Sir Arthur Sullivan

  • Born: London, 13th May 1842
  • Died: London, 22nd November 1900

Works

  1. The Sapphire Necklace (1863)
  2. Cox and Box (1866)
  3. The Contrabandista (1867)
  4. Thespis (1871)
  5. Trial by Jury (1875)
  6. The Zoo (1875)
  7. The Sorcerer (1877)
  8. H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
  9. The Pirates of Penzance (1880)
  10. Patience (1881)
  11. Iolanthe (1882)
  12. Princess Ida (1884)
  13. The Mikado (1885)
  14. Ruddigore (1887)
  15. The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)
  16. The Gondoliers (1889)
  17. Ivanhoe (1891)
  18. Haddon Hall (1892)
  19. Utopia, Limited (1893)
  20. The Chieftain (1894)
  21. The Grand Duke (1896)
  22. The Beauty Stone (1898)
  23. The Rose of Persia (1899)
  24. The Emerald Isle (1901)

The Mikado: Brilliant black comedy, with executions (beheadings, something lingering with boiling oil in it). Ignore the naysayers. Masterpiece.

The Pirates of Penzance: Their most popular work. Certainly the one that gets trotted out every bloody time.

Patience: Their satire of peacocking aestheticism and artistic pretension. I knew the lyrics to “Am I alone and unobserved…” off by heart by the time I was 15. So many brilliant pieces: the soldiers of our queen, so go to him and say to him… “I hear the soft note of the echoing voice” is almost painful in its beauty. I used to tease my mother by singing Lady Jane’s “Silvered is the raven hair…” My parents’ first date, incidentally, was to see Patience.

Iolanthe: Or the peer and the peri (“everyone is now a fairy…”). Their spoof of politics. Eminently quotable:

“If they’ve a brain and cerebellum, too,
They’ve got to leave that brain outside,
And vote just as their leaders tell ’em to.
But then the prospect of a lot
Of dull M. P.’s in close proximity,
All thinking for themselves, is what
No man can face with equanimity.”

Plus the Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare Song; the best of the finales (a Latin word, a Greek remark, and one that’s French); and “Bow, bow, you lower middle classes” (which I remember marching around the living room ato when I was 13, and singing at a house competition in year 9).

The Grand Duke: Yes. The Grand Duke. Their last work. Rarely performed. Described by its own author as a “misshapen little brat”. Duels by playing cards, Greek patter songs, the roulette song, the chorus steadily getting drunker, the Baroness von Krakenfeldt’s arias… Underrated and waywardly brilliant. And Julia’s “So ends my dream” is moving.

Princess Ida: Another thoroughly underrated one. I had memorised King Gama’s “If you give my your attention…” in year 10. Has two of the best (and most rousing finales) in the G&S canon (Acts I & II), and plenty of brilliant songs: I am a maiden; Gently, gently, evidently…; A lady fair of lineage high. The quartet “The world is but a broken toy” is exquisite. Score tends towards grand opera in many places (e.g. “I built upon a rock”).

Trial by Jury: A one-act wonder. Not a dull moment. Contains the Judge’s Song (“She may very well pass for 43 in the dusk with the light behind her…”) and a mock-serious Bellinian ensemble.

The Gondoliers: The least satisfactory of the major works? Entertaining, tuneful, but also over long and not quite sharp enough. Still, “Try we lifelong” is worthy of Mozart; the Duke & Duchess’s “Small titles and orders” is excellent; and “With ducal pomp” is rather splendid.

Yeomen of the Guard: Their serious opera, the one quotes from which G & S had engraved on their tombstones the one we’re all supposed to admire, the one that comes closest to grand opera. Masterly Act I finale, and the famous “I have a song to sing O”. But G & S are at their best in comic opera.

Ruddigore: Their spoof of Victorian melodrama. Has one of my favourite lines: “A few gifts, dear aunt, for deserving villagers. Lo, here is some peppermint rock for old gaffer Gadderby, a set of false teeth for pretty little Ruth Rowbottom, and a pound of snuff for the poor orphan girl on the hill.” And the ghosts’ high noon (title, incidentally, of a very late, rather inferior work by John Dickson Carr) and the patter trio “My eyes are fully open to my awful sitution”. But it doesn’t gel. Gilbert, rightly, remarked that it should be called Ruddigore or not so good as the Mikado.

HMS Pinafore: Yes, their breakthrough work. Tuneful, but lightweight. They will do better.

Utopia Limited: Dull and incoherent. But the minstrel ensemble “Society has quite forsaken all her wicked courses” is one of G&S’s best.

The Sorcerer: Dated. Far too many of the numbers are Victorian ballads. But it has “My name is John Wellington Wells” and the rollicking Act I finale (the eggs, the ham and the strawberry jam).

Thespis: Quién sabe? Lost, bar “I once knew a chap”. Possibly recycled into Pirates. (Certainly, “Climbing over rocky mountain” was.)

Yours – someone who sat bored in maths class and writing out the entire casts of the Savoy operas, who played which role. Rutland Barrington; Rosina Brandram; Durward Lely…