Edward Solomon
Encyclopedia
Edward Solomon was a prolific English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
composer, as well as a conductor, orchestrator and pianist. Though he died before his fortieth birthday, he wrote dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, such as The Nautch Girl
The Nautch Girl
thumb|right|250px|Solomon , with Gilbert and Sullivan irate at his success at the SavoyThe Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore is a comic opera in two acts, with a book by George Dance, lyrics by Dance and Frank Desprez and music by Edward Solomon...
, among others.
Early career
His first comic operaComic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
was A Will With a Vengeance (1876), a one-act work with a libretto by Frederick Hay, based on La Vendetta. This was produced at the Globe Theatre
Globe Theatre (Newcastle Street)
The Globe was a Victorian theatre built in 1868 and demolished in 1902. It was the third of five London theatres to bear the name. It was also known at various times as the Royal Globe Theatre or Globe Theatre Royal. Its repertoire consisted mainly of comedies and musical shows...
. In 1879, he met Henry Pottinger "Pot" Stephens
Henry Pottinger Stephens
Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp , was an English dramatist and journalist. With a variety of partners, he wrote burlesques, comic operas and musical comedies that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem.-Life and career:"Pot" Stephens was born in Barrow-on-Soar,...
while he was the musical director at the Royalty Theatre
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on 25 May 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. The architect was Samuel Beazley, a resident in Soho Square, who also designed St James's Theatre, among...
conducting, among other works, Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's The Zoo
The Zoo
The Zoo is a one-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson, writing under the pen name of Bolton Rowe. It premiered on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in London , concluding its run five weeks later, on 9 July 1875, at the Haymarket Theatre...
. With Stephens, he produced his first successes, Billee Taylor
Billee Taylor
Billee Taylor, or The Reward of Virtue is "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens.The piece was first produced at the Imperial Theatre in London on 30 October 1880, starring Arthur Williams as Sir Mincing Lane and Frederick Rivers as Billee. It...
(1880), a "nautical comedy opera" in two acts; and Claude Duval
Claude Duval (opera)
Claude Duval – or Love and Larceny is a comic opera with music by Edward Solomon to a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens. The plot is loosely based on supposed events in the life of the eighteenth century highwayman, Claude Duval....
(1881, celebrating a well known 18th century highwayman), both of which remained popular for many years in both the UK and US Other Solomon and Stephens successes were Lord Bateman, or Picotee's Pledge (1882), Virginia, or Ringing the Changes (1883) and later The Red Hussar
The Red Hussar
The Red Hussar is a comedy opera in three acts by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens, which opened at the Lyric Theatre in London on 23 November 1889, running for 175 performances. It was the revised version of an opera written several years earlier called The White Sergeant...
(1889), a "comedy opera" in three acts. Together, they would also write Popsy Wopsy, a "musical absurdity" (1880) and Pocahontas (1884).
Solomon also wrote the music for the short companion pieces Quite an Adventure
Quite an Adventure
Quite an Adventure is a one-act comic opera by Edward Solomon with a libretto by Frank Desprez. The farcical plot concerns a house-guest who mistakes his hostess's husband for an intruder....
(1881; Olympic Theatre
Olympic Theatre
The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street, and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout much of its existence...
; revived in 1894 at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
) and Round and Square (1885), each with a libretto by Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez was an English playwright, essayist, and poet. He wrote more than twenty pieces for the theatre, as well as numerous shorter works, including his famous poem, Lasca.-Life and career:...
, and each produced on tour by D'Oyly Carte companies in the 1880s and 1890s. Other early shows included Love and Larceny in 1881, a farce, Through the Looking-Glass (1882), The Vicar of Bray
The Vicar of Bray
The Vicar of Bray is a satirical description of an individual fundamentally changing his principles to remain in ecclesiastical office as external requirements change around him...
a comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
with a libretto by Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy
Sydney Grundy was an English dramatist. Most of his works were adaptations of European plays, and many became successful enough to tour throughout the English-speaking world...
(1882), the successful Polly, or The Pet of the Regiment (1884) and Pepita (1886). He also wrote ballads like "I Should Like To" and "Over the Way", and numerous salon piano solos and arrangements. For instance, he arranged George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
's "See Me Dance the Polka" for piano.
Later career
With F. C. Burnand, Solomon wrote Pickwick (1889), which also had a run in 1894, Domestic Economy (1890), and "The Tiger" (1890). Burnand's contribution to the last of these was so unacceptable that the work was hissed off the stage on its opening night.From 1891–93, after Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
had temporarily separated, 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...
mounted a number of non-G&S pieces to keep the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
open, including a revival of The Vicar of Bray in 1892. Solomon's most famous work produced by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
was probably The Nautch Girl
The Nautch Girl
thumb|right|250px|Solomon , with Gilbert and Sullivan irate at his success at the SavoyThe Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore is a comic opera in two acts, with a book by George Dance, lyrics by Dance and Frank Desprez and music by Edward Solomon...
or, The Rajah of Chutneypore (1891), an "Indian comic opera" in two acts with a libretto by George Dance
George Dance (dramatist)
George Dance was an English lyricist and librettist in the 1890s and an important theatrical manager at the beginning of the 20th century....
, and lyrics by George Dance and Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez
Frank Desprez was an English playwright, essayist, and poet. He wrote more than twenty pieces for the theatre, as well as numerous shorter works, including his famous poem, Lasca.-Life and career:...
. It initially ran for 200 performances at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
and then toured. The company also toured The Vicar of Bray.
His last stage work was On the March (1896), a musical comedy in two acts, with John Crook and Frederic Clay
Frederic Clay
Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...
, to a libretto by William Yardley
William Yardley (cricketer)
William Yardley was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent from 1868 to 1878 and for Cambridge University from 1869 to 1872. In the early 1870s, only WG Grace was reckoned his superior amongst amateur batsmen...
, B. C. Stephenson
B. C. Stephenson
Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Rowe". He was author or co-author of several long-running shows of the Victorian theatre...
and Cecil Clay, based on In Camp by Victoria Vokes.
Bigamous marriage and other information
Solomon became notorious because of his bigamous marriage to American prima donna Lillian RussellLillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
, whom he met at Tony Pastor
Tony Pastor
Tony Pastor was an American impresario, variety performer and theatre owner who became one of the founding forces behind American vaudeville in the mid-to-late nineteenth century...
's New York Casino Theatre where he was the musical director and she became the star. Subsequently, she starred in several of his works, including Billee Taylor, Polly and Pocahontas. When she learned of his previous marriage, she sued for divorce.
His brother Frederick Solomon sang in Billee Taylor in the provinces (1883) and was the composer of the comic opera Captain Kidd, or The Bold Buccaneer, produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, Liverpool, on 10 September 1883.
Had he lived, Solomon might have been chosen to complete Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
and Hood's
Basil Hood
Basil Willett Charles Hood was a British librettist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of half a dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow. He embarked on a career in the British army, writing theatrical pieces in his spare...
The Emerald Isle
The Emerald Isle
The Emerald Isle; or, The Caves of Carrig-Cleena, is a two-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and Edward German, and a libretto by Basil Hood. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 27 April 1901, closing on 9 November 1901 after a run of 205 performances...
after Sullivan's death in 1900, because of Solomon's relationships with Sullivan and Carte. But Solomon died in London of typhoid fever in 1895 at the age of 39.
Selected operas by Solomon
- Billee TaylorBillee TaylorBillee Taylor, or The Reward of Virtue is "a nautical comedy opera" by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens.The piece was first produced at the Imperial Theatre in London on 30 October 1880, starring Arthur Williams as Sir Mincing Lane and Frederick Rivers as Billee. It...
(1880) - Quite an AdventureQuite an AdventureQuite an Adventure is a one-act comic opera by Edward Solomon with a libretto by Frank Desprez. The farcical plot concerns a house-guest who mistakes his hostess's husband for an intruder....
(1881) - The Vicar of BrayThe Vicar of Bray (opera)The Vicar of Bray is a comic opera by Edward Solomon with a libretto by Sydney Grundy which opened at the Globe Theatre, in London, on 22 July 1882, for a run of only 69 performances. The public was not amused at a clergyman's being made the subject of ridicule, and the opera was regarded by some...
(1882) - The Red HussarThe Red HussarThe Red Hussar is a comedy opera in three acts by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens, which opened at the Lyric Theatre in London on 23 November 1889, running for 175 performances. It was the revised version of an opera written several years earlier called The White Sergeant...
(1889) - The Nautch GirlThe Nautch Girlthumb|right|250px|Solomon , with Gilbert and Sullivan irate at his success at the SavoyThe Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore is a comic opera in two acts, with a book by George Dance, lyrics by Dance and Frank Desprez and music by Edward Solomon...
(1891)