Comic opera , sometimes known as light opera , is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
69-591: Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre , which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house the Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of
138-585: A Monastery (1940–1941, staged 1946), and Dmitri Shostakovich 's The Nose (1927–1928, staged 1930). Simultaneously, the genres of light music , operetta , musical comedy , and later, rock opera , were developed by such composers as Isaak Dunayevsky , Dmitri Kabalevsky , Dmitri Shostakovich (Opus 105: Moscow, Cheryomushki , operetta in 3 acts, (1958)), Tikhon Khrennikov , and later by Gennady Gladkov , Alexey Rybnikov and Alexander Zhurbin . The 21st century in Russian comic opera began with
207-591: A chance to win their spurs ... the stalls and the boxes lost much by missing the curtain-raiser, but to them dinner was more important. The following table lists the known companion pieces that appeared at the Opera Comique or the Savoy Theatre during the original runs and principal revivals of the Savoy Operas through 1909. There may have been more such pieces that have not yet been identified. In
276-636: A cheat and a matchmaker , text by Alexander Ablesimov (1779), on a subject resembling Rousseau 's Devin , is attributed to Mikhail Sokolovsky . Ivan Kerzelli , Vasily Pashkevich and Yevstigney Fomin also wrote a series of successful comic operas in the 18th century. In the 19th century, Russian comic opera was further developed by Alexey Verstovsky who composed more 30 opera-vaudevilles and 6 grand operas (most of them with spoken dialogue). Later, Modest Mussorgsky worked on two comic operas, The Fair at Sorochyntsi and Zhenitba ("The Marriage"), which he left unfinished (they were completed only in
345-509: A countermeasure to the continental operettas, commissioned Clay's collaborator, W. S. Gilbert , and the promising young composer, Arthur Sullivan , to write a short one-act opera that would serve as an afterpiece to Offenbach's La Périchole . The result was Trial by Jury ; its success launched the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. "Mr. R. D'Oyly Carte's Opera Bouffe Company" took Trial on tour, playing it alongside French works by Offenbach and Alexandre Charles Lecocq . Eager to liberate
414-515: A dozen hits, were Babes in Toyland (1903) and Naughty Marietta (1910). Others who wrote in a similar vein included Reginald de Koven , John Philip Sousa , Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml . The modern American musical incorporated elements of the British and American light operas, with works like Show Boat and West Side Story , that explored more serious subjects and featured
483-505: A mixture of sentiment and humour, Offenbach's works were intended solely to amuse. Though generally well crafted and full of humorous satire and grand opera parodies, plots and characters in his works were often interchangeable. Given the frenetic pace at which he worked, Offenbach sometimes used the same material in more than one opera. Another Frenchman who took up this form was Charles Lecocq . The singspiel developed in 18th-century Vienna and spread throughout Austria and Germany. As in
552-568: A number of cases, the exact opening and closing dates are not known. Date ranges overlap, since it was common to rotate two or more companion pieces at performances during the same period to be played with the main piece. Many of these pieces also played elsewhere (and often on tour by D'Oyly Carte touring companies). Only the runs at the Opera Comique and the Savoy are shown here. *Indicates an approximate date. Comic opera Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By
621-632: A place of evil repute to the righteous British householder.... A first effort to bridge the gap was made by the German Reed Entertainers. Nevertheless, an 1867 production of Offenbach's The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (seven months after its French première) ignited the English appetite for light operas with more carefully crafted librettos and scores, and continental European operettas continued to be extremely popular in Britain in
690-545: A sense of fun. His was the chief triumph of Saturday night." However, The Times warned Workman, "in Patience [he] makes the grave mistake of trying to add fun of his own by clowning to the part of Bunthorne. He is too clever an actor to be allowed to go on in this path without warning." Workman redeemed himself in Iolanthe : "The Lord Chancellor of Mr. Workman is a masterpiece, and the whole audience were of one mind as to
759-1129: A tight integration among book, movement and lyrics. In Canada, Oscar Ferdinand Telgmann and George Frederick Cameron composed in the Gilbert and Sullivan style of light opera. Leo, the Royal Cadet was performed for the first time on 11 July 1889 at Martin's Opera House in Kingston, Ontario . The line between light opera and other recent forms is difficult to draw. Several works are variously called operettas or musicals, such as Candide and Sweeney Todd , depending on whether they are performed in opera houses or in theaters. In addition, some recent American and British musicals make use of an operatic structure, for example, containing recurring motifs, and may even be sung through without dialogue. Those with orchestral scores are usually styled "musicals", while those played on electronic instruments are often styled rock operas . Charles H. Workman Charles Herbert Workman (5 May 1872 – 1 May 1923)
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#1732798425959828-555: Is by Elena Polenova, based on a folk-drama, Tsar Maksimilyan , and the work premiered on June 20, 2001, at the Mariinski Theatre , St Petersburg. Prize "Gold Mask, 2002" and "Gold Soffit, 2002". The Children of Rosenthal ( Дети Розенталя ), an opera in two acts by Leonid Desyatnikov , with a libretto by Vladimir Sorokin . This work was commissioned by the Bolshoi theatre and premiered on March 23, 2005. The staging of
897-596: Is likely that, but for this conflict, Workman would have continued as principal comedian for the D'Oyly Carte company. Workman continued his acting career in London, earning good notices, in The Chocolate Soldier (1910–11, running for 500 performances), Nightbirds (1911) and The Girl in the Taxi (1912–13). In 1914 he travelled to Australia where he once again appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with
966-534: The J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company (1918 and thereafter). In 1919 Rupert D'Oyly Carte wrote to Workman asking him to return to the D'Oyly Carte company: "We intend to present Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy again, and if we knew you would be coming to London, we would await your arrival, so that your reappearance and the revival of Gilbert and Sullivan opera might be made two important simultaneous events. You will, of course, play all your old parts. Excellent news, this, if it materialises." In
1035-513: The J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company , and in a few parts in musicals. At the age of 50 he died at sea near Hong Kong while returning from a Williamson tour. Charles Herbert Workman was born in Bootle , on the outskirts of Liverpool , Lancashire, the son of Charles Workman and his wife, Sarah, née Forrest. He was educated at Waterloo College, Liverpool, and studied singing under his brother, Albert Edward Workman. A newcomer to
1104-566: The singspiel and the French model. Franz von Suppé is remembered mainly for his overtures. Johann Strauss II , the "waltz king", contributed Die Fledermaus (1874) and The Gypsy Baron (1885). Carl Millöcker a long-time conductor at the Theater an der Wien , also composed some of the most popular Viennese operettas of the late 19th century, including Der Bettelstudent (1882), Gasparone (1884) and Der arme Jonathan (1890). After
1173-416: The "first true Italian comic opera" – that is to say, it had everything: it was in standard Italian and not in dialect; it was no longer simply an intermezzo, but rather an independent piece; it had a real story that people liked; it had dramatic variety; and, musically, it had strong melodies and even strong supporting orchestral parts, including a strong "stand-alone" overture (i.e., you could even enjoy
1242-498: The 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa , emerged as an alternative to opera seria . It quickly made its way to France, where it became opéra comique , and eventually, in the following century, French operetta , with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating
1311-568: The 1860s and 1870s, including Les Cloches de Corneville , Madame Favart and others into the 1880s, often adapted by H. B. Farnie and Robert Reece . F. C. Burnand collaborated with several composers, including Arthur Sullivan in Cox and Box , to write several comic operas on English themes in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1875, Richard D'Oyly Carte , one of the impresarios aiming to establish an English school of family-friendly light opera by composers such as Frederic Clay and Edward Solomon as
1380-439: The 1871 opera Thespis – was not a Savoy Opera under any of the definitions mentioned to this point, as Richard D'Oyly Carte did not produce it, nor was it ever performed at the Savoy Theatre. Nevertheless, Rollins & Witts include it in their compendium of the Savoy Operas, as does Geoffrey Smith . The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase as: "Designating any of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas originally presented at
1449-426: The 20th century). Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote a comic opera, Cherevichki (1885). Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed May Night 1878–1879 and The Golden Cockerel 1906–1907. In the 20th century, the best examples of comic opera by Russian composers were Igor Stravinsky 's Mavra (1922) and The Rake's Progress (1951), Sergey Prokofiev 's The Love for Three Oranges (1919) and Betrothal in
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#17327984259591518-757: The Duke of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers , and Scaphio in Utopia . He also appeared as Hassan in The Rose of Persia (1901) and as the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury beginning in 1904. After a brief tour of South Africa with his own company he returned to the Savoy Theatre in 1906 and played the principal comedian roles created by George Grossmith for the company's repertory seasons there and on tour with
1587-563: The English stage from risqué French influences, and emboldened by the success of Trial by Jury , Carte formed a syndicate in 1877 to perform "light opera of a legitimate kind". Gilbert and Sullivan were commissioned to write a new comic opera, The Sorcerer , starting the series that came to be known as the Savoy operas (named for the Savoy Theatre , which Carte later built for these works) that included H.M.S. Pinafore , The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado , which became popular around
1656-546: The Fairy Queen. At the end of the first week of the run, Workman replaced McIntosh. Gilbert angrily forbade Workman from ever again appearing in any of his works on stage in the United Kingdom, although Gilbert could not enforce a prohibition elsewhere or in the recording studio. In 1910 and 1911, Workman recorded songs, mostly patter songs , for Odeon. Nineteen of these songs were re-issued by Pearl in 1974. It
1725-411: The French opéra comique , the singspiel was an opera with spoken dialogue, and usually a comic subject, such as Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and The Magic Flute (1791). Later singspiels , such as Beethoven's Fidelio (1805) and Weber's Der Freischütz (1821), retained the form, but explored more serious subjects. 19th century Viennese operetta was built on both
1794-406: The Gilbert and Sullivan works as operettas. Gilbert and Sullivan's early operas played at other London theatres, and Patience (1881) was the first opera to appear at the Savoy Theatre, and thus, in a strict sense, the first true "Savoy Opera", although the term "Savoy Opera" has, for over a century, referred to all thirteen operas that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote for Richard D'Oyly Carte. During
1863-652: The Guard – "A private buffoon" (1910) "I've jibe and joke" (1910) and "I have a song to sing, o" (with Elsie Spain , soprano)" (1911–12); The Gondoliers – "In enterprise of martial kind" and "I stole the prince" (1910); Utopia Limited – "First you're born, " (1911–12); The Rose of Persia – "There was a small street arab" (1911–12). These recordings have been reissued by Pearl on LP and CD. His other recordings are five numbers from Oscar Straus 's The Chocolate Soldier : "That would be lovely" (with Evelyn D'Alroy, soprano), "Sympathy" (with D'Alroy), "The letter song", "The tale of
1932-496: The Italian and French models along with their own musical traditions. Examples include German singspiel , Viennese operetta , Spanish zarzuela , Russian comic opera, English ballad and Savoy opera , North American operetta and musical comedy . In late 17th-century Italy, light-hearted musical plays began to be offered as an alternative to weightier opera seria (17th-century Italian opera based on classical mythology ). Il Trespolo tutore (1679) by Alessandro Stradella
2001-401: The Savoy Theatre in London by the D'Oyly Carte company. Also used more generally to designate any of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, including those first presented before the Savoy Theatre opened in 1881, or to designate any comic opera of a similar style which appeared at the theatre". The following table shows all of the full-length operas that could be considered "Savoy Operas" under any of
2070-624: The Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid, but with little success and light attendance. In spite of this, in 1873 a new theater, the Teatro Apolo , was opened for zarzuela grande , which shared the failures of the Teatro de la Zarzuela, until it was forced to change its program to género chico . The first opera presented in Russia , in 1731, was a comic opera (or "commedia per musica"), Calandro , by an Italian composer, Giovanni Alberto Ristori . It
2139-496: The company, until 1909, except that he never played a role in Ruddigore , as that opera was not in the D'Oyly Carte repertory during his tenure. In 1907 The Times commented, "As the Duke of Plaza-Toro, Mr. Workman surpasses both his predecessors". Of his Jack Point, the paper said: "His patter is delivered with a clearness that neither of the older performers could surpass; he dances as lightly as either, and has as spontaneous
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2208-536: The contemporary British press and literature, called works of this kind "comic operas" to distinguish their content and style from that of the often risqué continental European operettas that they wished to displace. Most of the published literature on Gilbert and Sullivan since that time refers to these works as "Savoy Operas", " comic operas ", or both. However, the Penguin Opera Guides and many other general music dictionaries and encyclopedias classify
2277-418: The definitions mentioned above. Only first runs are shown. Curtain-raisers and afterpieces that played with the Savoy Operas are included in the next table below. The fashion in the late Victorian era and Edwardian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so full-length pieces were often presented together with companion pieces. During the original runs of the Savoy Operas, each full-length work
2346-426: The double encore for the dancing trio, and the 'Nightmare' song was sung with marvellous glibness." In Yeomen , when Workman was playing Jack Point, in one scene he stood between the ladies portraying Elsie Maynard and Phoebe Meryll. Workman wrote: "I used to kiss the cheek of first one and then the other, quickly and repeatedly, and Sir William thought there was too much kissing for a Savoy audience. 'You would cut
2415-793: The event Workman did not return and the comic roles were played by Henry Lytton. In Australia in 1920, Workman appeared in the "mystery musical comedy" F.F.F. He also played Ali Baba in the first Australian production of Chu Chin Chow (1920–21) alongside Louie Pounds as Alcolom. In 1922–23, he led a tour of India and east Asia with his wife, Bessel Adams, a former D'Oyly Carte singer, playing in Gilbert and Sullivan, again with J. C. Williamson 's company. Adams died suddenly of heart failure on that tour in Calcutta in February 1923. Workman died in May of
2484-703: The genre was like in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the Italian operatic style influenced zarzuela . But beginning with the reign of Bourbon King Charles III , anti-Italian sentiment increased. Zarzuela returned to its roots in popular Spanish tradition in works such as the sainetes (or Entr'actes) of Don Ramón de la Cruz. This author's first work in this genre was Las segadoras de Vallecas ("The Reapers of Vallecas", 1768), with music by Rodríguez de Hita . Single act zarzuelas were classified as género chico (the "little genre" or "little form") and zarzuelas of three or more acts were género grande (the "big genre" or "big form"). Zarzuela grande battled on at
2553-549: The kissing, then?' I said. 'I would not', he returned drolly, 'but I must ask you to.'" Workman then left the D'Oyly Carte organisation and became an actor-manager . He leased the Savoy and produced two comic operas: Eden & Somerville's The Mountaineers (1909), appearing as Pierre, and W. S. Gilbert and Edward German 's Fallen Fairies (1909), appearing as Lutin. He then produced an Edwardian musical comedy , Two Merry Monarchs (1910), appearing as Rolandyl, and an opera, Gluck 's Orpheus , (1910). None of these
2622-526: The last Savoy Operas. Fitz-Gerald wrote his book, The Story of the Savoy Opera , in 1924, when these other pieces were still within living memory. But over the ensuing decades, the works produced at the Savoy by composers and librettists other than Gilbert and Sullivan were forgotten or infrequently revived. The term "Savoy Opera" came to be synonymous with the thirteen extant works of Gilbert and Sullivan. The first collaboration of Gilbert and Sullivan –
2691-731: The last of the Savoy Operas. After A Princess of Kensington closed in May 1903, Mrs. Carte leased the theatre to unrelated parties until late 1906, when she produced the first of her two seasons of G&S revivals in repertory at the Savoy, with Gilbert returning to direct. In March 1909, Charles H. Workman leased the theatre, producing three new pieces, including one by Gilbert, Fallen Fairies (music by Edward German). The last of these Workman-produced works came in early 1910, Two Merry Monarchs , by Arthur Anderson , George Levy, and Hartley Carrick, with music by Orlando Morgan . The contemporary press referred to these works as "Savoy Operas", and S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald regarded Workman's pieces as
2760-486: The latter incorporating dances, with chorus numbers and humorous scenes that are usually duets. These works are relatively short, and ticket prices were often low, to appeal to the general public. There are two main forms of zarzuela : Baroque zarzuela ( c. 1630 –1750), the earliest style, and Romantic zarzuela ( c. 1850 –1950), which can be further divided into the two subgenres of género grande and género chico . Pedro Calderón de la Barca
2829-509: The mid-19th century, despite Giuseppe Verdi 's Falstaff staged in 1893. French composers eagerly seized upon the Italian model and made it their own, calling it opéra comique . Early proponents included the Italian Egidio Duni , François-André Philidor , Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny , André Grétry , François-Adrien Boïeldieu , Daniel François Auber and Adolphe Adam . Although originally reserved for less serious works,
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2898-579: The most popular form of staged entertainment in Italy from about 1750 to 1800. In 1749, thirteen years after Pergolesi's death, his La serva padrona swept Italy and France, evoking the praise of such French Enlightenment figures as Rousseau . In 1760, Niccolò Piccinni wrote the music to La Cecchina to a text by the great Venetian playwright, Carlo Goldoni . That text was based on Samuel Richardson 's popular English novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740). Many years later, Verdi called La Cecchina
2967-439: The nexus of Carte and the Savoy Theatre is used to define "Savoy Opera," then the last new Savoy Opera was The Rose of Persia (music by Sullivan, libretto by Basil Hood ), which ran from 28 November 1899 – 28 June 1900. After Carte's death, his wife Helen Carte assumed management of the theatre. In 1901, she produced Sullivan's last opera, The Emerald Isle (finished after Sullivan's death by Edward German ), and during
3036-456: The noisy premieres of two works whose genre could be described as "opera-farce": Tsar Demyan ( Царь Демьян ) – A frightful opera performance . A collective project of five authors wrote the work: Leonid Desyatnikov and Vyacheslav Gaivoronsky from St. Petersburg , Iraida Yusupova and Vladimir Nikolayev from Moscow , and the creative collective "Kompozitor", which is a pseudonym for the well-known music critic Pyotr Pospelov. The libretto
3105-414: The non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas (in both senses) were seminal influences on the creation of the modern musical . Gilbert, Sullivan, Carte and other Victorian era British composers, librettists and producers, as well as
3174-431: The opera was accompanied by juicy scandal; however it was an enormous success. England traces its light opera tradition to the ballad opera , typically a comic play that incorporated songs set to popular tunes. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was the earliest and most popular of these. Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Duenna (1775), with a score by Thomas Linley , was expressly described as "a comic opera". By
3243-491: The operas of Scarlatti, Pergolesi ( La serva padrona , 1733), Galuppi ( Il filosofo di campagna , 1754), Piccinni ( La Cecchina , 1760), Paisiello ( Nina , 1789), Cimarosa ( Il matrimonio segreto , 1792), and then the great comic operas of Mozart and, later, Rossini and Donizetti . At first, comic operas were generally presented as intermezzi between acts of more serious works. Neapolitan and then Italian comic opera grew into an independent form and became
3312-479: The overture as an independent orchestral piece). Verdi was also enthusiastic because the music was by a southern Italian and the text by a northerner, which appealed to Verdi's pan-Italian vision. The genre was developed further in the first half of the 19th century by Gioachino Rossini in his works such as The Barber of Seville (1816) and La Cenerentola (1817) and by Gaetano Donizetti in L'elisir d'amore (1832) and Don Pasquale (1843), but declined in
3381-415: The risqué state of musical theatre and introduced short comic operas designed to be more family-friendly and to elevate the intellectual level of musical entertainments. Jessie Bond wrote, The stage was at a low ebb, Elizabethan glories and Georgian artificialities had alike faded into the past, stilted tragedy and vulgar farce were all the would-be playgoer had to choose from, and the theatre had become
3450-415: The run of that opera, she hired William Greet as manager of the theatre. Later that year, she leased the theatre to Greet, who then produced Ib and Little Christina , The Willow Pattern , a revival of Iolanthe , Merrie England (1902) and A Princess of Kensington (1903), each with a cast made up largely of Carte's Savoy company. Cyril Rollins and R. John Witts adopt A Princess of Kensington as
3519-466: The same year, just short of his 51st birthday, in a steamer outside Hong Kong, returning from the same tour. From the Savoy operas, Workman recorded 19 numbers for the Odeon label: Trial by Jury – "When I, good friends, was called to the bar" (1910); The Sorcerer – "My name is John Wellington Wells" (1910); H.M.S. Pinafore – "When I was a lad I served a term" (1910); The Pirates of Penzance – "I am
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#17327984259593588-430: The second half of the 19th century, the London musical stage was dominated by pantomime and musical burlesque , as well as bawdy, badly translated continental operettas, often including "ballets" featuring much prurient interest, and visiting the theatre became distasteful to the respectable public, especially women and children. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas German Reed , beginning in 1855, and a number of other Britons, deplored
3657-575: The second table below), the G&;S operas were the only works produced at the Savoy Theatre from the date it opened (10 October 1881) until The Gondoliers closed on 20 June 1891. Over the next decade, there were only two new G&S pieces ( Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke ), both of which had comparatively brief runs. To fill the gap, Carte mounted G&S revivals, Sullivan operas with different librettists, and works by other composer–librettist teams. Richard D'Oyly Carte died on 3 April 1901. If
3726-631: The small part of Ben Hashbaz in The Grand Duke at the Savoy Theatre , London (1896). He later created the part of Adam in F. C. Burnand and R. C. Lehmann 's His Majesty (1897; appearing briefly as King Ferdinand when George Grossmith abandoned the part, until Henry Lytton took over). Workman was Simon in Old Sarah , the companion piece for the first revival of The Yeomen of the Guard (1897). In The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein that year, he played Carl. Beginning in 1897, Workman
3795-829: The sole representatives of the genre surviving today. Only recently, some of these other English light operas have begun to be explored by scholars and to receive performances and recordings. In the United States, Victor Herbert was one of the first to pick up the family-friendly style of light opera that Gilbert and Sullivan had made popular, although his music was also influenced by the European operetta composers. His earliest pieces, starting with Prince Ananias in 1894, were styled "comic operas", but his later works were described as "musical extravaganza", "musical comedy", "musical play", "musical farce", and even "opera comique". His two most successful pieces, out of more than half
3864-656: The stage, Workman joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1894 as Calynx in a provincial tour of Utopia, Limited , making his debut at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre , Stratford-upon-Avon . In 1895 he played the roles of Pedrillo in The Chieftain , Bunthorne's Solicitor in Patience and Pennyfather in After All! , the curtain raiser for a revival of The Mikado . He then created
3933-439: The term opéra comique came to refer to any opera that included spoken dialogue, including works such as Cherubini's Médée and Bizet's Carmen that are not "comic" in any sense of the word. Florimond Hervé is credited as the inventor of French opéra bouffe , or opérette . Working on the same model, Jacques Offenbach quickly surpassed him, writing over ninety operettas . Whereas earlier French comic operas had
4002-520: The turn of the 20th century, Franz Lehár wrote The Merry Widow (1905); Oscar Straus supplied Ein Walzertraum ("A Waltz Dream", 1907) and The Chocolate Soldier (1908); and Emmerich Kálmán composed Die Csárdásfürstin (1915). Zarzuela , introduced in Spain in the 17th century, is rooted in popular Spanish traditional musical theatre. It alternates between spoken and sung scenes,
4071-420: The very model of a modern major general" (1910) and "Sighing softly to the river" (1911–12); Patience – "If you're anxious for to shine" (1910); Iolanthe – "Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest" (1910), "When I went to the bar as a very young man" (1911–12) and "The Law is the true embodiment" (1911–12); Princess Ida – "If you give me your attention" and "Whene'er I spoke sarcastic joke" (1910); The Yeomen of
4140-474: The world. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company continued to perform Gilbert and Sullivan almost continuously until it closed in 1982. The Gilbert and Sullivan style was widely imitated by their contemporaries (for example, in Dorothy ), and the creators themselves wrote works in this style with other collaborators in the 1890s. None of these, however, had lasting popularity, leaving the Savoy Operas as practically
4209-471: The years when the Gilbert and Sullivan ("G&S") operas were being written, Richard D'Oyly Carte also produced, at the Savoy Theatre, operas by other composer–librettist teams, either as curtain raisers to the G&S pieces, or to fill the theatre when no G&S piece was available. To his contemporaries, the term "Savoy Opera" referred to any opera that appeared at that theatre, regardless of who wrote it. Aside from curtain raisers (which are listed in
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#17327984259594278-445: Was a financial success. The production of Fallen Fairies was particularly disappointing, leading to a serious battle between Workman and Gilbert. Workman expected Gilbert's libretto, based on Gilbert's successful earlier play The Wicked World , to be followed by more works with the dramatist. However, Workman and his financial backers quarrelled with Gilbert over the casting of the librettist's protégée, Nancy McIntosh , as Selene,
4347-432: Was a singer and actor best known as a successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He was variously credited as Charles H. Workman, C. Herbert Workman and C. H. Workman . Workman joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1894 and played several roles with the company in London before becoming principal comedian, for nearly a decade, with D'Oyly Carte touring companies. He
4416-518: Was an early precursor of opera buffa . The opera has a farcical plot, and the characters of the ridiculous guardian Trespolo and the maid Despina are prototypes of characters widely used later in the opera buffa genre. The form began to flourish in Naples with Alessandro Scarlatti 's Il trionfo dell'onore (1718). At first written in Neapolitan dialect, these works became "Italianized" with
4485-629: Was cast in the comic leads for the two London repertory seasons of Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy Theatre in 1906−07 and 1908−09, earning mostly enthusiastic reviews. After this, he left the company and took on the management of the Savoy Theatre. He soon fell out with W. S. Gilbert over his production of the dramatist's Fallen Fairies ; Gilbert banned Workman from appearing in his operas in Britain. Workman subsequently had leading roles in several West End musical comedies and operettas. In 1914 he relocated to Australia, where he spent much of his later career in his old Gilbert and Sullivan roles with
4554-406: Was followed by the comic operas of other Italians, like Galuppi , Paisiello and Cimarosa , and also Belgian / French composer Grétry . The first Russian comic opera was Anyuta (1772). The text was written by Mikhail Popov , with music by an unknown composer, consisting of a selection of popular songs specified in the libretto. Another successful comic opera, The miller who was a wizard,
4623-665: Was normally accompanied by one or two short companion pieces. A piece that began the performance was called a curtain raiser , and one that ended the performance was called an afterpiece. W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning the curtain raisers: This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserved much better treatment than they got, but those who saw them delighted in them. ... [They] served to give young actors and actresses
4692-874: Was promoted to principal comedian in D'Oyly Carte touring companies, appearing as the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe , Ko-Ko in The Mikado , and Jack Point in Yeomen . He toured with D'Oyly Carte until 1906, appearing as John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer , Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore , Major-General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance , Reginald Bunthorne in Patience , the Lord Chancellor, King Gama in Princess Ida , Ko-Ko, Jack Point,
4761-685: Was the first playwright to adopt the term zarzuela for his work entitled El golfo de las sirenas ("The Gulf of the Sirens", 1657). Lope de Vega soon wrote a work titled La selva sin amor, drama con orquesta ("The Loveless Jungle, A Drama with Orchestra"). The instruments orchestra was hidden from the audience, the actors sang in harmony, and the musical composition itself was intended to evoke an emotional response. Some of these early pieces were lost, but Los celos hacen estrellas ("Jealousies Turn Into Stars") by Juan Hidalgo and Juan Vélez, which premiered in 1672, survives and gives us some sense of what
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