Gilbert and Sullivan
Sir Arthur Sullivan. By Herbert Sullivan and Newman Flower. (Cassell. 21s.) Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte. By Francois Cellier and Cunningham Bridgexnan. New Edition. (Pitman. 21s.)
To write a separate book about either Gilbert or Sullivan is rather like attempting to set up an altar to Castor without Pollux. People will not think of them apart. The present generation, indeed, has singularly little use for the one without the other, and it entertains a shrewd suspicion that future generations will take a very similar view.
Mr. Herbert Sullivan ,(the composer's nephew) and Mr.• Newman Flower must, therefore, not take it amiss if their very welcome publication of a selection from Sullivan's letters and diaries is accepted rather as a contribution to the growing library of Gilbert and Sullivan literature than as a serious study of the great composer's life and work. To the latter, indeed, they can hardly lay claim, There is no attempt here to " place " Sullivan, to estimate the value of his compositions ; and there is almost nothing that throws any fresh light upon his character. Sullivan wrote a lot of letters, but he put very little of himself into them ; while -the brief. entries -in-Ins -diary. are- rather- a<-monument to his amazing energy than a mirror of his soul. In regard to the famous operas, the attitude of the authors is as detached as that of Mr. Arnold Bennett, who rather unexpectedly appears as godfather of the book. If they do make a comment, it is apt to be disconcerting, as when they say that Princess Ida failed to equal the popularity of the other works " for some reason unknown." The reason was simply that, on this occasion, Gilbert wrote the " book " in verse. He never did it again.
- The value of this book, then, is historical. For instance, we get for the first time a full and authoritative account of that fatal incident of the carpet—fatal because, though the quarrel was afterwards made up and Gilbert and. Sullivan wrote two more operas (Utopia and The Grand Duke) together, they never recovered the old magic : the carpet had broken the spell. The incident is Gilbertian in a double sense. It was Sullivan who had been the troublesome member of the trio—the doubtful starter. He was always wanting to break away from light opera and devote himself to more " serious " work, always declaring that he would never compose another bar for the Savoy. On those occasions it was not the tactful D'Oyly Carte but the irritable, caustic Gilbert who would argue with him patiently and gently, as with a child, smooth his ruffled feelings and bring him once more up to the scratch. Yet, because Carte wanted to put down a new carpet in the foyer and charge it up to the general expenses of the next production, and because Sullivan sided with him, Gilbert wrote a letter that prac- tically destroyed the partnership. He had once written to Sullivan that their work was as permanent as Westminster Abbey. Now he could see nothing but the carpet.
" Do they think me a barrel organ 1 " Sullivan once exclaimed in his agony, when asked for the completed scores of an oratorio, several anthems and ballads, and a comic opera, all within the next few months. They might have been excused if they had. For months on end he would work till five or six in the morning, producing melodies that are now immortal, three or four of them at a sitting, like rabbits from a conjurer's hat. He seldom complained ; he never minded being interrupted ; he would chat about domestic affairs to his nephew, Mr. Herbert Sullivan, without even stopping his work. No wonder they came to think of him as an inspired machine ! In one single day he re-wrote two numbers in. The Gondoliers, he composed and scored " There Lived a King," and he finished up with the world- famous " Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes " before he went to bed. The whole of Trial by Jury was done in three weeks. -When he was working like this the whole world was forgotten.
Few of these facts are new, of course. We had even heard vaguely of the infamous carpet. But the letters and diaries reprinted here do add much valuable corroborative detail, which, as Pooh-Bah would say, helps to give veri- similitude to what was often but a bald and unconvincing narrative. And Mr. William C. Smith, of the British Museum, has met a long-felt want by , contributing a really exhaustive Gilbert and Sullivan bibliography. For the full background of the story of the Savoy operas, however, we must turn to this welcome reprint of Francois Cellier's reminiscences, which he left unfinished at his death in 1913. You cannot separate the operas from the theatre. The Savoy, under D'Oyly Carte, had an atmosphere of its own. It was a wonderful theatre—the first to be lit by electric light, the first to have proper programmes (in place of handbills), the first to organize queues at the pit door, the first to sell drinkable spirits at the bar. It wore an air of victory—of assured success. The scene at a Gilbert and Sullivan first night must have been something to remember, and" it is the great merit of Cellier's unpretentious book that he enables us to reconstruct it. He has all the now familiar anecdotes : Sullivan cool and immaculate as ever (he has just been walking up and down the Embankment to calm his nerves), Gilbert cracking jokes in the wings, everyone on tenterhooks. - Then the inevitable triumph. Those were great days. Very few people knew the inner history Of them better than Francois Cellier, •
is Cellier, and that alone
would justify a new edition of his reminiscences. They have stood the test of time almost as successfully as the operas themselves. • PJARSZIELL. -.41.1.1i,1■01111
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