Gilbert's "musical legend ", with score by Frederic Clay, opened at the Charing Cross Theatre on 26 May 1870. Clay had previously provided the music to Gilbert's Ages Ago, but his score for The Gentleman in Black. reportedly in an Offenbachian style, is now lost. The piece ran for 26 performances.

Gilbert's plot is a dramatic variation of the pseudo-German supernatural tale, such as Dicken's 'The Baron of Grogswig' or his own 'The Triumph of Vice'. The eponymous gentleman in black is the king of the gnomes, who has the power to transfer souls. The souls of the wicked baron and a simple peasant are transferred into each other's body for a month:

Later, it is learned that the baron and the peasant had been exchanged at the age of three weeks: the peasant really being the baron and the baron the peasant. That the baron appears twenty years older than the peasant is explained by the baron admitting he has lived a "fast life". Eventually Hans and Baron Otto revert to their original selves when the calendar reform of the sixteenth century prematurely ends their month of exchange.

George Thorne states in his autobiography, 'Jots' (pp. 43-44) that Gilbert originally offered the part of "the funereal gentleman" to him but circumstances prevented him from accepting the role.

• Text of The Gentleman in Black as a Word file [133Kb] or PDF [155Kb].
• Review from "The Morning Post", 27 May 1870
• Review from "The Daily Telegraph", 1 June 1870
• Review from "The Examiner", 4 June 1870
• Review from "The Sunday Times" 5 June 1870
• Review from "The Athenaeum", 25 June 1870
• Review from "The Era", 22 May 1870
• Various short reviews.
• Letter from Gilbert to "The Era" repudiating the charge of plagiarism.

Page modified 16 September 2020