Abstract
On 29 March 1869, Priscilla and Thomas German Reed, proprietors of the Royal Gallery of Illustration, presented on the same bill Cox and Box, a ‘triumviretta’ with words by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, and No Cards, a musical piece in one act with words by W. S. Gilbert. Sullivan had already composed a two-act comic opera titled The Contrabandista for the Reeds, and No Cards was the first of several successful pieces Gilbert was to write for the Gallery of Illustration. Although Gilbert and Sullivan never produced a joint work for them, the Reeds have rightfully been called ‘the godparents of the Savoy Operas’.1
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Notes
Augustin Filon’s The English Stage: Being an Account of the Victorian Drama (published in 1897) is an interesting review of Victorian drama from a French perspective.
Temperley, ‘The English Romantic Opera’, Victorian Studies, 9, 293–301 (March 1966); the comment on ‘Christmas card doggerel’ is from Michael Hurd’s chapter on ‘Opera 1835–1865’ in Temperley (ed.), The Athlone History of Music in Britain, and the comment on the libretto of The Sapphire Necklace is from Sullivan and Flower, Sir Arthur Sullivan.
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© 1987 Charles Hayter
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Hayter, C. (1987). Curtain-Raiser: the Theatrical Background. In: Gilbert and Sullivan. Macmillan Modern Dramatists. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18716-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18716-4_2
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