GILBERT & SULLIVAN: A Partnership for the Ages W W

The story of the complicated collaboration between the renowned librettist W. S. Gilbert and the equally well-known composer Arthur Sullivan is one that indeed deserves to be told. It deserves to be told because it is a story that has a lesson attached to it; it is a story of success, failure, hopes, despair, aspirations, reality, individual and collective creative labour. Not one or two books have been written about it and even within these large studies and publications dedicated to the famous comic opera duo, there are still aspects dealing with their oeuvre that have been either overlooked or completely left out. Thus, my purpose will not be to attempt to cover all the nuances and complexities of the pair’s achievements and legacy. Rather, my aim will be to analyse a few of the duo’s operettas through which I can then make the case for its cultural importance and its lasting relevance.

The first comic opera which I am looking at is the so-called first Savoy opera produced by Gilbert and Sullivan. Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride opened in 1881 and was a commercial success. Here it is necessary to point out the fact that the Savoy theatre, which was opened that same year on the initiative of the impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte who employed the pair, is the first public building in the world to be entirely lit by electricity.

The system of queueing that we are now familiar with, the free checking of coats, etc. are all innovations devised by that same man. In many different senses, the Savoy theatre was groundbreaking, the first of its kind. Vis-à-vis the content of the opera itself, affectation is the principal satirical target. In fact, what W. S. Gilbert was aiming at was to make a social commentary about the fast-growing popularity of the Aestheticism movement in the then contemporary British society. For instance, Reginald Bunthorne, the main protagonist playing the role of the fleshly poet in the story, is a caricature of the painter Whistler, incorporating his monocle and his hairstyle, Oscar Wilde’s mannerisms and knee breaches and Walter Crane’s velvet coat. As mentioned above, this operetta is a quite overt attack against the “overly affected and trendy figureheads and fashions of the time”. Furthermore, the main tension proposed by Gilbert is between those so-called aesthetes and the militant social strata in British society represented by the Dragoons. The aesthetes’ preoccupation with Medievalism, their foppishness, their archaic rhyme preferences are all mocked on the stage, however, the criticism of Gilbert and Sullivan is not pointed at Aestheticism per se. It is, rather, targeted at those aesthetes who are fascinated by corruption, decay, etc. and who try to make virtues out of those vices.

The second comic opera which I am taking into consideration is arguably the best known and most profitable of all the Savoy operas, The Mikado. The success of that particular operetta can hardly be described conventionally. The mere fact that it was the first opera to be recorded on disk in 1917 and also the first Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera to be filmed by a Hollywood studio (in 1938) speaks volumes in that regard. The theme of the operetta as the title itself suggests is Japan and the Far East craze which obsessed London in the mid-1880s. Less than thirty years after Japan opened itself to the world, a Japanese exhibition opened up in Knightsbridge, London. The sharp and astute eye of Gilbert could not have missed the opportunity to exploit that particular fascination with everything Japanese for his own purposes and benefit. Thus, he came up with the text of the libretto by keeping in mind the actors with whom he collaborated at the Savoy, especially his actresses who eventually played the ”three little maids from school”. Although on the surface the plot and the fable are about Japanese locales, customs, mores, society, etc., under that veil of innocence, it is all about British society, prudishness, corruption, etc. However, quite ironically, Gilbert’s meticulous attention to detail and his use of real Japanese people whom he met at the Knightsbridge exhibition, made sure that the behaviour and the attire of the actors would be as authentic as possible. The notorious katana that allegedly inspired him to write the libretto, the famous Japanese lady known as Ms. ‘Sixpence please’ all add up perfectly to the high quality of Gilbert’s writing and Sullivan’s violin compositions.

All in all, Gilbert and Sullivan are two artists who have been unfairly underappreciated throughout the years. I do hope that with the help of articles such as this one and films such as Mike Leigh’s biopic TopsyTurvy, the legacy and the contributions made by those two geniuses, would finally be acknowledged and taken seriously.