The Happy Land - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Happy Land is a play with music written in 1873 by W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

(under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

F. Latour Tomline) and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett

Gilbert Arthur a Beckett

Gilbert Arthur à Beckett was an English writer.-Biography:Beckett was born at Hammersmith, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett and the brother of Arthur William à Beckett...

. The musical play burlesques Gilbert's earlier play, The Wicked World
The Wicked World
The Wicked World is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 1873...

. The blank verse

Blank verse

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...

piece opened at the Royal Court Theatre

Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

on 3 March 1873 and enjoyed a highly successful run, soon touring, and then being immediately revived at the same theatre in the autumn of 1873.

The play created a scandal by breaking regulations against the portrayal of public characters, parodying William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

, Robert Lowe

Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke

Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke PC , British and Australian statesman, was a pivotal but often forgotten figure who shaped British politics in the latter half of the 19th century. He held office under William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1868 and 1873 and as Home...

, and Acton Smee Ayrton

Acton Smee Ayrton

Acton Smee Ayrton was a British barrister and Liberal Party politician. Considered a radical and champion of the working classes, he served as First Commissioner of Works under William Ewart Gladstone between 1869 and 1873...

, respectively the Prime Minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Chancellor of the Exchequer

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...

, and First Commissioner of Works

First Commissioner of Works

The First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings was a position within the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It took over some of the functions of the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests in 1851 when the portfolio of Crown holdings was divided into the public...

. Three characters were made up and costumed to look like the caricatures of Gladstone, Lowe and Ayrton that had appeared in Vanity Fair. The scandal was great enough to be included in the Annual Register's "Chronicle of Remarkable Occurrences." The play was censored by Britain's 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....

, which ironically caused it to become unusually popular.

The Happy Land also anticipated some of the themes in the political satire seen in the 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...

operas, including unqualified people in positions of authority, like Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...

, selecting government by "competitive examination" as in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....

, and especially the importation of English exemplars to "improve" a naive civilisation, as in Utopia, Limited
Utopia, Limited
Utopia, Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was the second-to-last of Gilbert and Sullivan's fourteen collaborations, premiering on 7 October 1893 for a run of 245 performances...

.

Background

The year before the play opened, Gilbert told The Era, "As I consider that I am quite as well qualified to judge of what is fit for the ears of a theatrical audience as [the Licenser of Plays] can be, I have systematically declined to take the slightest notice of his instructions". The Happy Land is a blank verse

Blank verse

musical burlesque of Gilbert's earlier play, The Wicked World
The Wicked World
The Wicked World is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 1873...

. The plot roughly follows that of The Wicked World, with the disastrous powers of love replaced with the disaster of "popular government".

As in The Wicked World
The Wicked World
The Wicked World is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 1873...

and several other Gilbert works, the play concerns chaos that is wreaked in Fairyland when an element of life in the mortal world is imported. In The Wicked World, this element is "mortal love", while in The Happy Land, it is "popular government", which is delivered to Fairyland by Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

, Lowe

Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke

, and Ayrton

Acton Smee Ayrton

. Stedman calls this a "Gilbertian invasion plot". The three men depicted, and clearly identified by their make-up and by costumes designed after contemporary cartoons in Vanity Fair, were, respectively, Britain's Prime Minister

Prime minister

, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Chancellor of the Exchequer

and First Commissioner of Works

First Commissioner of Works

. The three characters were described in the cast list as Mr. G., Mr. L., and Mr. A. Gladstone's government is portrayed as mean and uncaring of Britain's national interests, degrading British prestige abroad. The three men are seen to lack substance and taste. The daring political attack was almost unprecedented on the English stage. The opening night response was described by Edward Righton

Edward Righton (actor)

Thomas Edward Corrie Burns Righton , known as Edward Righton, was an English actor.Righton began his career in Liverpool in 1850. Among many other London roles, Righton played the role of Verges in Much Ado About Nothing and Mr. Furnivail in Two Roses. He created the role of Lutin in The Happy...

, who played "Mr. A.":

"[As we] appeared, rising through the clouds, there burst upon us another gale of boisterous merriment, which increased and increased in volume as we rose higher and higher, until the three figures from Vanity Fair stood on the stage; then the applause resembled the roaring of cannon or claps of thunder."

Edward, Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

, attended the play on opening night at the Royal Court Theatre

Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

on 3 March 1873. Appalled at this attack on the government of which his mother the Queen was the (at least titular) head, he notified the Lord Chamberlain

Lord Chamberlain

(Britain's official censor at the time) about the nature of the play. The Lord Chamberlain revoked the play's performance license on 6 March 1873, while a public inquiry was made. This found that "the piece licensed and the piece acted were virtually different productions, unwarrantable alterations and enlargements having been introduced at the rehearsals, which the Lord Chamberlain would never have authorised."

Comparing the license copy, which he had approved, with the prompt copy, which was performed, the Lord Chamberlain claimed in a "Memorandum" that "in the prompter's copy there were eighteen quarto pages of additions, interpolations, and deviations from the original licensed text; and that in the original [manuscript] there was no indication whatsoever to point the allusions to individuals.... The manager expressed regret at what had occurred, and begged that the piece might be allowed to be performed as originally licensed, promising to adhere verbatim to the text, and to avoid anything which should convert the general allusions into personalities" including the make up of the actors. The theatre was only dark for two or three nights before the play was allowed to reopen. However, Miss Litton, the manageress, claimed that the eighteen pages were merely the number that contained a modification of some sort, and that she believed it was acceptable as it was being done elsewhere. She also published the script as it was originally performed - with the cut sections written in all capital letters, and posted a notice that read:

Notice. - The Happy Land. - Miss Litton begs to inform the public that the Lord Chamberlain has forbidden Messrs. Fisher, Hill, and Righton to make up their faces in imitation of Messrs. Gladstone, Lowe, and Ayrton. - Royal Court Theatre, March 6.

The scandal, which was great enough to be included in the Annual Register's "Chronicle of Remarkable Occurrences", generated widespread publicity for the play, and, even without the makeup, everyone knew who was really being portrayed. In fact, wrote The Times, "the Lord Chamberlain has proved a mighty instructor ... everybody perfectly knows whom [the three actors] are intended to represent, and every line they utter is the signal for an approving roar." The critics mostly praised the piece, although papers disagreed on whether or not the stage should be more subject to censorship than the press. For instance, The Manchester Guardian wrote that the satire made "Many a brilliant sally at the supposed short-comings of the present government." Meanwhile, Gilbert was having some trouble keeping up the pseudonym. Shirley Brooks

Shirley Brooks

Charles William Shirley Brooks , journalist and novelist, born in London, began life in a solicitor's office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which he contributed "Essence of Parliament," and on the death of...

may have thought F. Tomline was Henry Labouchère

Henry Labouchere

Henry Du Pré Labouchère was an English politician, writer, publisher and theatre owner in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He married the actress Henrietta Hodson....

, but reviewers and others were beginning to link him with Gilbert. Worse, Gilbert's friend and collaborator 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...

began vigorously defending him against the absolutely true allegations, forcing Gilbert to quietly take him into his confidence. The Athenaeum
Athenaeum (magazine)
The Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. It had a reputation for publishing the very best writers of the age....

commented that the play was "written with such talent, and catching very well the very spirit of Mr. Gilbert's manner and method that we cannot but suspect that the interest of Mr. Gilbert in it has not stopped with mere superintendence of stage management, as announced." The play became one of the big hits of the season, running for 142 performances until the theatre closed for summer renovations on 9 August 1873. It then enjoyed a lengthy provincial tour and being immediately revived when the theatre reopened on 14 October 1873.

However, for the Lord Chamberlain, the whole affair was a fiasco. His action "raised the question of censorship of the stage in an acute form" and questions about why only the stage should be subject to censorship began to be asked in quarters beyond the theatre: one parliamentarian, Sir Lawrence Palk

Lawrence Palk, 1st Baron Haldon

Lawrence Palk, 1st Baron Haldon , known as Sir Lawrence Palk, 4th Baronet from 1860 to 1880, was a British Conservative Party politician.-Biography:...

, MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

for East Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

threatened to bring it up in the House of Commons, and some suggested that the Lord Chamberlain was demonstrating political bias in his censorship of the play. One historian wrote that the play:

revealed in a clear and popular form the conservative Tory anguish as the balance of political power tilted away from the aristocracy, and land owners, and the upper middle class, and toward the lower middle class and the workers. Gilbert, in his topsy-turvy manner, stigmatized the ethics and morality of popular government, as the Liberal program was called, and predicted the dire consequences for England of this innovation. Governmental wisdom and virtue could rise no higher than their source, and under popular government the source was the new electorate, motivated by profit, greed, and the crude desires of the mob. At home the quality of British life would sink to the level of the cheap and nasty, and abroad, good-bye to national honor. England under the Liberals was on the way to becoming a second rate power, at the mercy of its mightier neighbors across the channel. According to Gilbert, this was the gloomy outlook for Great Britain under popular government, and it reflected, as the critical reception of The Happy Land showed, a large body of contemporary opinion.

Gilbert returned to the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

later that year with a new play, The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy is a one-act farce by W. S. Gilbert, writing under the pseudonym "F. Latour Tomline". It opened at the Royalty Theatre on 18 October 1873, running for about 113 performances, until 27 February 1874....

, set in the lobby of a theatre performing The Happy Land, which rehashed aspects of the scandal, even going so far as to attack the Lord Chamberlain himself, referring to him as "The Lord High Disinfectant". The whole affair had proved such a political liability for the Lord Chamberlain, however, that he had no choice but to order The Realm of Joy to be licensed, with only the "usual changes". Nevertheless, Gilbert never again directed his satire against specific persons: rather, he aimed his "hose of common sense" at types, such as Sir Joseph in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...

, the Major-General in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...

and Ko-Ko in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...

, who are incompetent persons that have risen to a high government position. In later years, Gilbert appears to have become ashamed of the subversive tone of The Happy Land: in 1909, testifying to a joint committee

Joint committee

A Joint Committee is a term in politics that is used to refer to a committee made up of members of both chambers of a bicameral legislature. In other contexts, it refers to a committee with members from more than one organization.-Republic of Ireland:...

on stage censorship, he said that his "maturer judgement" on the play was that the Lord Chamberlain's "interference was absolutely justified". It was not until 1968, that the power of the Lord Chamberlain to censor plays was revoked.

Roles and original cast

Male Fairies

Ethais - Walter H. Fisher
Walter H. Fisher
Walter Henry Fisher was an English singer and actor of the Victorian era best known as a member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the creator of the role of the Defendant in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1875 opera Trial by Jury...
Phyllon - W. J. Hill
Lutin - Edward Righton
Edward Righton (actor)
Thomas Edward Corrie Burns Righton , known as Edward Righton, was an English actor.Righton began his career in Liverpool in 1850. Among many other London roles, Righton played the role of Verges in Much Ado About Nothing and Mr. Furnivail in Two Roses. He created the role of Lutin in The Happy...

Mortal Counterparts

The Right Honourable
The Right Honourable
The Right Honourable is an honorific prefix that is traditionally applied to certain people in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Anglophone Caribbean and other Commonwealth Realms, and occasionally elsewhere...

Mr. G. - Walter H. Fisher
The Right Honourable Mr. L. - W. J. Hill
The Right Honourable Mr. A. - Edward Righton

Female Fairies

Selene - Helen Barry
Zayda - Lottie Venne
Lottie Venne
Lottie 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...
Darine - Bella Moore
Neodie - R. Clair
Locrine - G. Clair
Leila - L. Henderson

Synopsis

Act I
The fairies live in a lavish and art-filled Fairyland, floating on a cloud overlooking the mortal world. Three male fairies, Ethais, Phylion and Lutin, relate to the female fairies their "detestation" at their experiences below, in the "wicked" world. However, they note the conveniences of Victorian

Victorian 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...

civilisation. The female fairies suspect that the males may not hate the mortal world as much as they say, and complain of the dullness of life in Fairyland, and long to experience that wonderful, wicked world. Selene, the Fairy Queen, expresses a determination to go to Earth. The three males resist this and instead agree to return to the world themselves and ask the Fairy King (who is in England studying "political economy", also known as "spending a pound to save a penny") to send three mortals up to Fairyland, so that the fairies may find out what men are really like. While the female fairies wait for the three mortals, Selene explains why England has an advantage over other countries: it enjoys a "popular government".

The three mortal statesmen arrive – Mr. G., Mr. L. and Mr. A – declaring, "Oh, we are three most popular men! We want to know who'll turn us out!" At first, Fairyland is not to their liking, as it is decorated with "ridiculous extravagance", but they change their minds as soon as they find themselves surrounded by the female fairies. The women are charmed by the mortals' oratorical virtuosity. At the fairies' request, they explain how "popular government" works. The fairies decide to introduce popular government into Fairyland. The fairies are divided into Government and Opposition, and the members of the Opposition are sent away grumbling. Then, ministerial posts are allocated after a competitive examination in which those who show that they are the least fitted for the particular duties are appointed to fill them. For example, the fairy who asks what a ship may be is appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. All the fairies want to be Prime Minister, but, following precedent, Selene is so appointed.

Act II
The fairies' experiment in "popular government" is a disaster. Penny-pinching and shabbiness rule the state, the military is in disarray, and the Chinese may soon invade. Leila and the other Opposition fairies revolt, and all the Government ministers resign. Selene appeals to Mr. A., who suggests that "patriotism is the ladder by which the rising statesman ascends to the pinnacle of place," and "place is the pinnacle seated upon which the risen statesman kicks away the ladder of patriotism." Selene replies, "Sisters, I've done with office, give me a peerage and let me end my days in respectability and peace." Mr. G. advises that even in this situation, she should not consider resigning or apologising; but Selene ultimately rejects this, although she has feelings for Mr. G.

The three mortal honourables return to earth, as they must attend a cabinet meeting. When the fairies realize that the mortals were corrupt, they exclaim, "How shabby!" Soon the three male fairies return with news from the Fairy King: they may enjoy the privilege of "popular government." Selene rejects this with horror. The fairies will "Leave such blessings to a happy land."

Musical numbers

Act I

Opening Duo and Chorus (Zayda, Darine and Chorus) - "Lullaby Fairyland"
Trio (Ethais, Phyllon and Lutin) - "We are three unhappy fairies"
Quintette and Chorus (Zayda, Darine, Ethais, Phyllon and Lutin) - "Send us up from yonder wicked den"
Trio (Mr. G., Mr. L., Mr. A.) - "We are three statesmen old and tried"
Finale - "By playing loose and fast"

Act II

Ensemble - "When every single art you've tried"
Finale - "Our little feet we never show"

Antecedents and development of Gilbertian satire

Gilbert created several blank verse "fairy comedies" at the Haymarket Theatre

Haymarket Theatre

The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...

in the early 1870s beginning with The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth is a three-act blank verse "Fairy Comedy" by W. S. Gilbert first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 19 November 1870, partly adapted from Madame de Genlis's fairy story, Le Palais de Vérite. The play ran for approximately 140 performances and then toured the British...

(1870) and Pygmalion and Galatea (1871). The Wicked World was the third of these, and The Happy Land followed so soon on its heels that the two plays ran simultaneously. The plot of The Happy Land and The Wicked World clearly fascinated Gilbert. Not only had he written a short story on the theme in 1871, but he returned to it in his 1909 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...

, Fallen Fairies
Fallen Fairies
Fallen Fairies; or, The Wicked World, is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Edward German. Premiering at London's Savoy Theatre on December 15, 1909, it failed miserably, closing after just 50 performances...

. Indeed, the general theme of mortals disturbing the peaceful state of affairs in fairyland is featured in a number of other Gilbert works, including the Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

opera Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....

(1882).

Gilbert followed The Happy Land with The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy
The Realm of Joy is a one-act farce by W. S. Gilbert, writing under the pseudonym "F. Latour Tomline". It opened at the Royalty Theatre on 18 October 1873, running for about 113 performances, until 27 February 1874....

, set in the lobby of a theatre performing a thinly-disguised The Happy Land, which directly parodies the scandal, even describing the costumes used. In The Happy Land, The Realm of Joy (1873) and Charity
Charity (play)
Charity is a drama in four acts by W. S. Gilbert that explores the issue of a woman who had lived with a man as his wife without ever having married. The play analyses and critiques the double standard in the Victorian era concerning the treatment of men and women who had sex outside of marriage,...

(1874), Gilbert stretched the boundaries of how far social commentary could go in the Victorian theatre. The Realm of Joy poked many jokes at the Lord Chamberlain. Charity critiqued of the contrasting ways in which Victorian society treated men and women who had sex outside of marriage, which anticipated the 'problem plays' of Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

and Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

.

The Happy Land is an example of Gilbert's "repeated ridicule of idealistic panaceas for curing social ills [among which was] Gilbert's conception of popular government as an imprac- tical theory. In the operas

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...

these schemes range from the notion that "true love [is] the source of every earthly joy," in 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...

; through the prescription of "Republican [equality]" as a remedy for social ills in The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances , closing on 30 June 1891...

; to the systematic plan for political and social reforms brought from England by the Flowers of Progress for the benefit, and ultimate corruption, of the south sea island kingdom of Utopia in Utopia Limited" and its salvation through the institution of party politics.

External links

The Happy Land at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive.
Review from The Times, 6 March 1873
Review from the Staffordshire Sentinel, 9 May 1873.
Kelly, Veronica (1983). "The Banning of Marcus Clarke's 'The Happy Land': Stage, Press and Parliament" Article about Clarke's 1882 adaptation of The Happy Land in Australasian Drama Studies, 2 (1), 71-111.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.