An Artist's Model
Encyclopedia
An Artist's Model is a two-act musical
by Owen Hall
, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank
and music by Sidney Jones
, with additional songs by Joseph and Mary Watson, Paul Lincke, Frederick Ross, Henry Hamilton and Leopold Wenzel
. It opened at Daly's Theatre
in London, produced by George Edwardes
and directed by James T. Tanner
, on 2 February 1895, transferring to the Lyric Theatre
on 28 May 1895, and ran for a total of 392 performances. The piece starred Marie Tempest
(and later Florence Perry
) in the title role, Hayden Coffin, Letty Lind
, Leonora Braham
, Eric Lewis
, Maurice Farkoa, Marie Studholme
, and Louie Pounds
. It also had a Broadway
run in 1895-96.
The success of A Gaiety Girl
in 1893, the first musical by the team of Hall, Greenbank and Jones (followed by another such success, The Shop Girl
in 1894), had confirmed to Edwardes that he was on the right track. He immediately set the team to work on An Artist's Model. Edwardes wanted his Daly's Theatre musicals to be slightly more sophisticated than his light and simple Gaiety Theatre
musicals. Hall's new book kept the snappy dialogue of the previous work, but paired it with a romantic plot, tacked on at the last minute when Edwardes managed to engage the popular Marie Tempest, and a role was quickly written in for her. This lucky chance set up the formula for a series of successes for the Edwardes-Hall-Jones-Greenbank team at Daly's Theatre.
The story is set in France. The eponymous model, having married a millionaire and been left a widow, returns to the studio in order to recover the affections of a lovelorn artist. He repulses the artist's advances and becomes engaged to an English nobleman, but then the artist woos her. The Times opening night review thought the story was weak (it was likely edited after that) but praised the lyrics and music.
An Artist's Model was succeeded by The Geisha
, which was to be the biggest international hit the British musical theatre had known, playing for 760 performances in its original London run and thousands of performances on the Continent (one source counts some 8,000 in Germany alone) and in America and then touring for decades in Britain. Still more hits followed.
Act II - Ball-room in a Country House.
Supplementary Numbers.
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
by Owen Hall
Owen Hall
Owen Hall was the pen name of the Irish-born 19th and early 20th century theatre writer and theatre critic James Davis when writing for the stage...
, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank
Harry Greenbank
Harry Greenbank was an English author and dramatist best known for contributing lyrics to the successful series musicals produced at Daly's Theatre by George Edwardes in the 1890s.-Life and career:...
and music by Sidney Jones
Sidney Jones
James Sidney Jones , usually credited as Sidney Jones, was an English conductor and composer, most famous for producing the musical scores for a series of musical comedy hits in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods....
, with additional songs by Joseph and Mary Watson, Paul Lincke, Frederick Ross, Henry Hamilton and Leopold Wenzel
Leopold Wenzel
Léopold de Wenzel , also known as Leopold Wenzel, was an Italian conductor and composer.Born in Naples, Wenzel spent most of his career working in London, with the exception of some years spent in Paris...
. It opened at Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre
Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937.-Early years:...
in London, produced by George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
and directed by James T. Tanner
James T. Tanner
James Tolman Tanner was an English stage director and dramatist who wrote many of the successful musicals produced by George Edwardes.-Life and career:...
, on 2 February 1895, transferring to the Lyric Theatre
Lyric Theatre (London)
The Lyric Theatre is a West End theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster.Designed by architect C. J. Phipps, it was built by producer Henry Leslie with profits from the Alfred Cellier and B. C. Stephenson hit, Dorothy, which he transferred from the Prince of Wales Theatre to open...
on 28 May 1895, and ran for a total of 392 performances. The piece starred Marie Tempest
Marie Tempest
Dame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
(and later Florence Perry
Florence Perry
Florence Perry was an English opera singer and actress best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Biography:...
) in the title role, Hayden Coffin, Letty Lind
Letty Lind
Letitia Elizabeth Rudge, better known as Letty Lind , was an English actress, dancer and acrobat, best known for her work in burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre, and in musical theatre at Daly's Theatre, in London....
, Leonora Braham
Leonora Braham
Leonora Braham , born Leonora Lucy Abraham, was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....
, Eric Lewis
Eric Lewis (actor)
Frederic Lewis Tuffley , better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer...
, Maurice Farkoa, Marie Studholme
Marie Studholme
Marie Studholme , born Caroline Maria Lupton or Marion Lupton, was an English actress and singer known for her supporting and sometimes starring roles in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy...
, and Louie Pounds
Louie Pounds
Louisa Emma Amelia "Louie" Pounds was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in musical comedies and in mezzo-soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
. It also had a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
run in 1895-96.
The success of A Gaiety Girl
A Gaiety Girl
A Gaiety Girl is an English musical comedy in two acts by a team of musical comedy neophytes: Owen Hall , Harry Greenbank and Sidney Jones . It opened at Prince of Wales Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes, on 14 October 1893 and ran for 413 performances. The show starred C...
in 1893, the first musical by the team of Hall, Greenbank and Jones (followed by another such success, The Shop Girl
The Shop Girl
The Shop Girl was a musical comedy in two acts written by H. J. W. Dam, with Lyrics by Dam and Adrian Ross and music by Ivan Caryll, and additional numbers by Lionel Monckton and Ross. It was first produced by George Edwardes at the Gaiety Theatre in London, opening on 24 November 1894...
in 1894), had confirmed to Edwardes that he was on the right track. He immediately set the team to work on An Artist's Model. Edwardes wanted his Daly's Theatre musicals to be slightly more sophisticated than his light and simple Gaiety Theatre
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
musicals. Hall's new book kept the snappy dialogue of the previous work, but paired it with a romantic plot, tacked on at the last minute when Edwardes managed to engage the popular Marie Tempest, and a role was quickly written in for her. This lucky chance set up the formula for a series of successes for the Edwardes-Hall-Jones-Greenbank team at Daly's Theatre.
The story is set in France. The eponymous model, having married a millionaire and been left a widow, returns to the studio in order to recover the affections of a lovelorn artist. He repulses the artist's advances and becomes engaged to an English nobleman, but then the artist woos her. The Times opening night review thought the story was weak (it was likely edited after that) but praised the lyrics and music.
An Artist's Model was succeeded by The Geisha
The Geisha
The Geisha, a story of a tea house is an Edwardian Musical Comedy in two acts. The score was composed by Sidney Jones to a libretto by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank. Additional songs were written by Lionel Monckton and James Philip....
, which was to be the biggest international hit the British musical theatre had known, playing for 760 performances in its original London run and thousands of performances on the Continent (one source counts some 8,000 in Germany alone) and in America and then touring for decades in Britain. Still more hits followed.
Musical numbers
Act I - An Artist's Studio in Paris.- No. 1 - Opening Chorus - "With brush on hand and palette gay our varied talents we display..."
- No. 2 - Song - Carbonnet and Chorus - "Oh, come and peep when the world's asleep at gay Bohemiah..."
- No. 3 - Song - Sir George - "Though pictures as a connoisseur I don't pretend to criticize..."
- No. 4 - Song - Madame Amélie - "A few young ladies I receive to finish at a special fee..."
- No. 5 - Song - Madame Amélie - "It's really hard, when times are bad and tradesmen unforgiving..."
- No. 6 - Song - Rudolph - "Is love a dream that fades with dawn of day, too sweet to last night night has passed away..."
- No. 7 - Song - Daisy - "Oh, I'm a simple little maid who really doesn't know a thing..."
- No. 8 - Chorus and Recitative - Adèle - "Queen of the Studio, welcome right royally! Where has your Majesty been? ..."
- No. 9 - Students' Song - Adèle and Chorus - "What life so sweet, what life so free as that the merry student leads! ..."
- No. 10 - Scena - Rudolph and Adèle - "Oh, maid of witching grace, mankind at will disarming..."
- No. 11 - Entrance of School Girls - "We six little misses from a French girls' school, an embodiment of blisses..."
- No. 12 - Trio - Algernon, Apthorpe and Carbonnet - "Now won't you come along with us and have a jolly lark? ..."
- No. 13 - Finale Act I - "Ah, here is the truant at last! Oh, Daisy, what have you been doing? ..."
Act II - Ball-room in a Country House.
- No. 14 - Opening Chorus - "Number five at last! Now don't forget it ends the set, so hurry through it fast..."
- No. 15 - Song - Daisy and Chorus - "A Tom-tit lived in a tip-top tree, and a mad little, bad little bird was he..."
- No. 16 - Concerted Piece - "We've reached our destination, and I'm glad of it! ..."
- No. 17 - Trio - Algernon, Madame Amélie and Sir George - "By a pretty little proverb, it was settled long ago..."
- No. 18 - Song - Adèle - "Sundown and dark, and over me the spell of shadowland..."
- No. 19 - Song - Rudolph and Chorus - "The dearest spot on the wide, wide earth to the heart of a man of English birth..."
- No. 20 - Laughing Song - Carbonnet - "In London at the present day I love to spend my money..."
- No. 21 - Fancy Dress Lancers
- No. 22 - Valse Chantée - "Music and laughter float on the air. Tears may come after; why should we care?..."
- No. 23 - Song - Daisy - "When people doze, or criticize and stare in good Societee..."
- No. 24 - Dance - Sir Roger de Coverley
- No. 25 - Song - Rudolph - "Moon in the blue above, pale is your silver light..."
- No. 26 - Finale - "On y revient toujours! We come with hearts grown fonder, back to the life that each of us loves best! ..."
Supplementary Numbers.
- No. 27 - Song - Adèle - "Love is a man's delight, a fancy of today! ..."
- No. 28 - Duet - Maud and Carbonnet - "I'm glad that Paris pleases you ... It charms me altogether..."
- No. 29 - Song - Carbonnet - "I've met my fate, I am in love with Trilby..."
- No. 30 - Song - Cripps and Chorus - "Though round the world I've often been with Cook's or else with Gaze's..."
- No. 31 - Song - Madame Amélie - "Do you remember all the bonnets that you bought? ..."
- No. 32 - Song - Adèle - "On a silent summer's night, when the moon shone clear and bright..."
- No. 33 - Song - Adèle - "Oh, what would women do, ha, ha! if men were all like you, ha, ha!..."
- No. 34 - Song - Madame Amélie - "Mon militaire big and brave, he means to try the married bliss..."
- No. 35 - Quartet - Sir George, Amélie, Algernon & Smoggins - "Though neglected in the past, they've created me at last."
- No. 36 - Song - "Ta-Ta Land" - "A noble dame some children had, up to ev'ry game..."
- No. 37 - Song and Chorus - "Hands Off!" - "England to arms! the need is nigh, the danger at your gate..."
- No. 38 - Song and Chorus - "Henrietta" - "In a quiet little village not so very far away..."
Roles and original cast
- Adéle (a rich widow, formerly an Artist's Model) - Marie TempestMarie TempestDame Marie Tempest DBE was an English singer and actress known as the "queen of her profession".Tempest became the most famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere...
- Lady Barbara Cripps - Leonora BrahamLeonora BrahamLeonora Braham , born Leonora Lucy Abraham, was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....
- Lucien (a French schoolboy) - Nina Cadiz
- Jessie, Rose, Christine, Ruby and Violet (art students) - Marie StudholmeMarie StudholmeMarie Studholme , born Caroline Maria Lupton or Marion Lupton, was an English actress and singer known for her supporting and sometimes starring roles in Victorian and Edwardian musical comedy...
, Kate Cannon, Alice Davis, Kate Adams and Lettice Fairfax - Geraldine (a Model) - Hetty Hamer
- Amy Cripps - Louie PoundsLouie PoundsLouisa Emma Amelia "Louie" Pounds was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in musical comedies and in mezzo-soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
- Jane - Sybil GreySybil GreySybil Grey was a British opera singer during the Victorian era best known for creating a series of minor roles in productions by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, including roles in several of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas, between 1880 to 1888...
- Miss Manvers - Nellie Gregory
- Daisy Vane - (Sir George St. Alban's Ward) - Letty LindLetty LindLetitia Elizabeth Rudge, better known as Letty Lind , was an English actress, dancer and acrobat, best known for her work in burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre, and in musical theatre at Daly's Theatre, in London....
- Rudolph Blair - (an Art Student) - C. Hayden CoffinC. Hayden CoffinCharles Hayden Coffin was an English actor and singer known for his performances in many famous Edwardian musical comedies, particularly those produced by George Edwardes....
- Sir George St. Alban - (a Diplomatist) - Eric LewisEric Lewis (actor)Frederic Lewis Tuffley , better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer...
- Archie Pendillon (an Art Student) - Yorke Stephens
- Earl of Thamesmead (Lady Barbara's brother) - Lawrance D'Orsay
- Algernon St. Alban (Sir George's son) - Farren Soutar
- Carbonnet, Apthorpe and Maddox (art students) - Maurice Farkoa, Gilbert Porteous and *Conway Dixon
- James Cripps (Lady Barbara's husband) - E. M. Robson
- Smoggins - W. Blakeley
- Mme. Amélie (a Schoolmistress in Paris) - Lottie VenneLottie VenneLottie Venne was a British comedienne, actress and singer of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, who enjoyed a theatre career spanning five decades. Venne began her stage career in musical burlesque before moving into farce and comedy. She appeared in several works by each of F. C. Burnand and W. S...