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About Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert & Sullivan wrote comic operas during the late 19th century. Their collaboration spanned twenty-five years from 1871 to 1896, and they produced a total of fourteen comic operas.
William Schwenck Gilbert
William Schwenck Gilbert, born in London in 1836, was the son of a retired naval surgeon. Except for a kidnapping by Italian brigands in Italy at age two, and a ransomed release, he appears to have had a very normal upbringing. Beyond ordinary schooling, he took training as an artillery officer and was tutored in military science with hopes of participating in the Crimean War. Unfortunately for him, but not for us, he did not graduate until after the War was over. Gilbert subsequently joined the militia and was a member for 20 years.
After finishing his military training Gilbert worked in a government bureau job which he hated. Upon receiving a nice inheritance from an aunt, Gilbert indulged his fancy and became a barrister. Called to the bar at age 28, Gilbert's law career, with no "rich attorney's elderly, ugly daughter" to help him escape mediocrity, lasted just a few years. Gilbert had shown a proclivity for caustic wit and sarcasm from an early age and it was this talent that put him on the path to greatness. Beginning in 1861, Gilbert contributed dramatic criticism and humorous verse (unsigned) to the popular British magazine FUN. Some of his work was accompanied by cartoons and sketches which were signed "Bab." Many of the characters in the G&S operas were modelled after some of Gilbert's "Bab" characters. A collection of these Bab Ballads was later published in 1869.
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan was born in Lambeth, London, in 1842 to a very musical family. His father was a bandmaster at the Royal Military College and before age 10 Sullivan had mastered all of the wind instruments in his father's band. Sullivan composed his own anthem when he was 8 years old. At age 14 he entered, as the youngest participant, and won the competition for the first Mendelssohn Scholarship. He also won scholarships at several prominent academies and conservatories, the last of which was located in Germany where Franz List listened to Sullivan's final "thesis." Sullivan returned to England at age 20, wrote the "Tempest" and became famous.
For the next ten years Sullivan was a professor of music, a teacher, and an organist. Regarded as the leading composer of the day, Sullivan had many influential friends in every circle of society including many monarchs in Europe. In addition to composing "Onward Christian Soldiers," Sullivan also composed several major choral works, including The Light of the World, The Martyr of Antioch, The Golden Legend, and his only grand opera, Ivanhoe. The partnership of W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan began in 1871. The manager of the Gaiety Theatre asked Sullivan to compose music for a Christmas piece by Gilbert; the result was Thespis. After a respectable run for 63 performances the two went their separate ways.
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte, the manager of the Royalty Theatre in Soho, remembered the work of G&S and in 1875 he brought the two together again to provide him with a curtain raiser for Offenbach's La Perichole. They wrote the one act drama Trial by Jury, which soon became a huge success. D'Oyly Carte, an astute businessman and music-lover, was left in no doubt that the collaboration of these two men could serve to realise his own ambition, to present good English comic opera on the London stage. His first commission was The Sorceror in 1877. This was followed immediately by HMS Pinafore a year later and following its success Richard D'Oyly Carte formed Mr D'Oyly Carte's Opera Company.
Over the next couple of decades the duo wrote a succession of operas, all of which are as famous now as they were then - The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke.
You can find out more about Gilbert and Sullivan at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive or the The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.