Meyer Lutz
Encyclopedia
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre
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...
and burlesques of well-known works.
Emigrating to England at the age of 19, Lutz started as an organist and soon became a theatrical conductor. After serving from 1850 to 1855 as music director of the Surrey Theatre, Lutz conducted touring opera companies and composed some serious music and music for the Christy Minstrels. In 1869, he was engaged as the music director of the Gaiety Theatre, London
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...
, arranging and later composing a series of popular burlesques over the next 25 years. Lutz continued to compose songs into the 20th century.
Life and career
Lutz was born in MünnerstadtMünnerstadt
Münnerstadt is a town in the district of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Germany. It borders with the towns of Burglauer, Bad Bocklet, Nüdlingen, Maßbach, Großbardorf, and Strahlungen. As of 2000 it has a population of 8,300, and covers an area of 95 km²....
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. His parents were Joseph Lutz (1801–1879), a music professor, and Magdalena (1809–1862). His older brother, Baron Johann Lutz, became the prime minister of Bavaria under King Ludwig II of Bavaria
Ludwig II of Bavaria
Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King...
. Lutz studied music first with his father, then in Würzburg at the University. He visited Britain, as a pianist, in 1846, and then and moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1848 at the age of 19.
Early career
Lutz began as an organist in churches at BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. Then, for many years, he played the organ at St. George's Roman Catholic Cathedral
St George's Cathedral, Southwark
St George's Cathedral, Southwark, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the Archdiocese of Southwark, south London.The Cathedral is the Mother Church of the Roman Catholic Province of Southwark which covers the Archdiocese of Southwark and the Dioceses of Arundel and Brighton, Portsmouth, and Plymouth...
. Lutz was also a Grand Organist in Freemasonry.
Lutz soon became a theatrical conductor. From 1850 to 1855, he conducted
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
at the Surrey Theatre
Surrey Theatre
The Surrey Theatre began life in 1782 as the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy, one of the many circuses that provided contemporary London entertainment of both horsemanship and drama...
and later 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...
. For that theatre, he composed two operas, the one-act The Charmed Harp (1852) and a grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
, Faust and Marguerite
Faust and Marguerite
Faust and Marguerite is a romantic opera in three acts, dating from 1855, based on the Faust legend. The score was composed by Meyer Lutz. The libretto was written by Henri Drayton based on the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem Faust....
(1855). After this, for many years, Lutz conducted concerts in the British provinces and touring opera troupes for Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
, the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Mario
Mario (tenor)
Giovanni Matteo "Mario" was an Italian opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London.-Early life:...
and others. Some of these were led by the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Elliot Galer (the founder, in 1877, of the Royal Opera House in Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
), who produced Lutz's opera Zaida, or, The Pearl of Granada (with a libretto by Oliver Summers) in 1859 in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. In the 1850s and 1860s he shared the concert podium at classical concerts with Julius Benedict
Julius Benedict
Sir Julius Benedict was a German-born composer and conductor, resident in England for most of his career.-Life:...
both in the provinces and at St. James's Hall in London. In 1859, in Derby, England, Lutz played the piano for a series of ten "Concerts for the People" at the Temperance Hall. Galer also mounted three other Lutz operas 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...
in London: Blonde or Brunette (1862), Cousin Kate (1863), and Felix, or The Festival of the Roses (1865). During these years, Lutz also composed the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s Herne the Hunter (The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
, 1862) and King Christmas (Oxford Music Hall
Oxford Music Hall
Oxford Music Hall was a music hall located in Westminster, London at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. It was established on the site of a former public house, the Boar and Castle, by Charles Morton, in 1861. The hall was converted into a legitimate theatre in 1917, but the...
, 1863), and music for the Christy Minstrels.
Gaiety Theatre years
In 1869, manager John HollingsheadJohn Hollingshead
John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. He is best remembered as the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London...
hired Lutz as the resident musical director and conductor at the recently opened 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...
, composing dances and songs for productions at that theatre, as well as conducting the orchestra for the operas, operetta
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:...
s, plays and burlesques mounted at the theatre. In this capacity, he conducted Thespis
Thespis (opera)
Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old, is an operatic extravaganza that was the first collaboration between dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan. No musical score of Thespis was ever published, and most of the music has been lost...
, the first 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...
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...
, in 1871.
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for Dreams (1869), a play by Thomas W. Robertson. The Miller of Milburg (1872). At the same time, Christine Nilsson performed his scena Xenia the Sclavonian Maiden (1869), and at the Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
Promenade Concerts in 1873, his cantata, Legend of the Lys, was performed. He also composed music for such shows as On Condition (1882) and Posterity (1884) for Lila Clay's all-ladies troupe. He also composed the popular song, "Eyes of English Blue" for Alice Atherton.
At the Gaiety, Lutz compiled the scores, and later often composed original music, for a series of popular pasticcio entertainments, opera-bouffes and burlesques, including The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877); Robbing Roy (1879 by F. C. Burnand); a version of The Forty Thieves (1880, libretto by Robert Reece
Robert Reece
Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the...
; Lutz had conducted an 1878 version
The Forty Thieves
The Forty Thieves is a "Pantomime Burlesque" written by Robert Reece, W. S. Gilbert, F. C. Burnand and Henry J. Byron, created in 1878 as an amateur production for the Beefsteak Club of London. The Beefsteak Club still meets in Irving Street, London. It was founded by actor John Lawrence Toole...
of the same story); All in the Downs; or, Black-Eyed Susan (1881); Aladdin (1881); Oh! Those Girls (1882); Blue Beard (1882); Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed
Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed
Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert's play Pygmalion and Galatea. The libretto was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz...
(1883, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger 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,...
); Ariel (1883, libretto by Burnand); and Mazeppa (1884).
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....
took over management of the Gaiety in 1885 and expanded the format of the burlesques, commissioning Lutz to write original scores for the "new burlesques" at the theatre: Little Jack Sheppard
Little Jack Sheppard
Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke...
(1885, libretto by Stephens); Monte Cristo Jr (1886); Miss Esmeralda, or The Maid and the Monkey (1887); Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque written by Richard Henry . The music was composed by Meyer Lutz...
(1887); Faust up to Date
Faust up to date
Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz . The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt...
(1888, libretto by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt); Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué
Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun...
(1889, libretto by Frederick Hobson Leslie
Frederick Hobson Leslie
Frederick George Hobson, known as Fred Leslie , was an English actor, singer, comedian and dramatist....
and Herbert F. Clark); Carmen up to Data
Carmen up to Data
Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt....
(1890, libretto by Sims and Pettitt); Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were...
(1891, libretto by Leslie); and Don Juan (1892, book by Leslie, lyrics by Adrian Ross
Adrian Ross
For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
). The "Pas de quatre", a sprightly barn-dance written for Faust up to Date, remained popular for more than fifty years and has had at least two modern recordings. In 1893, with Albert O'Donnell Bartholeyns
Albert O'Donnell Bartholeyns
Albert O'Donnell Bartholeyns , sometimes known as A. O'Donnell Bartholeyns, was an English journalist, hospital administrator, and translator of plays.-Biography:...
, he wrote A la Française.
Nellie Farren
Nellie Farren was an English actress and singer best known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre.Born into a theatrical family, Farren began acting as a child...
(who had sung under him in nearly all of his Gaiety pieces), Marion Hood
Marion Hood
Marion Hood was an English soprano who performed in opera and musical theatre in the last decades of the 19th century...
, Durward Lely
Durward Lely
Durward Lely was a Scottish opera singer primarily known as the creator of five tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, including Nanki-Poo in The Mikado....
, Richard Temple and many others.
Later years
Lutz left the Gaiety in 1894 and was replaced by Ivan CaryllIvan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...
. For 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...
in 1895, Lutz composed A Model Trilby, or A Day or Two after du Maurier. He also wrote additional songs for Baron Golosh
Baron Golosh
Baron Golosh is an operetta adapted from the 1891 French opérette L'oncle Célestin by Edmond Audran with some of the original music replaced with songs composed by Meyer Lutz and Leslie Stuart....
for the Trafalgar Theatre (1895). Lutz wrote a string quartet and ballads such as "Thy Silv'ry Tones", "Enchant Mine Ear" and "Sail on Silver Cloud." In the last years of the 19th century, Lutz conducted a band playing Summer seasons at the spa in Scarborough. He continued to compose songs into the 20th century, including music for Hidenseek (1901) and a few numbers for Ivan Caryll
Ivan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...
and Cecil Cook's The Girl from Kays
The Girl from Kays
The Girl from Kays is an English musical comedy with music by Ivan Caryll, Paul Rubens, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz and Edward Jones, book by Cecil Cook and lyrics by Adrian Ross and Claude Aveling...
(1902). However, Lutz seems to have run low on funds, as another benefit was held for him on 28 November 1901 at the Gaiety Theatre, organised by George Edwardes.
Lutz was married in 1856 to Elizabeth Cook (b. 1835) and later to her sister Emily Cook (b. 1847). Their brothers were the bass Thomas Aynsley Cook (1833–1894) and the baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
John Furneaux Cook, and their sister, Alice Aynsley Cook (c. 1850–1938), was also an opera singer and musical comedy actress. His niece, Annie, married Eugene Goossens, Jr.
Eugène Goossens, fils
Eugène Goossens was a French conductor and violinist.He was born in Bordeaux, and studied in Bruges and the conservatoire in Brussels...
Lutz
also had a son, Caspar, who became a clergyman.
In printed works, such as scores and theatre programmes, Lutz was usually credited simply as Meyer Lutz. Some of Lutz's music was arranged for military band by J. A. Kappey. Lutz is mentioned in a P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
novel, A Damsel in Distress
A Damsel in Distress (novel)
A Damsel in Distress is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United States on 4 October 1919 by George H. Doran, New York, and in the United Kingdom by Herbert Jenkins, London, on 17 October 1919...
(1919). In addition, a character called Herr Toots in the 1912 novel Bella, by Edward Booth is based on Lutz, as is the character Meyer Klootz in the 1940 novel Town and Haven by Oswald Harland, both these novels being set in late Victorian Scarborough (named Spathorpe in Bella, and Whitcliff in Town and Haven).
Lutz died of bronchitis at his home in Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, London at the age of 73. He was buried in St Mary's, Kensal Green.
Selected works
- The Charmed Harp (1852) (Surrey Theatre)
- Faust and MargueriteFaust and MargueriteFaust and Marguerite is a romantic opera in three acts, dating from 1855, based on the Faust legend. The score was composed by Meyer Lutz. The libretto was written by Henri Drayton based on the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem Faust....
(1855) (Surrey Theatre) - Blonde or Brunette (1862) (Royalty Theatre)
- Felix, or The Festival of the Roses (1865) (Royalty Theatre)
- Zaida, or, The Pearl of Granada (1868) (Liverpool)
- The Miller of Milburg (1872) (Gaiety Theatre)
- Legend of the Lys (1873) (cantata)
- The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877) (Gaiety Theatre)
- Robbing Roy (1879) (Gaiety Theatre)
- The Forty Thieves (1880) (Gaiety Theatre)
- Galatea, or Pygmalion ReversedGalatea, or Pygmalion ReversedGalatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert's play Pygmalion and Galatea. The libretto was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz...
(1883) (Gaiety Theatre) - Little Jack SheppardLittle Jack SheppardLittle Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke...
(1885) (Gaiety Theatre) - Miss Esmeralda, or The Maid and the Monkey (1887) (Gaiety Theatre)
- Frankenstein, or The Vampire's VictimFrankenstein, or The Vampire's VictimFrankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque written by Richard Henry . The music was composed by Meyer Lutz...
(1887) (Gaiety Theatre) - Faust up to DateFaust up to dateFaust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz . The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt...
(1888) (Gaiety Theatre) - Ruy Blas and the Blasé RouéRuy Blas and the Blase RoueRuy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun...
(1889) (in Birmingham, then at the Gaiety) - Carmen up to DataCarmen up to DataCarmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt....
(1890) (in Liverpool, then at the Gaiety) - Cinder Ellen up too LateCinder Ellen up too LateCinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were...
(1893) (Gaiety Theatre) - A Model Trilby, or A Day or Two after du Maurier (1895) (Opera ComiqueOpera ComiqueThe 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...
)