H.M.S. Pinafore - Background

Background

In 1875, Richard D'Oyly Carte, who was then managing the Royalty Theatre for Selina Dolaro, brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to write their second show, a one-act opera entitled Trial by Jury. This proved a success, and in 1876 D'Oyly Carte assembled a group of financial backers to establish the Comedy Opera Company, which was devoted to the production and promotion of family-friendly English comic opera. With this theatre company, Carte finally had the financial resources, after many failed attempts, to produce a new full-length Gilbert and Sullivan opera. This next opera was The Sorcerer, which opened in November 1877. It too was successful, running for 178 performances. Sheet music from the show sold well, and street musicians played the melodies.

Instead of writing a piece for production by a theatre proprietor, as was usual in Victorian theatres, Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte produced the show with their own financial support. They were therefore able to choose their own cast of performers, rather than being obliged to use the actors already engaged at the theatre. They chose talented actors, most of whom were not well-known stars and did not command high fees, and to whom they could teach a more naturalistic style of performance than was commonly used at the time. They then tailored their work to the particular abilities of these performers. The skill with which Gilbert and Sullivan used their performers had an effect on the audience; as critic Herman Klein wrote: "we secretly marvelled at the naturalness and ease with which were said and done. For until then no living soul had seen upon the stage such weird, eccentric, yet intensely human beings .... conjured into existence a hitherto unknown comic world of sheer delight."

The success of The Sorcerer paved the way for another collaboration by Gilbert and Sullivan. Carte agreed on terms for a new opera with the Comedy Opera Company, and Gilbert began work on H.M.S. Pinafore before the end of 1877. Gilbert's father had been a naval surgeon, and the nautical theme of the opera appealed to him. He drew on several of his earlier "Bab Ballad" poems (many of which also have nautical themes), including "Captain Reece" (1868) and "General John" (1867). Some of the characters also have prototypes in the ballads: Dick Deadeye is based on a character in "Woman's Gratitude" (1869); an early version of Ralph Rackstraw can be seen in "Joe Go-Lightly" (1867), with its sailor madly in love with the daughter of someone who far outranks him; and Little Buttercup is taken almost wholesale from "The Bumboat Woman's Story" (1870). On 27 December 1877, while Sullivan was on holiday on the French Riviera, Gilbert sent him a plot sketch accompanied by the following note:

I have very little doubt whatever but that you will be pleased with it. ... there is a good deal of fun in it which I haven't set down on paper. Among other things a song (a kind of 'Judge's Song') for the First Lord – tracing his career as office-boy ... clerk, traveller, junior partner and First Lord of Britain's Navy .... Of course there will be no personality in this – the fact that the First Lord in the Opera is a Radical of the most pronounced type will do away with any suspicion that W. H. Smith is intended.

Despite Gilbert's disclaimer, audiences, critics and even the Prime Minister identified Sir Joseph Porter with W. H. Smith (a politician who had recently been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty despite having neither military nor nautical experience). Sullivan was delighted with the sketch, and Gilbert read a first draft of the plot to Carte in mid-January.

Following the example of his mentor, T. W. Robertson, Gilbert strove to ensure that the costumes and sets were as realistic as possible. When preparing the sets for H.M.S. Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan visited Portsmouth in April 1878 to inspect ships. Gilbert made sketches of H.M.S. Victory and H.M.S. St Vincent and created a model set for the carpenters to work from. This was far from standard procedure in Victorian drama, in which naturalism was still a relatively new concept, and in which most authors had very little influence on how their plays and libretti were staged. This attention to detail was typical of Gilbert's stage management and would be repeated in all of his Savoy Operas. Gilbert's focus on visual accuracy provided a "right-side-up for topsy-turvydom", that is, a realistic point of reference that serves to heighten the whimsicality and absurdity of the situations. Sullivan was "in the full swing" of work on the piece by the middle of April 1878. The bright and cheerful music of Pinafore was composed during a time when Sullivan suffered from excruciating pain from a kidney stone. The cast began music rehearsals on 24 April, and at the beginning of May 1878, the two collaborators worked closely together at Sullivan's flat to finalise the piece.

In Pinafore, Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte used several of the principal cast members that they had assembled for The Sorcerer. As Gilbert had suggested to Sullivan in December 1877, "Mrs. Cripps will be a capital part for Everard .... Barrington will be a capital captain, and Grossmith a first-rate First Lord." However, Mrs. Howard Paul, who had played Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer, was declining vocally. She was under contract to play the role of Cousin Hebe in Pinafore. Gilbert made an effort to write an amusing part for her despite Sullivan's reluctance to use her, but by mid-May 1878, both Gilbert and Sullivan wanted her out of the cast; unhappy with the role, she left. With only a week to go before opening night, Carte hired concert singer Jessie Bond to play Cousin Hebe. Since Bond had little experience as an actress, Gilbert and Sullivan cut the dialogue out of the role, except for a few lines in the last scene, which they turned into recitative. Other new cast members were Emma Howson and George Power in the romantic roles, who were improvements on the romantic soprano and tenor in The Sorcerer.

Gilbert acted as stage director for his own plays and operas. He sought realism in acting, just as he strove for realistic visual elements. He deprecated self-conscious interaction with the audience and insisted on a style of portrayal in which the characters were never aware of their own absurdity but were coherent internal wholes. Sullivan conducted the music rehearsals. As was to be his usual practice in his later operas, Sullivan left the overture for the last moment, sketching it out and entrusting it to the company's music director, in this case Alfred Cellier, to complete. Pinafore opened on 25 May 1878 at the Opera Comique.