No 37 -- Summer 1991 Edited by Michael Walters
There remains a great deal to be said about the Season, and about THE GONDOLIERS in particular. Quite the most perspicacious article on the present state of G&S that I have seen, was an article in THE TIMES of 10 April 1991, by Benedict Nightingale, which I reproduce below:
In his own day W.S. Gilbert got up many noses, including the royal one. Was Victoria vaguely aware of some kinship with the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, who is as infatuated with Private Willis as she was with Gillie Brown? Probably not. But she could hardly miss such impertinences as the ending of The Pirates of Penzance, in which cowardly and inept policemen persuade the villains to lay down their arms by chanting her name at them.
When The Gondoliers was played at Windsor, Gilbert's name was omitted from the same programme on which the company wigmaker's was printed in bold type. He had to wait for his knighthood until six years after the Queen's death, a quarter of a century longer than Sullivan. That did not trouble him, since he regarded the honour as a "tinpot, twopenny–halfpenny distinction", created to slake the vanity of the political sycophants and moneyed oafs he enjoyed parodying. But it was an omen of subtler snubs to come. There are, after all, many ways of stifling a satiric librettist. One of these ways had been perfected by D'Oyly Carte well before the company's collapse in 1982: that was to institutional–ise Gilbert and Sullivan's operas as anodyne entertainments for audiences interested only in nice tunes, clever rhymes and whimsical stories. Another way has never been better illustrated than by the Gondoliers that the resuscitated D'Oyly Carte company is presenting at Sadler's Wells; that is to package the operas so gaudily that nobody can see the contents for the wrapping paper.
Joseph Papp and Wilford Leach did little for Gilbert when they transformed The Pirates into a splashy Broadway musical a decade ago, but their production was sensitivity itself compared with the vandalism at Sadler's Wells. The original Duke of Plaza Toro, for instance, is a seedy snob who has become a limited company. He organises knighthoods for dim aldermen, speaks at charity dinners for ten per cent of the take, gives credibility to shady firms by sitting on their boards, and, like many aristocrats in and after the 1890s, has gainfully sold off his daughter. Here, he is transformed into a matador given to gesticulating like a spoof traffic cop. Moreover, he is accompanied by a wife dressed as a bull and a daughter who talks like a shopgirl while singing like a diva. The satiric point disappears in meretricious ado and humourless humour. That is the evening all over. Silly, meaningless, distracting things are forever happening on Venice's papier–mch sand dunes. Suddenly a joke rat scampers across, a corgi in a kiddie car appears behind a futuristic curtain, or someone swivels the aerial over the television the gondoliers are watching, contorting the picture and their heads. Tim Hopkins, who directs, has done something quite difficult. He has found a way of escaping from traditionalism more destructive than traditionalism itself.
The Iolanthe that accompanies this attention–getting travesty to Sadler's Wells also aims to sand–blast the mustier accretions off the operatic surface. Like Jonathan Miller's Mikado, it updates the period to the Twenties, transforming the fairies into genteel flappers, and adding other details that, as it turns out, serve rather than distort the text. Poor Gilbert does not emerge unscathed (when does he ever?). The lyrics need wittier phrasing than an overloud, overfast orchestra and the performers' own limitations permit. But Andrew Wickes, who directs, is not narcissistically determined to upstage his librettist. On the whole, he trusts Gilbert. That is the real need. We remember Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, but not the tougher, more cynical play that inspired it, Gilbert's Engaged. We hum Sullivan, and perhaps know the words of the famous patter song about insomnia; but we tend to overlook one of the sharpest minds that ever turned a scurrilous line or subversive lyric. We hear, but are rarely if ever encouraged to listen.
Consider Gilbert's cast–list, packed as it is with humbugs and drones: the fake–egalitarian landlubber from a pocket borough who becomes Ruler of the Queen's Navy for political conformism; the judge who marries [sic] the rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter, only to ditch her when he has defended enough wealthy thieves to make his fortune; the Lord High Everything who traces his ancestry "to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule", yet dines with middle–class people "on reasonable terms"; the bent lawyers, the dopey peers, the sheep–like MPs. Gilbert was no radical. His biographer, Hesketh Pearson, was probably right to dub him "an anarchist disguised as a Tory". Nor was he any ferocious Juvenal or crusading Swift. Yet there seems more than mere impishness in his unending attacks on nepotism, jobbery, and incompetence, his mockery of social, moral and emotional pretension, up to and including the language of love. When the Pirate King says "compared with respectability, [our profession] is comparatively honest", he is summing up Victorian civilisation for Gilbert.
The acid is most concentrated in the rarely performed Utopia Ltd, about a state which imports "flowers of progress" from Britain in the belief that it is "the wisest country in the world", one without slums or hunger and run by an intellectual lite. This thesis is then disproved by the usual set of shysters, as well as by a Lord Chamberlain who demonstrates how to organise a Cabinet meeting with "due regard for the solemnity of the occasion". "This is in accordance with the practice at the Court of St. James?" asks the puzzled Utopian king. "Well, with the practice of St. James' Hall", replies the Englishman, who has arranged the chairs after the manner of some burlesque performers of the day, the Christy Minstrels. No wonder the old Queen and her comtemporaries were dismayed. The challenge surely facing a director today is to make us feel slightly stung ourselves; and there is, in my view, only one way of achieving that. It is to cast Eric Idle as Ko–Ko, as Miller did in his Mikado, or to get Alec McCowen to play Captain Corcoran as a socially insecure suburbanite, as happened in an 1982 Pinafore. It is, in short, to take the trickier, subtler parts from the professional singers and give them to good actors who can sing a bit.
That way, Sullivan might not resonate so fulsomely, but Gilbert's irreverence might at last come across with clarity, humour and guile. Indeed, isn't it time the National Theatre gave at least one of the operas a go? If it can cope with Loesser and Sondheim, why not that great British wit, W.S. Gilbert?
I replied to the Editor as follows:
Sir, It is unfortunate that Benedict Nightingale's perceptive and very timely article on modern productions of Gilbert and Sullivan begins with several errors and misconceptions.
The speculation that the relationship of the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe with Private Willis may in some way have been a comment on Queen Victoria's relationship with Gillie Brown, has received much publicity in recent years. However, it is no more than speculation; there is no evidence that this is what Gilbert intended.
It is an oft–repeated error (to be found in many standard books on the subject) that Gilbert's name was omitted from the programme of the Royal Command Performance of The Gondoliers at Windsor. Although Gilbert believed this to be the case, his name was, in fact, present on the programme, but omitted from the Court and Palace circulars.
It is true that Gilbert received his knighthood a quarter of a century or so later than Sullivan, but the statement is nevertheless misleading. Sullivan's knighthood was for his services to "serious" music, and had nothing whatever to do with his collaboration with Gilbert. Far from "having to wait" for his knighthood, Gilbert made theatrical history by being the first (and indeed with the notable exception of Pinero) almost the only man to receive this honour solely for writing plays.
Yours faithfully, Michael P. Walters W.S. Gilbert Society.
This was what finally appeared, on 19th April:
Sir, I found Benedict Nightingale ("Too little bold and witty are we", April 10) on modern productions of Gilbert and Sullivan, perceptive and timely. However, it is an oft–repeated error that Gilbert's name was omitted from the programme of the Royal Command Performance of The Gondoliers at Windsor. Although Gilbert believed this to be the case, his name was on the programme, but omitted from the court circular.
It is true that Gilbert received his knighthood a quarter of a century or so later than Sullivan, but Sullivan's knighthood was for his services to "serious" music, and had nothing to do with his collaborations with Gilbert. Far from "having to wait" Gilbert was the first (and indeed with the notable exception of Pinero) almost the only man to receive this honour solely for writing plays.
Yours faithfully,
Michael P. Walters, (Committee member) W.S. Gilbert Society.
[After over 30 years of writing to THE TIMES, it was the first one I'd got in. But none of my friends even noticed!]
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