Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore Coatbridge High School 1968

I often state that my classical music interest began when I was a ‘Pirate’ in the school production of The Pirates of Penzance in 1971. However, I can push this back at least three years. It was the invariable custom at Coatbridge High School to produce a Savoy Opera shortly before breaking-up for the summer recess. The tradition went back to the 1920s. In later years, the school abandoned this practice in favour of a ‘school concert’ which no doubt reflected the politically-driven aspirations of a ‘non-elitist’ head-teacher. (As if G&S could be regarded as elitist). How much verbal banter and badinage have I had from more ‘sophisticated’ friends who, in their superior wisdom, eschewed this enchanting form of entertainment)?

In my first year at school, 1967/68 the opera chosen was Ruddigore. Acting in the operas was only open to 4^th formers upwards, so I was relegated to the audience. I remember getting tickets from the music department and going along to one of the week-long performances with my parents. I think they were happy to encourage their 12 year old son in anything that was not The Beatles or whatever pop and rock group was dominating the airwaves at that time.  Ruddigoreit was. I can still remember waiting for the opera to start. My father had explained that there would be an overture before the curtains opened- operatic practice and etiquette were closed books to me.  Sure enough, the conductor, Mr Radcliffe, who was head of music, arrived on the podium, with a discreet lamp for reading the score. The overture started: it was the very first time I had heard a ‘live’ orchestra.’ Then the curtains of the purpose built school theatre, which also doubled up as the assembly room, swung open. 

Some 46 years on I can still recall being bowled over by the painted scene of the Cornish fishing village of Rederring with the girls tripping in singing ‘Fair is Rose as bright May-day’. If I am honest I cannot now recall what I felt about the music. It was so different to my usual diet of tunes heard on Radio Luxembourg, Radio One and the lately defunct Radio Scotland and Caroline ‘pirates’. I guess that Tony Blackburn and Kenny Everett were my progenitors of musical taste. At home, the only classical music I had heard were some piano pieces, including Liebesträume, the Revolutionary Study and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring played by the pianist Ronald Smith and excerpts from Messiahas performed by the Huddersfield Choral Society under Sir Malcolm Sargent. My father had a cousin, apparently, who had sung in that legendary recording. Then there was an LP of folksongs sung by Kathleen Ferrier which I roundly detested.  More mature years have allowed me to re-evaluate this beautiful disc.

It was in the second act that I really became awake to the nature of G&S and amateur dramatics. This is set in the Picture Gallery of Castle Ruddigore. As all good Savoyards will know the ancestral pictures come to life to object to Robin Oakapple/Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd’s reticence in carrying out his bad deeds.  I think I was as scared as a twelve years old boy would be prepared to admit. Even now, as I think back, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I have come to consider that the song ‘When the Night Wind Howls/In the Chimney Cowls’ is one of the very best things to issue from the G&S. Then, it was just scarily realistic. For the first time in my life, I was truly wrapped up in a theatre performance: I guess I really believed that I was present in Castle Ruddigore.

I also recall being distressed by Mad Margaret: even now I think that she is one of the most powerful and disturbing characters in any of the Savoy Operas.

I regard Ruddigore as being one of my favourite Gilbert & Sullivan opera in spite of the fact that it is not usually regarded with as much esteem as The Mikado or The Gondoliers. The music is typically charming, and in the ghost scene, full of drama. The plot may have been criticised, but I find it a pleasant blend of ‘Merrie England’ and Gothic Horror.

The following year Coatbridge High School performed The Gondoliers and the year after Princess Ida. It was at this point that I resolved that I wanted to be a Pirate. 

p.s. The illustration is of the edition of the score that was in the school music library.  They bring back many happy memories. 

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Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance: A Review of the First Performance at Paignton

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of reviews of the premiere of Gilbert & Sullivan classic opera The Pirates of Penzance along with a brief overview of the reasons why the performance took place in Paignton. I did not include this review from The Glasgow Herald. I do not believe that the reviewer actually witnessed the performance. However it is worth quoting for completeness. I include a picture of the vessel which brought the score from New York.

Yesterday afternoon [1] Messrs. Sullivan and Gilbert’s new extravaganza The Pirates of Penzancewas announced to be performed for the first time on any stage at the theatre of the little town of Paignton, in Devonshire. The representation was, of course, a purely formal one, and was in compliance solely with our curious copyright law, which declares that, to secure the various rights attending to it, a work by English subjects must be first performed in England.

Therefore one of Mr. D’Oyley Carte’s [2] travelling companies was ordered to come across from Torquay, and, although the score was only expected by the Bothnia from New York yesterday, the provisions of the law will have been duly complied with. The new piece, which will not succeed H.M.S. Pinafore in this country till Easter, is a burlesque upon the sensational stories and the sensational melodramas of the present day. The bold pirate is represented as a very effeminate individual, who woos the daughter of a Major-General — a part, by the way, destined to be played here by Mr. George Grossmith. A policeman, a former nurse of the pirate, and two or three subordinate buccaneers also figure in the dramatis personae. The piece will be produced next Saturday [3] at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York — Mr. Arthur Sullivan conducting.

Glasgow Herald January 2 1880 From our London Correspondent, London, Wednesday 31 December 2012 (with minor edits)

Notes

[1] Tuesday 30^thDecember 1879

[2] This is a spelt wrongly: it should read Mr.[Richard] D’Oyly Carte.

[3] It was in fact first heard at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on the evening of Wednesday 31 December.

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Gilbert & Sullivan: The First Performance of The Pirates of Penzance at Paignton in 1879.

Forty years ago, I had just finished ‘starring’ as a ‘pirate’ in the Coatbridge High School performance of The Pirates of Penzance. It is an experience that remains remarkably fresh in my mind. Nowadays, alas, I only manage to keep in touch with a couple of other ‘pirates’, one of General Stanley’s ravishing daughters and the Major General himself. It is a connection that I treasure.

However, looking back on those days, I have come to realise that one of the ‘spin offs’ from singing in the Pirates ( and the following two years so my activity in the chorus line of Iolanthe and The Mikado) was that you learnt a lot about G&S in particular and music in general. For example, a friend of mine (also a pirate) announced that he was off home to hear a Bach organ recital including the Prelude and Fugue in D minor (Dorian). At that time, I wondered what a ‘fugue’ was and mused over the word ‘Dorian.’ Not wishing to seem stupid, I grunted and then looked the terms up in my father’s Encyclopaedia Britannica. There was no Internet in those days.  Another thing I learnt was that The Pirates of Penzance had three ‘premieres’ one in New York, one in London , but before these two there was a single performance in Paignton.  Now to G&S aficionados this is common knowledge. However, I had recently been to that town and had walked past the building where The Bijou Theatre (now demolished) was situated. Therefore, the penny, metaphorically, dropped.

Just in case readers are not sure of this ‘historical drama’ I will quote a short extract from the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive which explains more succinctly that I can why the opera was first heard in that lovely sea-side town:-

‘After the sensational success of H.M.S. Pinafore, many American performing companies presented unauthorized versions of that opera. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte decided to prevent that from happening again by presenting official versions of their next opera, The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Dutysimultaneously in England and America. The opera premiered on December 31, 1879 at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New York with Sullivan conducting, but a single performance had been given on the previous day at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, England, to secure the British copyright. Finally, the opera opened on April 3, 1880, at the Opéra Comique in London, where it ran for 363 performances, having already been playing successfully for over three months in New York.’

I recently came across a number of reviews of the Paignton performance in an old copy of the The Gilbert & Sullivan Society Journal (Autumn 1979: Volume X No.17).  I will quote a couple here and the remainder in a subsequent post.

“Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s New Opera”

Our Torquay correspondent telegraphs: A new opera in two acts by Messrs. A. Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert entitled The Pirates of Penzance, or Love and Duty, was produced yesterday afternoon in the presence of a most aristocratic audience at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, one of the prettiest bijou theatres in the country, by Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s company under the joint management of Mr. Ralph Horner and Mr. Herbert Brooke…[an account of the story followed]…Taken as a whole, the representation was a great success. The audience showed their appreciation not only by recalling the performers at the end of each act, but also demanding encores of several of the songs. Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 31^st Decemeber 1879.

The reviewer at the Troubadour wrote:-

The Pirates of Penzance, Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s new comic opera, has seen the light of the English stage for the first time, at Paignton, of all places in the world. The bearings of that illustrious town our readers must discover for themselves. The reason for the extra-ordinary choice is simple enough. The first performance of the work at New York was to take place last Tuesday, and in order to secure English Rights the production in this country had to be simultaneous or previous. Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s company happened to be at Torquay and the neighbouring (?) Paignton was chosen as the scene of the important event alluded to. The performance accordingly came off before a small but select audience, amongst whom the imaginative reader may include the Mayor and grandees of Paignton.

The plot of the new opera hinges on a pun, a young man having, by his father’s misinterpreted will, been apprenticed to a pirate instead of a pilot. The hero’s adventures amongst the pirates and his amorous entanglement with his mature nurse (a pendant to Little Buttercup), whom he does not wish to marry, are the chief components of the plot. Of the merits of the piece, it would be premature to speak. Suffice it to say that the amateurs and critics of Paignton were highly pleased, and from their enlightened verdict few London audiences will venture to differ.

Troubadour 10^th January 1880.

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Thirty Five Years of Gilbert & Sullivan: Henry A. Lytton.

I came across this short essay by the D’Oly Carte singer and actor Henry A. Lytton (1865-1936). It had been published in October 1925 under editorship of Percy Pitt [1].  It is a good personal insight into life with D’Oly Carte and also his relationship with W.S.  Gilbert. I have included a few footnotes and have made some slight edits to the text.

Thirty Five years is a long time to have played the same parts, and I am sometimes asked whether I am not tired of them? Probably I should be if they belonged to anything else except the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. But I never tire of these. They are so perfect from every point of view; they are such a wonderful blend of everything that should be there, that they seem to have eternal freshness and the capacity to keep one's interest constantly alive.

The public takes very much the same view. One might imagine that the enthusiasm shown for these operas in years past could not be exceeded. The D' Oyly Carte Company, in its travels,

visits a particular town and breaks its previous records there; the limit appears to have been reached. Yet when the town is revisited records are broken again. So it goes on all over the country.

The older people who have been listening to the operas for thirty or forty years flock to the theatres as if taking part in a yearly ritual; the younger ones go to see if all the fuss is justified, and quickly become as enthusiastic as their elders. Many people keep a record of their attendances. Often enough, while making my way through crowds at the stage-door,

someone has shouted to me: ‘Good old Lytton! This is my fortieth time at TheMikado.’

I know a man at Liverpool who books two stalls for every performance during our season here. He invites a friend to dinner and theatre each evening.

One night, unfortunately, he found the odd man who does not like Gilbert and Sullivan. The opera was Patience, and when I came on as Bunthorne he asked what my part was. ‘That is Bunthorne, a poet,’ he was told. Then Grosvenor entered. ‘Who is he?’ was his next

question. ‘He is another poet,’ was the reply. What, two poets in one opera?’ he exclaimed. ‘I've had enough of this!’ and out he went.

Perhaps Irish audiences are the most demonstrative of all. They do not merely applaud, but shout and cheer at the top of their voices, and simply insist upon I had not been on the stage more than a few minutes before I felt glad that he encore after encore. But the enthusiasm

everywhere is tremendous. We members of the company always feel that our audiences and ourselves belong to one big family: that there is an atmosphere of friendliness in front and that even if we do make a slight slip we shall be forgiven

More than one actor has found a decided change on leaving to join another company. He misses immediately the Gilbert and Sullivan ‘goodwill’ if I may give it that name; the constantly crowded houses, and the never-failing appreciation.

I remember that when I left the company many years ago, to take part in the new production of The Earl and the Girl [2] at the Adelphi, Walter Passmore [3] said on the opening night:

‘Let me say a friendly word to you. Don't lose heart if you don't find the usual enthusiasm. You've really got to start all over again here. You won't begin with a friendly atmosphere; you'll have to manufacture it.’

I had not been on the stage more than a few minutes before I felt glad that he had spoken to me. How different from the infectious enthusiasm of a Gilbert and Sullivan audience! The piece was a big success, but I have never forgotten the chilly ordeal of the first few nights.

It is all a great tribute to the Savoy operas. The goodwill of the public has not been won without reason: only a combination of circumstances of the rarest kind could have brought it into existence. It is late in the day to heap fresh praises upon the extraordinarily perfect blend of music and libretto, but perhaps I may speak of the great personal care which Gilbert bestowed upon the production of the operas.

His knowledge of stagecraft was remarkable, and this stood him in excellent stead. He has sometimes been spoken of as a martinet. I knew him for many years, and never found him anything but a perfect. English gentleman, kindly and considerate in every action. As an example of his thoughtfulness, he always arranged, if it were humanly possible, that an actor's entrances and exits should be on the side of the stage nearest to his dressing-room.

What that means in the course of an evening only an actor knows. Yet he could be satirical to a degree when it suited him, as all the principals of the company at the time knew. I had an

experience of it during a rehearsal of Ruddigore.

My part was that of Robin Oakapple, a nephew whom his uncle tells at a certain point to leave. I wondered how I should make my exit, and, turning to Gilbert, asked him how he thought it should be done.

“Oh, exit like a nephew," he said, without a smile. I had asked a rather silly question, and Gilbert gave me what he considered a suitable reply.

The late George Grossmith [4] once suggested to him that if certain ‘business’ were introduced it would make the audience laugh.

“So it would if you sat down on a pork pie," was the dry reply.

Gilbert knew exactly what he wanted, and insisted upon having it. The operas are still presented as he directed, and so they will continue to be.

Musical Masterpieces, October 1925

Footnotes

[1] Percy Pitt (1870-1932) English organist, composer and conductor.  From 1926 to 1930 he was General Musical Director of the BBC.

[2] The Earl and the Girl is a musical comedy in two acts by Seymour Hicks, with lyrics by Percy Greenbank and music by Ivan Caryll. It was produced by William Greet and opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 10 December 1903. It transferred to the Lyric Theatre on 12 September 1904, running for a total of 371 performances. (Wikipedia accessed 17/3/12)

[3] Walter Henry Passmore (10 May 1867 – 29 August 1946) was an English singer and actor best known as the first successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. (Wikipedia accessed 17/3/12)

[4] George Grossmith (9 December 1847 – 1 March 1912) was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades. As a writer and composer, he created 18 comic operas, nearly 100 musical sketches, some 600 songs and piano pieces, three books and both serious and comic pieces for newspapers and magazines. (Wikipedia accessed 17/3/12)

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