Half a fairy

June 10, 9:43 AMSF Classical Music ExaminerScott Foglesong

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On the evening of Saturday, November 25, 1882 Arthur Sullivan took his bows with William Gilbert for another great success in the pair's series of operettas: Iolanthe had come into being.

W.S. Gilbert's sketch for the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe

And yet the composer was not a particularly happy man. His diary entry for that day reads:

At home all day--L.W. to tea. Received letter from E.A. Hall saying he was ruined and my money (about £7,000) lost, just before starting for the theater--Dined with Smythe at home. 1st Performance of "Iolanthe" at the Savoy Theater. House crammed, awfully nervous, more so than usual on going into the Orchestra--tremendous reception--1st Act went splendidly--the 2nd dragged & I was afraid it must be compressed--however it finished well & Gilbert & myself were called & heartily cheered. Very low afterwards--came home.

That "very low" remark referred to more than just the loss of such a substantial amount of money. Arthur Sullivan wanted out of his partnership with W.S. Gilbert, and with his sudden financial reversal, he realized that he was now obliged to write more of the light operas for which the pair was now famous -- H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and Patience had all been tremendous successes, making both men (and their producer, Richard d'Oyly Carte) quite wealthy indeed.

For Sullivan, wealth had become a near-requirement for a lavish lifestyle that included a strong penchant for gambling. So he was a man conflicted by what he saw as opposing forces--his financial success with Gilbert, and his desire to fulfill his role as England's most promising native composer of concert music and opera.

Sir Arthur Sullivan

Without question Arthur Sullivan had been groomed for the role of Great English Composer. Growing up in a Britain obsessed with Felix Mendelssohn, Sullivan had been sent off to Mendelssohn's own Leipzig Conservatory, where he studied with great musicians on the order of Ignaz Moscheles and Ferdinand David (the recipient of Mendelssohn's violin concerto.) Upon his return to England, Sullivan had the coveted Leipzig stamp of approval and some very impressive early compositions to his credit. It was just a matter of time, the musical intelligentsia figured, before Arthur Sullivan lifted English music out of its doldrums and founded a truly viable national school of composition.

And he might have done so, but instead he found commercial -- and a very special artistic -- success with William Schwenck Gilbert, an educated writer of amusing verse and light theater pieces. Their first show (Thespis) has been lost, but with their second collaboration, the one-act Trial by Jury, they hit upon a recipe that was to serve them beautifully for a long time to come: political satire wrapped up in topsy-turvy farce, all set to accessible music that owed more to Rossini than to current trends in operatic writing à la Wagner or Verdi. Between Gilbert's scintillating libretti and the bathtup appeal of Sullivan's catchy tunes and rousing choruses, they shot to public acclaim and riches.

But Arthur never quite gave up on his ideal to be a major force in oratorio, opera, symphony, and concert music. His posthumous fame as the 'S' of G&S has overshadowed his many musical accomplishments -- from conducting the Leeds Festival for years, to the opera Ivanhoe, to the comic opera The Rose of Persia, to his choral works The Golden Legend and The Martyr of Antioch. Those compositions have become rare visitors to the concert hall, even rarer to the recording studio; sometimes it seems that Sullivan's entire musical legacy apart from the G&S operas is Onward, Christian Soldiers, and that Victorian perennial parlor song The Lost Chord.

Generally speaking, the English critical establishment considered Sullivan to have prostituted his talents, an opinion which Sullivan shared at least to some extent. Certainly for the first half of the 20th century Sullivan's non-G&S music fell into obscurity. After WWII that situation began to change, as Arthur Jacobs tells us in his Grove's article:

Since the 1950s, however, when the label ‘Victorian’ had ceased to be derisive in musical and general contexts, a steady if unsensational rehabilitation has been in progress. The acquisition (and later amplification) by the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, of a magnificent Gilbert and Sullivan collection gave new scope for research. From the 1970s, the composer's diaries became publicly accessible, in part at that library, but mainly at Yale University. A major defence of Sullivan's art was raised in various writings by the British (American-resident) scholar Nicholas Temperley, in whose general survey (D1981) of British music between 1800 and 1914 The Lost Chord is described as ‘Sullivan's maligned masterpiece’.

Still, when all is said and done, Sullivan lives on via Mikado and Yeomen of the Guard and H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance and Princess Ida and Ruddigore and The Gondoliers and all the other G&S shows. This is not a bad thing. The Savoy operas are delectable, well-crafted jewels that fully deserve the popularity they have enjoyed for more than a century. Perhaps Sullivan's hapless business manager E.A. Hall did posterity a service by ensuring that Arthur would stick with Gilbert to write shows after Iolanthe.

Iolanthe rates as one of the very best of the G&S shows; certainly it contains some of Sullivan's strongest musical settings. The plot is witty and appropriately absurd: Strephon, son of fairy Iolanthe and the very mortal Lord Chancellor, is half-fairy only -- i.e., fairy only down to the waist, with human legs. (The various half-fairy jokes add a certain frisson to modern productions, especially here in San Francisco.) Strephon is in love with Phyllis, the lovely (of course) ward of Chancery. The plot machinations get Strephon into Parliament (as one might expect) allowing for any amount of politically-tinged humor. Eventually it all works out, of course, with Strephon and Phyllis happily married and fairies freely afoot in Parliament.

The Lord Chancellor is one of the great comic G&S roles, typically played by the same actors who specialize in parts such as Ko-Ko (Mikado) or King Gama (Princess Ida.) Iolanthe, Phyllis, and the fairies are all appropriately light and girlish, while the House of Peers provides a fine venue for the male chorus and numerous comic roles.

The score contains gem after jewel after treasure. I've even been known to use musical numbers such as "None Shall Part Us" in my Schenkerian analysis classes to illustrate basic concepts using clearly-written, well-crafted music. The choral numbers feature absolutely first-rate part writing, and the orchestration is worth studying for effective use of a limited number of instruments. The "nightmare song" (When you're lying awake with a dismal headache...) qualifies near or at the top of the patter song roll of honor; there is nothing more wondrously British than "When Britain Ruled the Waves" despite its tongue-in-cheek text; among comic  songs, "When I Said to Myself, Said I" never fails to delight. All in all, "Iolanthe" is a score that skips, flits, and flutters from strength to strength, consistent and confident throughout.

We have an Iolanthe coming up in San Francisco, but not in one of the usual locations -- i.e., Lamplighters or such. A semi-staged version of the show is coming to the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by George Manahan of the New York City Opera.

You have four opportunities to hear Iolanthe, all at Davies:

• Thursday, June 18 at 8:00 PM
• Friday, June 19 at 8:00 PM
• Saturday, June 20 at 8:00 PM
• Sunday, June 21 at 2:00 PM

Here's the SFS website page that will give you all the skinny on this delightful event.

I should mention that this is one of "my" weeks at the SFS, in that I'm delivering the pre-concert lectures one hour prior to each concert, bringing my 2008-2009 lecture season to a most enjoyable close.

You might want to take a look at several web resources for G&S-related stuff.

• The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive provides almost endless goodies for afficionados, including info on recordings both old and new.
• The Wikipedia entry for Sullivan contains links to very early G&S-related recordings, including Sullivan speaking and an 1888 performance of The Lost Chord.