Pinafore was a sensation when introduced in London in 1878, enjoying seven hundred consecutive performances. But it proved even more sensational in the United States, following its première there at the Boston Museum on November 25 of the same year. Ninety different companies presented this comic opera throughout the country in that first season, with five different companies operating simultaneously in New York. Pinafore was given by colored groups, children’s groups, and religious groups. It was widely parodied. Some of its catch phrases (“What never? No never!” and “For he himself has said it”) entered American argot.
As a bountiful source of popular melodies, the score of Pinafore is second only in importance to that of The Mikado. Here are the main ones: the opening chorus of the sailors, “We Sail the Ocean Blue”; Buttercup’s forthright self-introduction, “I’m Called Little Buttercup”; Ralph’s madrigal, “The Nightingale,” and ballad, “A Maiden Fair to See”; the Captain’s colloquy with his crew, “I Am the Captain of the Pinafore”; Josephine’s poignant ballad, “Sorry Her Lot”; Sir Joseph’s exchange with his sisters, cousins, and aunts, “I am the Monarch of the Sea,” and his autobiographical, “When I Was a Lad”; the Captain’s sad reflection, “Fair Moon to Thee I Sing”; the choral episode, “Carefully on Tip-Toe Stealing” followed by the tongue-in-the-cheek paean to England and Englishmen, “He Is an Englishman.”
The Pirates of Penzance was the only Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera to receive its world première outside England. This took place in New York at the Fifth Avenue Theater in 1879. (There was a single hastily prepared performance in Paignton, England, on December 30, 1879 but this is not regarded as an official première.) The reason why The Pirates was introduced in New York was due to the presence there of its authors. Numerous pirated versions of Pinafore were then being given throughout the United States in about a hundred theaters, and Gilbert and Sullivan decided to come to America for the dual purpose of exploring the conditions under which they might protect their copyright and to offer an authorized version of their opera. In coming to the United States, they brought with them the manuscript of their new work, The Pirates of Penzance, and arranged to have its première take place in New York.
The Pirates of Penzance is a blood relative of Pinafore. Where Pinafore made fun of the British Navy, The Pirates concentrates on the British Army and constabulary. In Pinafore two babies are mixed up in the cradle for a confusion of their identities; in The Pirates it is the future professions of babies which are confounded in the cradle. In Pinafore the secret is divulged by Buttercup, in The Pirates by Ruth. Pinafore boasts a female chorus of cousins, sisters and aunts while The Pirates has a female chorus made up of the Major General’s daughters.
The hero is young Frederic, apprenticed to a band of pirates by his nurse Ruth, who mistakes the word “pilot” for “pirate.” Frederic falls in love with Mabel, one of the many daughters of Major General Stanley and looks forward eagerly to his freedom from his apprenticeship to the pirate band, which arrives on his twenty-first birthday. But Frederic discovers that since he was born on leap year the year of his freedom—his twenty-first birthday—is many, many years off; that by the calendar he is still only a little boy of five. As a pirate he must join his confederates in exterminating Mabel’s father and the constables attending him. But all turns out happily when the pirates actually prove to be ex-noblemen, and are thus found highly acceptable as husbands for the daughters of Major General Stanley. The Major General is also in favor of the union of Mabel and Frederic.
The following are the leading musical selections: the opening chorus of the pirates, “Pour, Oh Pour, the Pirate Sherry”; the Pirate king’s hymn to his profession, “For I am a Pirate King”; the chorus of the Major General’s daughters, “Climbing Over Rocky Mountain”; Frederic’s plaintive plea for a lover, “Oh, Is There Not One Maiden Breast”; the Major General’s autobiographical patter song, “I Am the Very Pattern of a Modern Major General”; the rousing chorus of the constabulary, “When the Foeman Bares His Steel”; the tripping trio of Ruth, Fred and the Pirate King on discovering Fred is only a child of five, “A Paradox, a Most Ingenious Paradox”; Mabel’s haunting ballad, “Oh, Leave Me Not to Pine”; the Police Sergeant’s commentary on his profession, “When a Felon’s Not Engaged in His Employment”; the Pirates’ chorus, “Come Friends Who Plough the Sea,” a melody expropriated by an American, Theodore Morse, for the lyric “Hail, Hail the Gang’s All Here”; and the General’s idyllic ballad, “Sighing Softly To the River.”
Ruddigore, a travesty on melodrama, was first performed on January 22, 1887. Because the Murgatroyd family has persecuted witches, an evil spirit had fated it to commit a crime a day. Ruthven Murgatroyd tries to flee from this curse by assuming the identity of simple Robin Oakapple. He meets and falls in love with Rose who is being sought after by Ruthven’s foster brother, Richard. Since Ruthven as Robin Oakapple has the upper hand with Rose, Richard avenges himself by revealing the fact that his brother is really a member of the Murgatroyd family and like all of them is the victim of the ancient family curse. Back in his ancestral home, Ruthven must fulfil his quota of crimes, a job he bungles so badly that his ancestors suddenly come alive out of the picture frames on the wall, to condemn him. But after numerous convolutions of typically Gilbertian logic and reasoning, the curse is broken and Ruthven can live happily with his beloved Rose.
From Ruddigore come the following familiar sections: the opening chorus of the bridesmaids, “Fair Is Rose as the Bright May Day”; Hannah’s legend, “Sir Rupert Murgatroyd”; Rose’s ballad, “If Somebody There Chanced to Be”; the extended duet of Robin and Rose, “I Know a Youth Who Loves a Little Maid”; Richard’s ballad, “I Shipped, D’ye See, in a Revenue Sloop”; Robin’s song, “My Boy You May Take it From Me”; the chorus of the bridesmaids, “Hail the Bride of Seventeen Summers” followed by Rose’s madrigal, “Where the Buds Are Blossoming”; the duet of Robin and Adam, “I Once Was As Meek as a New Born Lamb”; Rose’s ballad, “In Bygone Days”; the chorus of the family portraits, “Painted Emblems of a Race”; Sir Roderic’s patter song, “When the Night Wind Howls”; and Hannah’s ballad, “There Grew a Little Flower.”
The Sorcerer, the first successful Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, was introduced in 1877. Alexis, in love with Aline, wishes to spread around the blessings of love. For this purpose he enlists the cooperation of John Wellington Wells, the creator of a love brew. In an effort to perpetuate Aline’s love for him, Alexis has her drink this potion, only to discover that his beloved has fallen for the vicar, Dr. Daly, he being the first man she sees after drinking the draught. Since Alexis is not the only one to suffer from this now-general epidemic of loving, a serious effort must be made to offset the effects of this magic: a human sacrifice. Naturally that sacrifice becomes none other than John Wellington Wells who is driven to self immolation before things can once again be set normal.
The music of The Sorcerer is not so well known as that of the other famous comic operas, but it does contain several Gilbert and Sullivan delights. Among them are: the song with which Wells introduces himself and his black art, “Oh! My Name Is John Wellington Wells,” the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan patter songs; the vicar’s haunting ballad, “Time Was When Love and I Were Well Acquainted”; and the romantic duet of Aline and Alexis, “It Is Not Love.”