. The writer of a fantastic play creates his own world of illusion, where the values are the stage-values and not those used in fixing criteria in ordinary every-day life. A.*# well accuse of sadism Andersen and tho brothers Grimm because many of their fairy tales revolve around the cruelty of uncles and stepmothers, and the giant and the otire usually play an unpleasant part. Charles Lamb surely has established once for all the right of the stage to be judged by its own carions, and not by the intrusion of wholly irrelevant standards carried over from every-day life. Mention of " The Pirates of Penzance " recalls that this opera was written in New York to spike the guns of the pirates of America. English authors had no protection from the American laws. The operas of Gilbert and Sullivan were even more popular in the States than they wore in England, but tho author and composer received not a penny piece in royalties. Even the suave Sullivan was moved to Gilbertian sarcasm by tho situation. " A free and independent American citizen," he said in' exasperation, " ought not to be robbed of his right of robbing someone else." So the partners shifted camp to New York, and Sullivan, nearly dead with the disease that was always spurred to diabolic activity during his pericds of intense work, composed his brilliant music in a New York hotel. The last of the music was finished at five a.m. on tho morning after the final rehearsal. In America Several companies were on the road before the pirates could get under way, and for once English energy stole a march on Yankee shrewdness, in a tour of the States, Sullivan was feted everywhere. He had public receptions all along the line. This led to some confusion, because the great boxer of the day also bore the name Sullivan. The musician was perplexed by inquiries from high dignitaries about his fighting weight and his methods of training. His tubby figure and delicato air of refinement created much bewilderment among the boxing enthusiasts who assembled to offer incense beforo the mighty champion. Gilbert transformed the methods of theatrical production. The operas as we know them in the Savoy tradition wero produced in every detail as he had worked them out, and ho relentlessly imposed his will on every member of his casts. He would have no stars. Ho selected people who would carry out his instructions without question. All stage movement and grouping, every gesture, every inflexion of tho voice, wero fixed by his autocratic will. So completely was every part of the stage under his control that at any given point of any performance of the same play the cast would be saying and doing exactly the same things in tho , same way, in exactly the same positions. Gilbert was much more popular i with the players and chorus than Sulli- , van. Ho might boss and bully thorn i during rehearsal, but he would champion the most insignificant member of ; the chorus against tho world. One thing was cortain, Gilbert would not let them i down.