Editing Gilbert and Sullivan (section)

===Dodging the magic lozenge===

====''The Mikado''====
{{main|The Mikado}}
[[File:The Mikado.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Poster for ''The Mikado'']]
The most successful of the Savoy Operas was ''The Mikado'' (1885), which made fun of English bureaucracy, thinly disguised by a Japanese setting. Gilbert initially proposed a story for a new opera about a magic [[Throat lozenge|lozenge]] that would change the characters, which Sullivan found artificial and lacking in "human interest and probability", as well as being too similar to their earlier opera, ''The Sorcerer''.{{refn|Gilbert eventually found another opportunity to present his "lozenge plot" in ''[[The Mountebanks (opera)|The Mountebanks]]'', written with [[Alfred Cellier]] in 1892.<ref>Stedman, p. 284</ref>|group=n}} As dramatised in the film ''[[Topsy-Turvy]]'', the author and composer were at an impasse until 8 May 1884, when Gilbert dropped the lozenge idea and agreed to provide a libretto without any supernatural elements.{{refn|A story circulated that Gilbert's inspiration for an opera set in Japan came when a Japanese sword mounted on his study wall fell down. The incident is portrayed in the film, but it is apocryphal.<ref>Jones, Brian. "The sword that never fell", ''W. S. Gilbert Society Journal'' 1 (1), Spring 1985, pp. 22–25</ref>|group=n}}

The story focuses on a "cheap tailor", Ko-Ko, who is promoted to the position of Lord High Executioner of the town of Titipu. He loves his ward, Yum-Yum, but she loves a musician, who is really the son of the emperor of Japan (the Mikado) and who is in disguise to escape the attentions of the elderly and amorous Katisha. The Mikado has decreed that executions must resume without delay in Titipu. When news arrives that the Mikado will be visiting the town, Ko-Ko assumes that he is coming to ascertain whether Ko-Ko has carried out the executions. Too timid to execute anyone, Ko-Ko cooks up a conspiracy to misdirect the Mikado, which goes awry. Eventually, Ko-Ko must persuade Katisha to marry him to save his own life and the lives of the other conspirators.

With the opening of trade between England and Japan, Japanese imports, art and styles became fashionable, and a [[Japanese Village, Knightsbridge|Japanese village]] exhibition opened in Knightsbridge, London, making the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert said, "I cannot give you a good reason for our... piece being laid in Japan. It... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is... judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public."<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/gilbert/interviews/dlynws850121.html "Workers and Their Work: Mr. W.S. Gilbert"], ''Daily News'', 21 January 1885, reprinted at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 21 August 2012</ref>

Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert and Sullivan to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by clothing them in superficial Japanese trappings. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution."<ref>[http://pamphletpress.org/index.cfm?sec=7&story_id=69 Review of ''The Mikado''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927045525/http://pamphletpress.org/index.cfm?sec=7&story_id=69 |date=27 September 2007}}, Pamphletpress.org, accessed 27 May 2009</ref> [[G. K. Chesterton]] compared it to [[Jonathan Swift|Swift]]'s ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'': "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England till they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as Swift did... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fits the Japanese. But all the jokes in the play fit the English. ... About England Pooh-bah is something more than a satire; he is the truth."<ref>Dark and Grey, p. 101</ref> Several of the later operas are similarly set in foreign or fictional locales, including ''[[The Gondoliers]]'', ''[[Utopia, Limited]]'' and ''[[The Grand Duke]]''.<ref>Bradley (1996), pp. 878, 975 and 1087</ref>

{| style="float:right;"
|{{Listen
|filename=1914 - Edison Light Opera Company - Favorite airs from The Mikado (restored).ogg
|title="Favorite airs from ''The Mikado''"<!--This is the name the recording was released under. Please do not correct it to British spelling-->
|description=A 1914 [[Edison Records]] recording of selections from ''[[The Mikado]]''. Includes parts of the overture, "A wand'ring minstrel", "Three little maids", "Tit-willow", and the Act II finale.
}}
|}
''The Mikado'' became the partnership's longest-running hit, enjoying 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre, and surpassing the runs of ''Pinafore'' and ''Patience''. It remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera.<ref>Wilson and Lloyd, p. 37</ref> It has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.<ref>Kenrick, John. [http://www.musicals101.com/gilbert3.htm "The Gilbert & Sullivan Story: Part III], Musicals 101, 2000, accessed 20 July 2021</ref>

====''Ruddigore''====
{{main|Ruddigore}}
''Ruddigore'' (1887), a topsy-turvy take on Victorian [[melodrama]], was less successful than most of the earlier collaborations with a run of 288 performances. The original title, ''Ruddygore'', together with some of the plot devices, including the revivification of ghosts, drew negative comments from critics.<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/ruddigore/html/appeal.html See the ''Pall Mall Gazette's'' satire of ''Ruddygore''].</ref>{{refn|Gilbert's response to being told that the two spellings meant the same thing was: "Then I suppose you'll take it that if I say 'I admire your ruddy countenance', I mean 'I like your bloody cheek'."<ref>Bradley (1996), p. 656</ref>|group= n}} Gilbert and Sullivan respelled the title and made a number of changes and cuts.<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/ruddigore/ruddygore.pdf "Ruddigore"], The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 20 July 2021</ref> Nevertheless, the piece was profitable,<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/ruddigore/html/intro.html Information from the book ''Tit-Willow or Notes and Jottings on Gilbert and Sullivan Operas''] by Guy H. and Claude A. Walmisley (Privately Printed, Undated, early 20th century)</ref> and the reviews were not all bad. For instance, ''[[The Illustrated London News]]'' praised the work and both Gilbert and, especially, Sullivan: "Sir Arthur Sullivan has eminently succeeded alike in the expression of refined sentiment and comic humour. In the former respect, the charm of graceful melody prevails; while, in the latter, the music of the most grotesque situations is redolent of fun."<ref>Perry, Helga. [http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/ruddigore/rud5.html ''Ruddygore''], ''Illustrated London News'', 9&nbsp;January 1887, Savoyoperas.org.uk, accessed 27 May 2009</ref> Further changes were made, including a new overture, when [[Rupert D'Oyly Carte]] revived ''Ruddigore'' after the First World War, and the piece was regularly performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company thereafter.<ref>Critical apparatus in Hulme, David Russell, ed., ''Ruddigore''. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)</ref>

Some of the plot elements of ''Ruddigore'' were introduced by Gilbert in his earlier one-act opera, ''[[Ages Ago]]'' (1869), including the tale of the wicked ancestor and the device of the ghostly ancestors stepping out of their portraits.<ref>Williams, pp. 282–284</ref><ref>Crowther, Andrew. [http://gsarchive.net/gilbert/plays/ages_ago/crowther_analysis.html "''Ages Ago'' – Early Days"]; and [http://gsarchive.net/gilbert/plays/ages_ago/times1881.html "St George's Hall"], ''The Times'', 27 December 1881, via The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 3 April 2018</ref> When ''Ruddigore'' closed, no new opera was ready. Gilbert again proposed a version of the "lozenge" plot for their next opera, and Sullivan reiterated his reluctance to set it.<ref>Ainger, pp. 265 and 267</ref> While the two men worked out their artistic differences, and Sullivan finished other obligations, Carte produced revivals of such old favourites as ''[[H.M.S. Pinafore]]'', ''[[The Pirates of Penzance]]'', and ''[[The Mikado]]''.<ref>Ainger, pp. 265 – 276</ref>

====''The Yeomen of the Guard''====
{{main|The Yeomen of the Guard}}
[[Image:Denny and Bond.jpg|thumb|[[W.H. Denny]] as Wilfred and [[Jessie Bond]] as Phoebe in ''Yeomen'']]''The Yeomen of the Guard'' (1888), their only joint work with a serious ending, concerns a pair of strolling players – a jester and a singing girl – who are caught up in a risky intrigue at the [[Tower of London]] during the 16th century. The dialogue, though in prose, is quasi-[[Early Modern English]] in style, and there is no satire of British institutions. For some of the plot elements, Gilbert had reached back to his 1875 tragedy, ''[[Broken Hearts]]''. ''The Times'' praised the libretto: "It should... be acknowledged that Mr. Gilbert has earnestly endeavoured to leave familiar grooves and rise to higher things".<ref>"Savoy Theatre", ''The Times'', 4 October 1888, p. 11</ref> Although not a grand opera, the new libretto provided Sullivan with the opportunity to write his most ambitious theatre score to date. The critics, who had recently lauded the composer for his successful oratorio, ''[[The Golden Legend (cantata)|The Golden Legend]]'', considered the score to ''Yeomen'' to be Sullivan's finest, including its overture, which was written in [[sonata form]], rather than as a sequential pot-pourri of tunes from the opera, as in most of his other overtures. The ''Daily Telegraph'' said:

{{quote|The accompaniments... are delightful to hear, and especially does the treatment of the woodwind compel admiring attention. Schubert himself could hardly have handled those instruments more deftly, written for them more lovingly.... We place the songs and choruses in ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' before all his previous efforts of this particular kind. Thus the music follows the book to a higher plane, and we have a genuine English opera....<ref>Quoted in Allen 1975, p. 312</ref>}}

''Yeomen'' was a hit, running for over a year, with strong New York and touring productions. During the run, on 12 March 1889, Sullivan wrote to Gilbert,

{{quote|I have lost the liking for writing comic opera, and entertain very grave doubts as to my power of doing it... You say that in a serious opera, ''you'' must more or less sacrifice yourself. I say that this is just what I have been doing in all our joint pieces, and, what is more, must continue to do in comic opera to make it successful.<ref>Jacobs, p. 283</ref>}}

Sullivan insisted that the next opera must be a [[grand opera]]. Gilbert did not feel that he could write a grand opera libretto, but he offered a compromise that Sullivan eventually accepted. The two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan a grand opera (''[[Ivanhoe (opera)|Ivanhoe]]'') for a new theatre that Carte was constructing to present British opera. After a brief impasse over the choice of subject, Sullivan accepted an idea connected with [[Venice]] and Venetian life, as "this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music."<ref>Jacobs, p. 288</ref>

====''The Gondoliers''====
{{main|The Gondoliers}}
[[Image:Marco and Giuseppe.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Rutland Barrington]] and [[Courtice Pounds]] as Giuseppe and Marco in ''The Gondoliers'']]
''The Gondoliers'' (1889) takes place partly in Venice and partly in a fictional kingdom ruled by a pair of gondoliers who attempt to remodel the monarchy in a spirit of "republican equality."<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/gondoliers/html/index.html ''The Gondoliers'' at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive], accessed 21 July 2007</ref> Gilbert recapitulates a number of his earlier themes, including the satire of class distinctions figuring in many of his earlier librettos. The libretto also reflects Gilbert's fascination with the "Stock Company Act", highlighting the absurd convergence of natural persons and legal entities, which plays an even larger part in the next opera, ''Utopia, Limited''. Press accounts were almost entirely favourable. The ''Illustrated London News'' reported:

{{quote|...Gilbert has returned to the Gilbert of the past, and everyone is delighted. He is himself again. The Gilbert of the ''[[Bab Ballads]]'', the Gilbert of whimsical conceit, inoffensive cynicism, subtle satire, and playful paradox; the Gilbert who invented a school of his own, who in it was schoolmaster and pupil, who has never taught anybody but himself, and is never likely to have any imitator – this is the Gilbert the public want to see, and this is the Gilbert who on Saturday night was cheered till the audience was weary of cheering any more.<ref name="fvpqpk"/>}}

Sullivan's old collaborator on ''[[Cox and Box]]'' (later the editor of ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' magazine), [[Francis Burnand|F. C. Burnand]], wrote to the composer: "Magnificento!...I envy you and W.S.G. being able to place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion."<ref name="fvpqpk">Baily, p. 344</ref> The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''Patience'' and ''The Mikado''. There was a command performance of ''The Gondoliers'' for [[Queen Victoria]] and the royal family at [[Windsor Castle]] in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured. ''The Gondoliers'' was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success.<ref>Ainger, p. 303</ref>