Gilbert and Sullivan- A Dual Biography

The Complete Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan, librettist and composer, were classically Victorian gentlemen whose comic operas for the Savoy Theater under impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte have endured down to the present day despite the disappearance of the British imperial world which they lampooned....	A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan Written more than a century ago and initially regarded even by their creators as nothing more than light entertainment, the fourteen operas of Gilbert & Sullivan emerged over the course of the twentieth century as the world's most popular body of musical-theater works, ranking se...	Topsy-Turvy At first glance, a musical period comedy-drama about Gilbert and Sullivan seems an odd fit for British filmmaker Mike Leigh, who made his name with searing, intense contemporary dramas such as Secrets and Lies and Career Girls. What could the Victorian world of two composers (of ...	Oh Joy! Oh Rapture!: The Enduring Phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan In Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! expert and enthusiast Ian Bradley explores the world of Gilbert and Sullivan over the last four and a half decades, looking at the way this "phenomenon" is passed from generation to generation. Taking as his starting point the expiry of copyright on the ope...	Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Eric Idle, Lesley Garrett, Richard Van Allan, Felicity Palmer, Richard Angas, Bonaventura Bottone, Susan Bullock, English National Opera Jonathan Miller set his well-known production of The Mikado, staged for the English National Opera, in a British seaside resort of the 1920s. The result, complete with a chorus of gentlemen of Japan as cartoon-like British peers, emphatically underscores the Englishness of th...
Gilbert & Sullivan - The Pirates of Penzance / Kline, Ronstadt, Smith, Routledge, Delacorte Theater (Broadway Theatre Archive) This Pirates of Penzance is primarily a historical document, part of the Broadway Theater Archive television series. It presents, with some inevitable, tiny technical shortcomings, a live 1980 performance in Central Park, not the 1983 movie of the same name that also starred Li...	Gilbert & Sullivan - Master Collection (Opera World) The Master Collection includes 10 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas produced for British television. The Opera World series (1982) is the only comprehensive Gilbert and Sullivan series on video. It comprises 12 G&S works (if you cheat and count Cox and Box, written by Sullivan witho...	Gilbert & Sullivan - H.M.S. Pinafore / Trial By Jury - David Hobson, Anthony Warlow, Colette Mann, Tiffany Speight, John Bolton Wood, Richard Alexander, Opera Australia, State Theatre, The Arts Centre Melbourne For most of the 20th century, the D'Oyly Carte Opera performed HMS Pinafore with a companion piece, Trial by Jury. Opera Australia re-unites these long-standing stage-mates with two fresh productions and an inspired cast. While HMS Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's first full-...	Nothing Whatever to Grumble At 'Nothing Whatever To Grumble At'? . well, hardly ever! There are one or two grumbles in John's story, it's true, but the few you'll find pale into insignificance against his joy of performing in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. But this book begins long before John's twenty-eight...	The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century Anyone who has ever gamely tried and failed to absorb, enjoy, and--especially--understand the complex works of Schoenberg, Mahler, Strauss, or even Philip Glass will allow themselves a wry smile reading New Yorker music critic Alex Ross's outstanding The Rest Is Noise. Not only d...

One World: Two Emperors
As a student of the operatic stage, and currently in my Masters trainging, I have come to further appreciate reading for enjoyment and extended learning. Now in my mid-twenties, I have appeared in four (with a fifth waiting in the wings) Gilbert and Sullivan productions. Until I bought this book I had only a limited, but interesting knowledge of the calamity these men created. I appreciated the thought and careful attention to detail that was put in this book. Two biographies in one kept it interesting and full of suspense until the very end, while not tiring or exhausting the reader with useless detail. Not only did I come to know more about my favorite of the opera repertoire, but I got a chance to spend half a decade in Victorian England (leaving me to wonder why we do not still write letters as a means of correspondence). The critical account that Mr. Ainger produces, not only provides us with the history behind the operas, but even the detailed happenings of the actors, authors, and composers individual lives. As an actor, I was able to transfer myself, almost placing myself, ex-oficio in the triumvirate of Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte. I would have never imagined Sir Arthur Sullivan hob-knobbing with not only Englands elite, but the likes of Gioacchino Rossini, Clara Schumann and Charles Dickens. My only reservation with this book was that it tended to be slightly wordy in areas of very small importance, but hardly deterring from the kinship of the rest of the novel. With much more knowledge to be obtained, and plenty of studying and years of school left, I am much more appreciative of the chances I have had to follow in the creator of the Major-General's foot steps, and would wholly recommend this book, riveting to the end, to any lover of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Side-by-Side with G & S
This unusual approach to a biography works well. It gives new insights into G & S both as individuals and as a 'duo', and is obviously very well-researched. Two areas I found especially interesting were the information about their family backgrounds, and the large number of quotes from correspondance, not only between G & S as individuals, but between them and so many other people of their time. All in all, a very enjoyable read. However, I do have a problem with one particular area which I can only assume is the result of ignorance on the part of the author and/or his proof-readers. Would anyone ever think of using a lower case 'q' for Queen Victoria? All titles should be capitalized. When referring to Her Majesty's eldest son, Edward, he is called the prince of Wales when it should be the Prince of Wales: this error is repeated in the case of his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh and other people with titles. How about some characters from the G & S operas - sir Joseph Porter? captain Corcoran? the mikado of Japan? major-general Stanley?..... I'm sure the author would be upset if he saw his name printed as mr. Ainger: I certainly would be in his place! I may be nit-picking in the opinion of some people, but, as an American, I have to say: "Let's get these things right!" My hope is that they will be corrected when the book is reprinted.

"Of convincing detail full . . ."
In the preface of this dual biography of Gilbert and Sullivan, Michael Ainger draws attention to the previous book dealing with the same topic, Leslie Baily's "The Gilbert and Sullivan Book." Ainger points out that in the half century that has passed since the publication of Baily's book, great collections of Gilbert-and-Sullivaniana have become available in Britain and America, and that he has been able to incorporate their contents into this book. In the past few days I have read both books for comparison (which makes this my third time through with Baily, not much when spread over fifty years.) There can be no doubt that Mr. Ainger crams more facts into his closely set and rather gray-looking 504 pages than Baily put in his typographically more generous and colorful 475. Here is an example: Baily reproduces a newspaper engraving in which Gilbert and Sullivan are present in a courtroom as they attempt to defend their ownership of "H.M.S. Pinafore" against the claims of some disgruntled former financial backers. Standing in the dock and testifying is the great actor-manager, Sir Henry Irving--employer of novelist Bram Stoker and model for his Count Dracula. Baily does not explain what the greatest Hamlet of the Nineteenth Century had to do with "H.M.S. Pinafore." Ainger has no room for the old drawing but he does explain what Irving was saying. (It had to do with the technical meaning of the word, "run," when applied to theatrical productions. Now you know.) Or consider this: Baily often refers to the lovely, wealthy, cultivated, married American lady--irrevocably separated from her husband--with whom Sullivan had a long and intimate liaison. Ainger peers into the diaries that Sullivan kept under lock and key to speculate on whether the symbols used referred to his sexual activities with her. After reading both books together, I find myself with the impression that Ainger set out to fill in all the gaps in Baily's narrative. To a great extent, he has succeeded in doing just that. But I am not convinced that the result was worth all of his effort. From Baily's book as well as from practically everybody in the past century who has written about him, it is clear that W. S. Gilbert was often thin-skinned, irascible and pugnacious. That fact may be taken as given. I, for one, have little interest in the details of his petty quarrels, and especially not in those that never impinged on the creation or production of the Savoy operas. Ainger has written a serious and dense book for dedicated fans of Gilbert and Sullivan. He does not write of the operas, themselves, but of their texts and development--quite different things. Ainger is scholarly and he expects much from his readers. Unless you are pretty close to the stage at which you are able to quote long passages of G&S without written aid, you are going to find Ainger's accounts of dialogue changes fairly heavy going. Baily was a better writer than Ainger. He had a clear grasp of his audience (after all, he published four popular editions in just four years.) It consisted of people who enjoyed the works of G&S and had some familiarity with them: fans, not experts. Above all, he knew that he was writing the epic tale of the rise and fall of a great partnership. For a reader who feels some interest in G&S and who desires only a single good book about them, Baily's book is, hands down, the best choice. The reader with deeper interest should acquire both, Baily for narrative and overall architecture of the tale, Ainger for nitty-gritty detail. For the hopelessly addicted fanatic who inflicts stunned guests with detailed comparisons of the electronic recordings of the 1920s, the mono recordings of the 1950s and the stereo recordings of the 1960s, who wonders why the pre-1920 acoustic recordings haven't yet appeared on CD, get both and add to them Wren's "A Most Ingenious Paradox." While both Ainger and Baily are basically sound, Wren's book abounds in wrong-headed analyses and fatuous conclusions, but his factual underpinning is reliable enough. Demolishing Wren's arguments is an excellent way for exercising your wits and the pleasure he affords when you exasperatedly throw his book across the room is both great and easily renewable.