(All the photos on this page are thumbnails – click on them to see larger versions.)

"Pinafore-mania"
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878 - 571) was the story of a naval captain's daughter who spurns the attentions of the First Lord of the Admiralty (England's equivalent of America's Secretary of the Navy) because she loves a common sailor. This show spoofed Britain's rigid system of social stratification, which limited each person's options in life based on the class they were born into. Pinafore also lampooned the British public's hypocritical tendency to condemn those marrying outside their class while applauding plays and novels that suggested "love levels all ranks." The satire was all the more effective because Gilbert's sets, costumes and staging were meticulous and realistic.

In "When I Was A Lad," The First Lord (assisted by "his sisters and his cousins and his aunts") explains how a man with no nautical experience could attain his lofty position --

Of legal knowledge
I acquired such a grip
That they took me
Into the partnership.
And that junior partnership, I ween,
Was the only ship
That I ever had seen.
But that kind of ship
So suited me,
That now I am the Ruler
Of the Queen's Navee!

I grew so rich
That I was sent
By a pocket borough
Into Parliament.
I always voted
At my party's call,
And I never
Thought of thinking
For myself at all.
I thought so little,
They rewarded me
By making me the Ruler
Of the Queen's Navee!

Now landsmen all,
Whoever you may be,
If you want to rise
To the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered
To an office stool,
Be careful to be guided
By this golden rule –
Stick close to your desks
And never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers
Of the Queen's Navee!

Thanks to a freak heat wave and critical disapproval of anything making fun of Britain's sacred class system, Pinafore initially did sluggish business. Then Sullivan began including medleys of the score in his popular summer symphonic concerts. Listeners were intrigued, ticket sales improved, and the show became a sensation.

Pinafore was such a hit that D'Oyly Carte's investors tried to literally steal the production from him, sending thugs to carry off the sets and costumes in the middle of a performance! But the cast and crew fought the blighters off, and the thieving investors only succeeded in denying themselves further participation in a theatrical gold mine. Carte formed an exclusive partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan, splitting all the production expenses and profits three ways. No interpolations by other composers were allowed, and all three men had joint say in casting and production.

This 1885 program cover for the Madison Square Theatre shows a lavish Victorian interior. This is where Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance premiered six years before, when the space was called The Fifth Avenue Theatre.

The new partnership faced some daunting challenges. Since international copyright laws did not yet exist, producers had no qualms about stealing material. Both Britain and the United States were inundated with unauthorized ("pirated") Pinafore productions. When Gilbert and Sullivan brought their company of Pinafore to New York, the casts of several unauthorized Pinafore's brazenly turned out to welcome them.

Although most Broadway critics acclaimed the authorized staging for being superior to all other versions, it had a relatively brief run. Seeing how "Pinafore-mania" had swept the US, D'Oyly Carte was determined to protect the American right to Gilbert and Sullivan's next work.

Conquering Pirates
A poster for the original production of The Pirates of Penzance.

D'Oyly Carte secured the first international copyright by premiering The Pirates of Penzance (1880) simultaneously in New York and Great Britain. Illegal productions still sprang up, but were fought in the courts – establishing legal precedents that protect composers and playwrights to this day. 

Pirates is the story of Fredrick, a young man who was accidentally apprenticed to a band of pirates. He falls in love with a Major General's ward and tries to atone for his past by plotting the destruction of his former comrades. When it turns out the soft-hearted pirates are really "noblemen who have gone wrong," they and a relieved Frederick marry the multitudinous wards of a rather "Modern Major General."

The success of Pirates confirmed Gilbert and Sullivan's place in popular culture. The amazing thing was that they were just getting started. They next took aim at artistic snobbery in Patience (1881 - 578), the story of a pretentious poet who dazzles every woman except the simple dairy maid he desires. The comedy centered on the school of writers and artists whose obsession with beauty had come to be known as "aestheticism." To make sure Americans would understand this essentially British phenomenon, D'Oyly Carte sent famous aesthete Oscar Wilde on a lecture tour of the U.S., keeping him one city ahead of the Patience tour. The resulting public reaction helped to make Patience a hit in the States.

In Gilbert and Sullivan's earlier operettas, many of the characters were one-dimensional comic creatures that inspire little in the way of empathy. With Patience, the authors initiated a series of works that redefined musical theatre, integrating words and music to serve plot and characterization as no one ever had before. There were any number of songs in their early works that could be exchanged from one character to another – even one show to another. From Patience onwards, the major characters are more completely realized, and the songs are almost always custom fit to each character and situation. Long before Rodgers and Hammerstein were born, Gilbert and Sullivan introduced the integrated musical. True, they billed them as "comic operas," but these shows were musicals.

How They Worked
Sullivan would begin to compose after Gilbert delivered the completed librettos. Gilbert developed his story ideas in hefty leather bound notebooks, most of which are preserved at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. These books show how Gilbert worked through plot twists and characterizations in pages of detailed notes, often writing out the plot in short story form before beginning the actual script. His dialogue and lyrics show frequent revisions.

It is no exaggeration to say that Gilbert redefined the art of stage direction for the musical theatre. He was a demanding director, and sometimes relied on sarcasm. When a hefty actress tripped and landed on her rump during a rehearsal, Gilbert bellowed, "I knew you'd make an impression on the stage one day!" In most cases, he was far more civil, and showed remarkable patience in training performers to achieve the effects he desired.

Before rehearsals, Gilbert would work out stage movements on a model stage using small blocks of wood to represent the actors, then teach this blocking to the cast. He forbade ad-libbing or the addition of any unauthorized stage business during a run. Gilbert was assisted in this by his wife Lucy, who made frequent return visits to the Savoy and gave her husband detailed reports on the performances.

For further reading on Gilbert's literary and directorial methods, see Jane W. Stedman's W.S. Gilbert: A Classic Victorian and His Theatre (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).

The Savoy Theatre
D'Oyly Carte built The Savoy Theatre in London to serve as his headquarters, moving the company there in October of 1881. The first theatre in Great Britain to use electricity (The California Theatre in San Francisco beat it out by four years), the Savoy took its name from a palace that had once stood on the same location. The theatre gave its name to the G&S works ("Savoy Operas") as well as their performers ("Savoyards"). In 1889, Carte built the Savoy Hotel adjacent to the theatre, providing first-class dining for theatre goers – a new idea in the 1880s.

The long-running Patience moved to the Savoy for its final months. Iolanthe (1882 - 398) premiered there, with its tale of a fairy queen humbling a "rather susceptible" Lord Chancellor and reforming the House of Lords. This was Gilbert's "topsy-turvy" world view at its most delightful, and the chorus of fairies caused a sensation by appearing with illuminated electric wings.

The premiere night of Iolanthe as recreated in The Gilbert and Sullivan Story, with Maurice Evans as Sullivan and Robert Morley as Gilbert.

With its focus on the British political system, Iolanthe was not as popular in the US as other G&S works, but Gilbert's comedy is so solid, his aim at human pretense so timeless, and Sullivan's music so rich and irresistible that many fans (this author included) consider Iolanthe a personal favorite.

Princess Ida (1884 - 246) spoofed a romantic poem by Tennyson which told of a medieval prince winning the hand of a princess who thinks women are superior to men. Based on one of Gilbert's early plays, it is the only G&S operetta where the dialogue is in blank verse. Although the plot pokes fun at feminism, it comes to the conclusion that true love makes men and women equals. Despite a fine score, Princess Ida was not well received and closed months ahead of schedule. In accordance with the terms of their partnership agreement, D'Oyly Carte asked G&S for a new work.

Despite the success they had enjoyed, the collaborators both had reservations about their relationship. Instead of turning out a new show, they came within inches of ending the parthership.

Next: G&S III - "My Object All Sublime"