Dora's Dream
Encyclopedia
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
, with music composed by Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and...
and a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil
Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...
.
The piece was first performed at the Royal Gallery of Illustration
Royal Gallery of Illustration
The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a performance venue located at 14 Regent Street near Waterloo Place in London, in what was formerly the home of John Nash, designer of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and other urban improvements undertaken at the commission of George IV.From 1855 to about 1876,...
on 3 July 1873, with Fanny Holland
Fanny Holland
Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.-Life and career:...
and Arthur Cecil starring in the two roles. It was performed again with the same cast on 5 May 1876 at the Princess's Theatre
Princess's Theatre, London
The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess...
in London for Pauline Rita
Pauline Rita
Pauline Rita was an English soprano and actress. During her early career, she was best known known for her performances in operettas and comic operas at the Opera Comique and was associated with impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte...
's benefit.
The opera was revived on 17 November 1877 at the Opera Comique
Opera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
as a curtain raiser
Curtain raiser (drama)
A curtain raiser is a performance, stage act, show, actor or performer that opens a show for the main attraction. The term is derived from the act of raising the stage curtain...
to The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
, which opened on the same night. It then ran until 7 or 8 February 1878, starring Giulia Warwick
Giulia Warwick
Giulia Warwick was an English operatic soprano and actress, best known for roles in with Richard D'Oyly Carte's and the Carl Rosa Opera Company in the last quarter of the 19th century.-Life and career:...
and Richard Temple. The curtain raiser debuted to a warm review from The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, which wrote, "This pleasant and sparkling bagatelle at once put the house in good humour."
No printed libretto or vocal score is found in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, but the license copy of the libretto resides in the Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....
's collection, Add. MS. 53194, play no. A, NovDec 1877. Only dialogue is given, not the lyrics of the songs, and in Cecil's original draft, it was apparently not intended to be performed with music.
Background
The fashion in the late Victorian eraVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so producer Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte
Richard D'Oyly Carte was an English talent agent, theatrical impresario, composer and hotelier during the latter half of the Victorian era...
preceded his Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s with curtain raisers
Curtain raiser (drama)
A curtain raiser is a performance, stage act, show, actor or performer that opens a show for the main attraction. The term is derived from the act of raising the stage curtain...
such as Dora's Dream. W. J. MacQueen-Pope
W. J. MacQueen-Pope
Walter James MacQueen-Pope was an English theatre historian and publicist. From a theatrical family which could be traced back to contemporaries of Shakespeare, he was in management for the first part of his career, but switched to publicity, in which field he became well-known...
commented, concerning these curtain raisers:
- This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserved much better treatment than they got, but those who saw them delighted in them. ... [They] served to give young actors and actresses a chance to win their spurs ... the stalls and the boxes lost much by missing the curtain-raiser, but to them dinner was more important.
A memorable line in the play is Fred's opinion of the perfect woman: "Order is a first rate quality in a wife. I maintain that if a girl cannot be born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she ought to be born with a bunch of keys at her waist."
Synopsis
Setting: A drawing room in a villa in Putney.Fred Fancourt, a stockbroker, courts his cousin, Dora. He seeks a comfy, capable, dumpy little wife. Dora, on the other hand, has begun reading great literature and declares that she will only marry a poet. They play charades, and Fred takes the opportunity to show that poets are impossible to live with, while Dora shows how insufferable stockbrokers can be to their wives. Both dreams shattered, and the couple agrees to part. Eventually, however, they make up and (presumably) get married and live happily ever after.
Roles and cast
- Dora Leslie, a romantic young lady - Fanny HollandFanny HollandFanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.-Life and career:...
(1873 and 1876); Giulia WarwickGiulia WarwickGiulia Warwick was an English operatic soprano and actress, best known for roles in with Richard D'Oyly Carte's and the Carl Rosa Opera Company in the last quarter of the 19th century.-Life and career:...
(1877-78) - Fred Fancourt, her cousin, of the Stock Exchange - Arthur CecilArthur CecilArthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...
(1873 and 1876); Richard Temple (1877-78) - a voice outside, supposed to be Dora's father
- a servant's voice outside (identified as that of Jennie Sullivan in a programme reproduced in Leslie Baily)