"a comic opera by Edward Solomon and Henry Pottinger Stephens, at London's Olympic Theatre. He then joined a tour of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from November 1881 to October 1882, playing the leading Gilbert and Sullivan tenor roles of Alexis in ""The Sorcerer"", Ralph Rackstraw in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" and Frederic in ""The Pirates of Penzance"". In 1885, he appeared in London as Sir Lancelot in ""Dr. D"", an English comic opera by C. P. Colnaghi and Cotsford Dick at the Royalty Theatre. One reviewer commented: ""Mr. Leumane has a very pleasing tenor voice, and as Ralph Rackstraw he not"
"witty, literate, and often outrageously funny dialogue and lyrics [and] has a score that ... has plenty of tunes for the audience to go away humming"". Sir George Power, the tenor who created the role of Ralph Rackstraw, opined in later life that the secret of the success of the Savoy operas is the way in which ""Sullivan entered into the spirit of Gilbert's topsy-turvy humour, and was pompous when Gilbert was sprightly, or, when Gilbert's satire was keenest and most acid, consciously wallowed in sentiment."" Another commentator has suggested that the opera's enduring success lies in its focus on"
"intends her to marry Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty. She abides by her father's wishes at first, but Sir Joseph's advocacy of the equality of humankind encourages Ralph and Josephine to overturn conventional social order. They declare their love for each other and eventually plan to elope. The captain discovers this plan, but, as in many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise disclosure changes things dramatically near the end of the story. Drawing on several of his earlier ""Bab Ballad"" poems, Gilbert imbued this plot with mirth and silliness. The opera's humour focuses on"
"singer, he has appeared in oratorios and many operas, including Mozart operas ""Don Giovanni"" (as ""Don Ottavio""), and ""The Abduction From the Seraglio"" (as ""Belmonte""), amongst others. He also appeared in State Opera of South Australia production of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera """"H.M.S. Pinafore"""" as Ralph Rackstraw, alongside Dennis Olsen and Judith Henley. The production was broadcast, throughout Australia, as a simultaneous television and stereo radio broadcast, by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Edmonds has sung in opera at Covent Garden and the Edinburgh Festival and has appeared with the British Broadcasting Corporation as well as appearing in concert in"
"and his wife Pamela. His siblings included Thomas (born 1854), David Samuel (born 1859) and Robert (born 1860). He trained at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Cadwaladr made his debut in Wagner's ""Rienzi"" with the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1879, aged 22. That June, he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, playing the leading tenor role of Ralph Rackstraw in Gilbert and Sullivan's ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" on tour. During that tour, he became part of an important historical footnote when he originated the role of Frederic in the hastily assembled single British copyright performance of ""The Pirates of Penzance"""
"production of Gilbert and Sullivan's ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" to raise funds to get it unstuck. Much of the musical consists of a play within a play, as the company presents a musically updated version of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera; the boat pilot (played by Bill Robinson in the original production) takes a major role as Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty. Another actor (Avon Long in the original) sings and dances the role of Captain Corcoran, while the part of Josephine goes to an Andrews Sisters-style trio of women from the company chorus (Sheila Guyse, Ida James, and"
"review of ""Pinafore"" in ""The New York Times"" commented , ""The Ralph Rackstraw, Mr. Hugh Talbot, has a light, pleasant tenor voice, which was not thoroughly under his control last evening, and he is also the best actor who has appeared here in the character"". On 31 December 1879, he created the role of Frederic in ""The Pirates of Penzance"". Talbot's Frederic was perhaps the most roundly criticized performance of any Gilbert and Sullivan opera's opening night. Nearly every critic eviscerated him in reviews. ""The New York Times"" reviewer wrote: The essential part of the young pirate apprentice received inadequate"
"George Grossmith George Grossmith (9 December 1847 – 1 March 1912) was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades. As a writer and composer, he created 18 comic operas, nearly 100 musical sketches, some 600 songs and piano pieces, three books and both serious and comic pieces for newspapers and magazines. Grossmith is best remembered for two aspects of his career. First, he created a series of nine memorable characters in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan from 1877 to 1889, including Sir Joseph Porter, in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" (1878), the"
"Players, Charles Court Opera, and the festival's own National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. In 1995, the operators of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival formed an opera company to provide festivalgoers with professional productions of the Savoy operas. The company was soon called the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. It engaged such performers as Richard Suart, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham, Gillian Knight, Barry Clark, Michael Rayner, Jill Pert, Gareth Jones, Patricia Leonard, Donald Maxwell, Oliver White, Rebecca Bottone, Ian Belsey and the Opera Babes. John Owen Edwards, David Russell Hulme, David Steadman or Andrew Nicklin have usually served as"
"of Music (now known as The Bostonians) and performed regularly until 2001 as a principal tenor in light operatic roles, ensemble roles, and in supporting roles in operas such as Verdi's ""Un ballo in maschera"", Puccini's ""La fanciulla del West"", and Luiz in ""The Gondoliers"". In 2000, he performed as Ralph Rackstraw in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" and Tony in Leonard Bernstein's ""West Side Story"" with the Fiddlehead Theater Company. Lockwood joined the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players in New York City in 2002. In the Gilbert & Sullivan repertory, he has performed roles such as Nanki-Poo in ""The Mikado"", Frederic"
"all nine of the lead comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's famous Savoy Operas in London from 1877 to 1889, including the pompous First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Joseph Porter, in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" (1878); Major-General Stanley in ""The Pirates of Penzance"", who is an expert at everything except ""military knowledge"" (1880); the aesthetic poet, Reginald Bunthorne in ""Patience"" (1881); the love-lonely Lord Chancellor in ""Iolanthe"" (1882); the sarcastic cripple, King Gama, in ""Princess Ida"" (1884); Ko-Ko the cheap tailor, elevated to the post of Lord High Executioner, in ""The Mikado"" (1885); the accursed Robin Oakapple in ""Ruddigore"" (1887);"
"Blanche Roosevelt as Josephine, Alice Barnett as Little Buttercup, Furneaux Cook as Dick Deadeye, Hugh Talbot as Ralph Rackstraw and Jessie Bond as Cousin Hebe, some of whom had been in the ""Pinafore"" cast in London. To these, he added some American singers, including Signor Brocolini as Captain Corcoran. Alfred Cellier came to assist Sullivan, while his brother François remained in London to conduct ""Pinafore"" there. Gilbert and Sullivan chose talented actors who were not well-known stars, and so they did not command high fees. They then tailored their operas to the particular abilities of these performers. The skill with"
"in the 2006 pantomime ""Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"" as the henchman at Manchester Opera House, appearing alongside Suranne Jones, Justin Moorhouse, and the all-star seven dwarves including Warwick Davis. In 2007 he was touring as the lead in a production of ""Hobson's Choice"". He appeared on ""Loose Women"" on 19 March 2009 to discuss his part as Sir Joseph Porter in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta ""HMS Pinafore"", which toured the United Kingdom during the spring and summer of 2009. He guest starred in the Christmas special episode of ""Holby City"" in 2012, playing patient Rupert Pool. He"
"Opera colleagues, with piano accompaniment, in a wine bar, ""Il Boccalino"" and a restaurant, ""Terrazza-Est"", both in London, including Rodolfo in ""La bohème"". He also sang with the London Operetta Ensemble, presenting concerts of opera and lighter music in seaside venues in southern England. He continued to perform Gilbert and Sullivan: with the London Savoyards, he played Ralph Rackstraw in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"", Frederic in ""The Pirates of Penzance"" and the Defendant in ""Trial by Jury"". These were roles that he had not sung with D'Oyly Carte. He also sang in G&S concerts, with former D'Oyly Carte colleagues, in groups performing"
"most of the score, from the ""glee"" for Ralph, the Boatswain and the Carpenter, to ""For He Is an Englishman"". The best-known songs from the opera include ""I'm called Little Buttercup"", a waltz tune introducing the character, which Sullivan repeats in the entr'acte and in the Act II finale to imprint the melody on the mind of the audience; and ""A British tar"" (a glee for three men describing the ideal sailor), composed by Sir Joseph ""to encourage independent thought and action in the lower branches of the service, and to teach the principle that a British sailor is any"
"Julian Sturgis, who wrote the libretto for Sullivan. Many of the characters in the play are reminiscent of those in Gilbert's Savoy Operas, including Somers/Boatswain; Ross/Dr. Daly; Ruth/Patience and Elsie; Alaric/Giuseppe; Mabel/Aline; and Thursby/Ludwig. Also, as in some of his earlier plays, including ""Charity"", Gilbert touches on the theme of how a shamed woman is truly the noblest in society. The character Ruth notes, regarding the scoundrel, Crampton, ""your heart was slow to turn; your eyes were closed. To open them it needed that a woman should clothe herself with shame. That has been done; and now, you see!"" And"
"of Gilbert and Sullivan (G&S) and other light operas of the era. In December 1906 he shared the role of Nanki-Poo in the first recording of ""The Mikado"". This was released on single-sided gramophone records by G&T then re-released on double-sided discs by HMV in 1912. He shared the role of Sir Joseph Porter on the first recording of the G&S opera ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" which was recorded by the Russell Hunting company on eleven Edison cylinders in 1907. In 1999 these early cylinders were re-discovered after they had been thought lost. He probably sang Marco in ""The Gondoliers"" (1907 for"
"on the Decca label or under licence from Decca on Sounds on CD, a private label specialising in Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. Reed also appeared in the 1966 film version of ""The Mikado"" and the 1973 video of ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" as Ko-Ko and Sir Joseph Porter, respectively. A 1965 BBC television broadcast of ""Patience"" with Reed as Bunthorne is apparently lost. He was also the voice of Robin Oakapple in the 1967 Halas and Batchelor ""Ruddigore"" cartoon. A collection of Reed's patter songs, entitled ""Gilbert & Sullivan: Great Patter Songs"", compiled to celebrate his 25-year anniversary with D'Oyly Carte, was"
"and went to Texas to be part of an aviation unit. There he contracted meningitis and died in 1918. Richard Mansfield Richard Mansfield (24 May 1857 – 30 August 1907) was an English actor-manager best known for his performances in Shakespeare plays, Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the play ""Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"". Mansfield was born in Berlin and spent his early childhood on Heligoland, Germany, an island in the North Sea, then under British rule. His parents were Erminia Rudersdorff (1822–1882), a Russian-born operatic soprano, and Maurice Mansfield (died 1861), a British London-based wine merchant. His grandfather was"
"(Marquise), Scott Russell (Bertuccio), Emmie Owen (Zerbinette), Florence Perry (Bianca), R. Scott Fishe (Gerard de Montigny), and Walter Passmore (Bobinet). Richard Temple joined in the revised version, as did the experienced singer Florence St. John, who made her Savoy debut in the work. Gilbert and Sullivan's ""Utopia Limited"" was playing more weakly than its producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, had expected, and he anticipated that he would need a new work for the Savoy Theatre for the summer of 1894. Messager was enjoying a growing international reputation, and Carte had already produced Messager's opera ""La Basoche"" at his Royal English Opera"
"Penzance"", and so on. Similarly, Mrs. Partlet in ""The Sorcerer"" transformed into Little Buttercup in ""Pinafore"", then into Ruth, the piratical maid-of-all-work in ""Pirates"". Relatively unknown performers whom Gilbert and Sullivan engaged early in the collaboration would stay with the company for many years, becoming stars of the Victorian stage. These included George Grossmith, the principal comic; Rutland Barrington, the lyric baritone; Richard Temple, the bass-baritone; and Jessie Bond, the mezzo-soprano soubrette. ""The Pirates of Penzance"" (New Year's Eve, 1879) also poked fun at grand opera conventions, sense of duty, family obligation, the ""respectability"" of civilisation and the peerage, and"
"series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and during his years away, he had become the most popular solo piano entertainer in the country. The Savoy audience was eager to see him perform together on stage with his successor in the Savoy opera roles, Walter Passmore. Rehearsals began in December 1896, an unusually long rehearsal period for the Savoy, but Mackenzie later recalled that even the company felt that the work was not wanted. London's leading stage director, Charles Harris, was engaged, but he died a few days before the opera premiered, leaving the Cartes to finish his work. Richard D'Oyly"
"more outrageous. ... Reed's Sir Joseph Porter would jump overboard only to re-enter clutching a rubber life-ring, while ... his Ko-Ko would be found furiously – and anachronistically – pedalling across the stage in a toy car."" On the other hand, he was sometimes criticised for these instances of dropping character and adding anachronisms. He explained, ""An encore is a different thing – a bit of fun between me and the audience – then I come right back into character again."" After he left the D'Oyly Carte organisation in 1979, Reed continued to perform in, and direct, Gilbert and Sullivan"
"Grahame Clifford ""For the film editor with a similar name, see Graeme Clifford."" Grahame Clifford (25 December 1905 – 26 January 1984), was an English singer and actor, known for comic parts in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and in character roles for the Royal Opera Company, Covent Garden. In his early career Clifford played a wide range of roles in operas by composers from Handel to Vaughan Williams. He also acted in plays, produced theatre and taught. From 1939 to 1946 he was principal comedian of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company playing the comic leads in Gilbert and Sullivan's"
"Fred Sullivan Frederic Sullivan ( – ) was an English actor and singer. He is best remembered as the creator of the role of the Learned Judge in Gilbert and Sullivan's ""Trial by Jury"", providing a model for the comic roles in the later Savoy Operas composed by his brother Arthur Sullivan. By 1870, Sullivan had abandoned architecture for a career on stage. In 1871, he first performed the role of Mr. Cox in a revival of his brother's first comic opera, ""Cox and Box"", and later that year created the role of Apollo in the first Gilbert and Sullivan"
"The opera premiered on 7 March 1896, and Sullivan conducted the orchestra, as he always did on opening nights. Costumes were by Percy Anderson. The opening night was a decided success, and the critics praised Gilbert's direction, Pálmay's singing and acting, Walter Passmore as Rudolph, and the cast in general. There were some reservations, however. ""The Times""'s review of the opening night's performance said: The reviewer stated that the jokes might be funnier if the dialogue between them were ""compressed"". ""The Manchester Guardian"" concurred: ""Mr. Gilbert's tendency to over-elaboration has nowhere shown itself so obtrusively... Mr. Gilbert has introduced too"
"His mother took him to America, where she was performing, but he returned to England at age 20. Finding that he could not make a living as a painter, he gained some success as a drawing-room entertainer, eventually moving into acting. He first appeared on the stage at St. George's Hall, London, in the German Reed Entertainments and then turned to light opera, joining Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy Opera Company in 1879 to appear as Sir Joseph Porter in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" on tour. He continued to play the Gilbert and Sullivan comic ""patter"" roles on tour in Britain until 1881."
"Richard Temple (bass-baritone) Richard Barker Cobb Temple (2 March 1846 – 19 October 1912) was an English opera singer, actor and stage director, best known for his performances in the bass-baritone roles in the famous series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. After an opera career in London and throughout Britain beginning in 1869, Temple joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1877. There, he created most of the bass-baritone roles in the Savoy Operas, as follows: Sir Marmaduke in ""The Sorcerer"" (1877), Dick Deadeye in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" (1878), the Pirate King in the London production of ""The Pirates of"
"Llewellyn Cadwaladr Llewellyn ""Lyn"" Cadwaladr (1857 – 7 February 1909) was a Welsh operatic tenor who originated roles in, or starred in early tours of, comic operas and operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, Solomon and Stephens, Robert Planquette and others in the Victorian era, often in America for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. He was touring as Ralph in ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" when he was asked to create the role of Frederic in the ""ad hoc"" 1879 British copyright performance of ""The Pirates of Penzance"". Cadwaladr was born in 1857 in Ruabon, Denbighshire, the son of Robert Cadwaladr, a mining engineer,"
"Sullivan opera, ""Thespis"", in which a company of actors gain political power. Gilbert read a sketch of the plot to Sullivan on 8 August 1895, and Sullivan wrote on 11 August to say that he would be pleased to write the music, calling Gilbert's plot sketch ""as clear and bright as possible"". The theme of Ernest (and then Rudolph) being legally dead while still physically alive was used in earlier works by Gilbert and, separately by Sullivan, for example ""Tom Cobb"" (1875) and ""Cox and Box"" (1867). Gilbert sold the libretto of the new piece to Carte and Sullivan for"
"a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, such as in the film ""The Girl Said No"". There are also a number of Gilbert and Sullivan biographical films, such as Mike Leigh's ""Topsy-Turvy"" (2000) and ""The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan"" (1953), as well as shows about the partnership, including a 1938 Broadway show, ""Knights of Song"" and a 1975 West End show called ""Tarantara! Tarantara!"" It is not surprising, given the focus of Gilbert on politics, that politicians and political observers have often found inspiration in these works. Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist added gold stripes to his judicial"
"In 1949 Brunskill made her last operatic appearance, as Ortrud in ""Lohengrin"" at Covent Garden. In the 1950s, she extended her repertoire, appearing in the musical ""Golden City"" by John Toré, which ran at the Adelphi Theatre from June to October 1950, and in the film ""The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan"" in 1953. In 1956–1957 she appeared in a Gilbert and Sullivan tour in Australia and New Zealand. Though best known for oratorio and opera, Brunskill was also admired for her song recitals. ""The Times"" said, ""As a recitalist she excelled in the songs of Schubert, Brahms and those"
"made other minor changes in the score. The ""Matter Patter"" trio from ""Ruddigore"" and ""Sorry her lot"" from ""H.M.S. Pinafore"", two other Gilbert and Sullivan operas, were interpolated into the show. The production also restored Gilbert and Sullivan's original New York ending, with a reprise of the Major-General's song in the Act II finale. Linda Ronstadt starred as Mabel, Rex Smith as Frederic, Kevin Kline as the Pirate King, Patricia Routledge as Ruth (replaced by Estelle Parsons for the Broadway transfer), George Rose as the Major-General, and Tony Azito as the Sergeant of Police. Kline won a Tony Award for"