|
Broken Hearts
''Broken Hearts'' is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts styled "An entirely original fairy play". It opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 9 December 1875, running for three months, and toured the provinces in 1876. It was revived at the Savoy Theatre in 1882 (with Gilbert playing Florian, alongside Hermann Vezin as Mousta, after an accident incapacitated the actor who was originally to have played Florian).Stedman, Jane W"General Utility: Victorian Author-Actors from Knowles to Pinero" ''Educational Theatre Journal'', Vol. 24, No. 3, October 1972, pp. 289–301, The Johns Hopkins University Press Julia Gwynne played Melthusine. It was revived again in 1883, and yet again in 1888 starring Marion Terry in February and Julia Neilson in May, and also at Crystal Palace that year. There was also a New York City production at the Madison Square Theatre. Background and analysis ''Broken Hearts'' was the last of several blank verse "fairy comedies" created by G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blank Verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse". The first known use of blank verse in English was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the ''Æneid'' (composed c. 1540; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original since classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or possibly he was inspired by Ancient Greek verse or the Italian verse form of '' versi sciolti'', both of which also did not use rhyme. The play ''Arden of Faversham'' (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of end-stopped blank verse. History of English blank verse The 1561 play ''Gorboduc'' by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first English play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Reed Entertainment
The German Reed Entertainments were founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed (1817–1888) together with his wife, Priscilla German Reed (née Horton) (1818–1895). At a time when the theatre in London was seen as a disreputable place, the German Reed family provided family-friendly entertainments for forty years, showing that respectable theatre could be popular. The entertainments were held at the intimate Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, and later at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, in London. Thomas and Priscilla German Reed usually appeared in them, together with a small group of players. They engaged talented newcomers, such as Frederic Clay, W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Law, as well as established writers such as F. C. Burnand, to create many of the entertainments. Thomas German Reed composed the music for many of the entertainments himself. The German Reed theatrical revolution This form of entertainment consisted of musical pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grim's Dyke
Grim's Dyke (sometimes called Graeme's Dyke until late 1891)How, Harry ''The Strand Magazine'', Vol. 2, October 1891, pp. 330–41, reprinted at ''The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive'', 20 November 2011 is a house and estate in Harrow Weald, in northwest London, England. The house was built from 1870 to 1872 by Richard Norman Shaw for painter Frederick Goodall and named after the nearby prehistoric earthwork known as Grim's Ditch. It was converted into a hotel, Grim's Dyke Hotel, in 1970. The house is best known as the home of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, of the opera partnership Gilbert and Sullivan, who lived and farmed there for the last two decades of his life. He died while attempting to save a girl from drowning in his lake. Lady Gilbert and the Gilberts' ward, Nancy McIntosh, lived there until her death in 1936. The statue of Charles II now found in Soho Square stood on the property from about 1880 to 1938. The house was then used as a rehabilitation centre until 1963. Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain. The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular througho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gretchen (play)
''Gretchen'' is a tragic four-act play, in blank verse, written by W. S. Gilbert in 1878–79 based on Goethe's version of part of the Faust legend. The play was first performed at the Olympic Theatre on 24 March 1879. The piece starred Marion Terry in the title role, H. B. Conway as Faustus and Frank Archer as Mephisto. The play was not a success and closed after about 18 performances on 12 April 1879. Background Gilbert and Sullivan produced their hit comic opera ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' in May 1878, and Gilbert turned to ''Gretchen'' as his next project. Gilbert was by then one of the most famous playwrights in England, but he was known more for comedies than dramas, and so ''Gretchen'' was anticipated with much curiosity.Stedman, p. 168 Although Gilbert had met with some success in earlier dramas, his last such piece, '' The Ne'er-do-Weel'' (also at the Olympic), had met with a difficult reception in 1878. Gilbert was inspired to write ''Gretchen'' after seeing a picture calle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clement Scott
Clement William Scott (6 October 1841 – 25 June 1904) was an influential English theatre critic for ''The Daily Telegraph'' and other journals, and a playwright, lyricist, translator and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century. His style of criticism, acerbic, flowery and (perhaps most importantly) carried out on the first night of productions, set the standard for theatre reviewers through to today. Scott accumulated enemies among theatre managers, actors and playwrights as years went on, picking quarrels with William Archer, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw and others. After he gave a particularly ill-considered 1898 interview, in which he attacked the morals of theatre people, especially actresses, he was forced to retire as a theatre critic and his reputation and prospects suffered badly until, by the end of his life, he was impoverished. Life and career Born the son of William Scott, the perpetual curate of Hoxton in north London, Scott converted to Roman Cat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hare (actor)
Sir John Hare (16 May 1844 – 28 December 1921), born John Joseph Fairs, was an English actor and Actor-manager, theatre manager of the later 19th– and early 20th centuries. Born and brought up in London, with frequent visits to the West End theatre, West End, Hare had a passion for the theatre from his childhood. After acting as an amateur as a young man he joined a professional company in Liverpool, before making his London debut in 1865 at the age of 21 with Marie Wilton's company. Wilton was a pioneer of naturalistic theatre, with which Hare was greatly in sympathy, and he quickly gained a reputation in character roles, particularly in comedies. Within a decade Hare was well enough established to go into management. He was in partnership with the actor William Hunter Kendal, W. H. Kendal at the Royal Court Theatre, Court Theatre from 1875 to 1879, and from 1879 to 1888 at the St James's Theatre with Kendal and the latter's wife, Madge Kendal, Madge. They presented, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Yeomen Of The Guard
''The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid'', is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888 and ran for 423 performances. This was the eleventh collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan. The opera is set in the Tower of London during the 16th century, and is the darkest, and perhaps most emotionally engaging, of the Savoy Operas, ending with a broken-hearted main character and two very reluctant engagements, rather than the usual numerous marriages. The libretto does contain considerable humour, including a lot of pun-laden one-liners, but Gilbert's trademark satire and topsy-turvy plot complications are subdued in comparison with the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-Shakespearean, or early modern English, in style. Critics considered the score to be Sullivan's finest, including its overture, which is in sonata form, rather ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilbert And Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado'' are among the best known.Davis, Peter G''Smooth Sailing'' ''New York'' magazine, 21 January 2002, accessed 6 November 2007 Gilbert, who wrote the libretti for these operas, created fanciful "topsy-turvy" worlds where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion; fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates emerge as noblemen who have gone astray.Mike Leigh, Leigh, Mike"True anarchists" ''The Guardian'', 4 November 2007, accessed 6 November 2007 Sullivan, six years Gilbert's junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies that could convey both humour and pathos. Their operas have enj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utopia, Limited
''Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress'', is a Savoy opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was the second-to-last of Gilbert and Sullivan's fourteen collaborations, premiering on 7 October 1893 for a run of 245 performances. It did not achieve the success of most of their earlier productions. Gilbert's libretto satirises limited liability companies, and particularly the idea that a bankrupt company could leave creditors unpaid without any liability on the part of its owners. It also lampoons the Joint Stock Company Act by imagining the absurd convergence of natural persons (or sovereign nations) with legal commercial entities under the limited companies laws. In addition, it mocks the conceits of the late 19th-century British Empire and several of the nation's beloved institutions. In mocking the adoption by a "barbaric" country of the cultural values of an "advanced" nation, it takes a tilt at the cultural aspects of imperialis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thespis (opera)
''Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old'', is an operatic extravaganza that was the first collaboration between dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. No musical score of ''Thespis'' was ever published, and most of the music has been lost. Gilbert and Sullivan went on to become the most famous and successful artistic partnership in Victorian England, creating a string of enduring comic opera hits, including '' H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado''. ''Thespis'' premièred in London at the Gaiety Theatre on 26 December 1871. Like many productions at that theatre, it was written in a broad, burlesque style, considerably different from Gilbert and Sullivan's later works. It was a success, for a Christmas entertainment of the time,Walters, Michael. "Thespis: a reply", ''W. S. Gilbert Society Journal'', Vol. 4, part 3, Issue 29. Summer 2011. and closed on 8 March 1872, after a run of 63 performances. It was advertised as "An entirely original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iolanthe
''Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri'' () is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, first performed in 1882. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh of fourteen operatic collaborations by Gilbert and Sullivan. In the opera, the fairy Iolanthe has been banished from fairyland because she married a mortal; this is forbidden by fairy law. Her son, Strephon, is an Arcadia (utopia), Arcadian shepherd who wants to marry Phyllis, a Ward (law), Ward of Court of Chancery, Chancery. All the members of the House of Lords, House of Peers also want to marry Phyllis. When Phyllis sees Strephon hugging a young woman (not knowing that it is his mother – immortal fairies all appear young), she assumes the worst and sets off a climactic confrontation between the peers and the fairies. The opera satire, satirises many aspects of British government, law and society. The confrontation between the fairies and the peers is a version of one of Gilbert's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Gilbert And Sullivan")
