The Mountebanks (opera) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Mountebanks is 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...

in two acts with music 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 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...

. It was first produced at 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...

, London, on 4 January 1892, for a run of 229 performances. It then toured and also had a short Broadway run in 1893. The original cast included Geraldine Ulmar

Geraldine Ulmar

Geraldine Ulmar was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:...

, Frank Wyatt

Frank Wyatt (singer)

Frank Wyatt was an English actor, singer, theatre manager and playwright.In a two-decade career on stage, Wyatt is best remembered for his roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1889 to 1891, and in particular for creating the role of the Duke of Plaza-Toro in Gilbert and Sullivan's hit...

, Lionel Brough

Lionel Brough

Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool during the mid-1860s...

, Eva Moore

Eva Moore

Eva Moore was an English actress. Her career on stage and in film spanned six decades, and she was active in the women's suffrage movement.-Early life and career:...

and Furneaux Cook

Furneaux Cook

Furneaux Cook , born John Furneaux Cook, was an English opera singer and actor best known for baritone roles in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan and Alfred Cellier on the London stage. Cook appeared on stage for over 30 years in London, the British provinces and America.-Life and...

. The New York cast included Hayden Coffin and Lillian Russell

Lillian 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...

. The work has been only sporadically revived since the First World War, although the Lyric Theatre Company of Washington D.C. recorded it in 1964.

Background

The story of the opera revolves around a magic potion that transforms those who drink it into whoever, or whatever, they pretend to be. The idea was clearly important to Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

, as he repeatedly urged his famous collaborator, 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...

, to set this story, or a similar one, to music. For example, he had written a treatment of the opera in 1884, which Sullivan rejected, both because of the story's mechanical contrivance, and because they had already written an opera with a magic potion, 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...

.

When 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...

partnership temporarily disbanded due to a quarrel over finances after the production of 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...

, Gilbert tried to find another composer who would collaborate on the idea, eventually finding a willing partner in Alfred Cellier

Alfred Cellier

. Cellier was a logical choice for Gilbert. The two had collaborated once before (Topsyturveydom

Topsyturveydom

Topsyturveydom is a one-act operetta by W. S. Gilbert with music by Alfred Cellier. Styled "an entirely original musical extravaganza", it is based on one of Gilbert's Bab Ballads, "My Dream". It opened on 21 March 1874 at the Criterion Theatre in London and ran until 17 April, for about 25...

, 1874), and Cellier had been the music director for Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

's early operas. His comic opera Dorothy

Dorothy (opera)

Dorothy is a comic opera in three acts with music by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson. The story involves a rake who falls in love with his disguised fiancée.It was first produced at the Gaiety Theatre in London on in 1886...

(1886) was a smash hit. It played for over 900 performances, considerably more than The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most successful piece. Dorothy set and held the record for longest-running piece of musical theatre in history until the turn of the century.

Cellier died of tuberculosis while The Mountebanks was still in rehearsals. The score was completed by the Lyric Theatre's musical director, 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...

, a successful composer in his own right. Caryll composed the entr'acte, the song "When your clothes from your hat to your socks", and probably another number or two, and chose one of Cellier's orchestral pieces, the Suite Symphonique for the overture. However, the exact responsibility for other parts of the final version remains uncertain. Three songs whose lyrics were printed in the libretto available on the first night were never set. Gilbert rewrote the libretto around the gaps. Despite the opera's warm reception, he wrote on 7 January 1892, shortly after the premiere, "I had to make rough & ready alterations to supply gaps – musical gaps – caused by poor Cellier's inability to complete his work. It follows that Act 2 stands out as a very poor piece of dramatic construction ... this is the worst libretto I have written. Perhaps I am growing old." Nonetheless, The Mountebanks initial run of 229 performances surpassed most of Gilbert's later works and even a few of his collaborations with Sullivan. Gilbert engaged his old friends John D'Auban

John D'Auban

Frederick John D'Auban was an English dancer, choreographer and actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Famous during his lifetime as the ballet-master at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he is best remembered as the choreographer of many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.After performing as a...

to choreograph the piece and Percy Anderson

Percy Anderson

Percy Anderson was an English stage designer and painter, best known for his work for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's company at His Majesty’s Theatre and Edwardian musical comedies.-Life and career:...

to design costumes.

The reception of the London production led its producer, Horace Sedger, to establish a touring company, which visited major towns and cities in Britain for more than a year, from April 1892 to 1893. Louie René

Louie René

Louie René was an English singer and actress best remembered for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the Gilbert and Sullivan contralto roles at the turn of the 20th century....

played Ultrice on the tour in 1893. While playing in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, the company found itself competing with a 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...

touring company at a nearby theatre. The strained relations between Carte and Gilbert after The Gondoliers

The Gondoliers

did not prevent the two companies from playing a cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

match in May 1892. Relations between Gilbert and his new producer had also deteriorated, and the author unsuccessfully sued Sedger for cutting the size of the chorus in the London production without his approval.

The work has rarely been revived, but the Lyric Theatre Company of Washington D.C. recorded it in 1964.

Roles and original cast

Arrostino Annegato, Captain of the Tamorras – a Secret Society (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...

) – Frank Wyatt
Frank Wyatt (singer)
Frank Wyatt was an English actor, singer, theatre manager and playwright.In a two-decade career on stage, Wyatt is best remembered for his roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1889 to 1891, and in particular for creating the role of the Duke of Plaza-Toro in Gilbert and Sullivan's hit...
Giorgio Raviolo, a Member of his Band (baritone) – Arthur Playfair
Arthur Playfair
Arthur Wyndham Playfair was an English actor and singer. Beginning in Victorian burlesque and comic operas, Playfair became known for his roles in Edwardian musical comedy and, later, in musical revues.-Biography:...
Luigi Spaghetti, a Member of his Band (baritone) – Charles Gilbert
Alfredo, a Young Peasant, loved by Ultrice, but in love with Teresa (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...

) – J. Robertson
Pietro, Proprietor of a Troupe of Mountebanks (comic baritone) – Lionel Brough
Lionel Brough
Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool during the mid-1860s...

(later Cairns James)
Bartolo, his Clown (baritone) – Harry Monkhouse
Elvino di Pasta, an Innkeeper (bass-baritone
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...

) – Furneaux Cook
Furneaux Cook
Furneaux Cook , born John Furneaux Cook, was an English opera singer and actor best known for baritone roles in the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan and Alfred Cellier on the London stage. Cook appeared on stage for over 30 years in London, the British provinces and America.-Life and...
Risotto, one of the Tamorras – just married to Minestra (tenor) – Cecil Burt
Beppo - A member of the Mountebanks' crew (speaking) – Gilbert Porteous
Teresa, a Village Beauty, loved by Alfredo, and in love with herself (soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

) – Geraldine Ulmar
Geraldine Ulmar
Geraldine Ulmar was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.-Life and career:...
Ultrice, Elvino's niece, in love with, and detested by, Alfredo (contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

) – Lucille Saunders
Nita, a Dancing Girl (mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

or soprano) – Aida Jenoure
Minestra, Risotto's Bride (mezzo-soprano) – Eva Moore
Eva Moore
Eva Moore was an English actress. Her career on stage and in film spanned six decades, and she was active in the women's suffrage movement.-Early life and career:...
Tamorras, Monks, Village Girls.

Act I

Outside a mountain Inn on a picturesque Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

pass, a procession of Dominican Monks sings a chorus (in Latin) about the inconveniences of monastic life. As soon as the coast is clear, the Tamorras appear. They are a secret society of bandits bent on revenge against the descendants of those who wrongly imprisoned an ancestor's friend five hundred years previously. The Tamorras tell Elvino, the innkeeper, that they are planning to get married – one man each day for the next three weeks. The first is Risotto, who is marrying Minestra that day. Elvino asks them to conduct their revels in a whisper, so as not to disturb the poor old dying alchemist

Alchemist

An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy. Alchemist may also refer to:-People and groups:*The Alchemist , a hip hop music producer and rapper*Alchemist , an Australian progressive metal band...

who occupies the second floor of the inn. Arrostino, the Tamorras's leader, has learned that the Duke and Duchess of Pallavicini will be passing through the village. He suggests that the Tamorras capture the monastery and disguise themselves as monks. Minestra will dress as an old woman and lure the Duke into the monastery, where he will be taken captive and held for ransom.

Alfredo, a young peasant, is in love with Teresa, the village beauty. He sings a ballad about her, but it is clear that she does not love him in return. She suggests that he marry Elvino's niece, Ultrice, who follows Alfredo everywhere, but Alfredo wants nothing to do with Ultrice. Elvino is concerned that he does not know the proper protocol for entertaining a Duke and Duchess. He suggests that Alfredo impersonate a Duke, so that he can practice his manners. Alfredo implores Teresa to impersonate the Duchess, but Teresa insists that Ultrice play the role.

A troupe of strolling players arrives. Their leader, Pietro, offers the villagers a dress rehearsal of a performance to be given later to the Duke and Duchess. Among the novelties to be presented, he promises "two world-renowned life-size clock-work automata, representing Hamlet and Ophelia". Nita and Bartolo, two of the troupe's members, were formerly engaged, but Nita became disenchanted with Bartolo's inability to play tragedy, and she is now engaged to Pietro. While they are discussing this, Beppo rushes in to tell Pietro that the clock-work automata have been detained at the border. Pietro wonders how his troupe will deliver the promised performance.

Elvino and Ultrice have a problem of their own. Their alchemist tenant has blown himself up while searching for the philosopher's stone

Philosopher's stone

The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...

, leaving six weeks' rent unpaid. All he has left behind is a bottle of "medicine" with a label on it. Believing the medicine to be useless, Elvino gives it to Pietro. Pietro reads the label and learns that the mysterious liquid "has the effect of making every one who drinks it exactly what he pretends to be". Pietro hatches the idea of administering the potion to Bartolo and Nita, who will pretend to be the clock-work Hamlet and Ophelia when the Duke and Duchess arrive. After the performance, Pietro can reverse the potion by burning the label. While preparing for the performance, Pietro accidentally drops the label, which Ultrice retrieves. Ultrice realizes that if she and Alfredo drink the potion while they are pretending to be the Duke and Duchess, Alfredo's feigned love for her will become a reality.

Teresa, meanwhile, decides that, to taunt Alfredo, she will pretend to be in love with him, only to dash his hopes later on. Alfredo, who overhears this, declares that he will pretend to reject Teresa. When she learns this, Teresa says that she will feign insanity. By this point, all of the major characters are pretending to be something they are not. Alfredo pretends to be a Duke married to Ultrice and indifferent to Teresa. Ultrice pretends to be Duchess, married to Alfredo. Teresa pretends to be insane with love for Alfredo. Bartolo and Nita pretend to be clock-work Hamlet and Ophelia. The Tamorras pretend to be monks. Minestra pretends to be an old lady.

Alfredo and Ultrice appear in their guise as the faux Duke and Duchess. He proposes a toast, drawing wine from Pietro's wine-skin. Pietro, who has put the Alchemist's potion into the wine-skin, implores Alfredo to stop, telling him that it contains poison from which he is already dying. Alfredo ignores the warning and distributes the wine to everyone assembled.

Act II

It is night-time outside the Monastery. As the potion's label had foretold, everyone is now what they had pretended to be. Although Risotto and Minestra are married, he is disappointed to find that she is now an old woman of seventy-four. Teresa has gone completely mad with love for Alfredo. Bartolo and Nita are waxwork Hamlet and Ophelia, walking with mechanical gestures as if controlled by clockwork. Pietro, because he had pretended the wine was poisonous, is now dying slowly.

The Tamorras, who had pretended to be monks, have renounced their life of crime, and they no longer find the village girls attractive. They demand an explanation of Pietro, who explains that the wine was spiked. He promises to administer the antidote in an hour or two – as soon as Bartolo and Nita have performed for the Duke and Duchess. Alfredo, now pretending to be a Duke, greets the monks. They tell him that he has chosen a fortunate time for his arrival, as the Tamorras had planned to kidnap him. But now he is safe, as they are all virtuous monks.

Teresa is still crazed with love for Alfredo. He replies that, although he used to love her, he is now "married" to Ultrice and is blind to her charms. They are grateful that the charm will last for only another hour or so. Left alone, Ultrice admits that she alone has the antidote, and she has no intention of administering it. Pietro brings on Bartolo and Nita to entertain the Duke and Duchess, but he quickly recognizes that his audience is only Alfredo and Ultrice. They explain that they are victims of a potion, and Pietro realizes that the only solution to the mess is to administer the antidote. When he realizes he has lost it, everyone accuses him of being a sorcerer. Bartolo and Nita discuss what it will be like to be Hamlet and Ophelia for the rest of their lives. Pietro steals the keys, so that neither one can touch the other's clockwork.

Ultrice confronts Teresa and gloats over her triumph. However, when Teresa threatens to jump off a parapet, Ultrice relents and admits that she has the antidote. Pietro seizes the label and burns it. The potion's effects expire, and the characters resume their original personalities.

Musical numbers

Overture: Cellier's Suite Symphonique

Act I

No. 1. "Chaunt of the Monks" and "We are members of a secret society" (Men's Chorus and Giorgio)
No. 2. "Come, all the Maidens" (Chorus)
No. 3. "If you please" (Minestra and Risotto)
No. 4. "Only think, a Duke and Duchess!" (Chorus and Minestra)
No. 5. "High Jerry Ho!" (Arrostino and Male Chorus)
No. 6. "Teresa, Little Word" and "Bedecked in Fashion Trim" (Alfredo)
No. 7. "It's my Opinion" (Teresa)
No. 8. "Upon my word, Miss" (Ultrice, Teresa, Alfredo, and Elvino)
No. 9. "Fair maid, take pity" (Alfredo, Teresa, Ultrice, and Elvino)
No. 10. "Tabor and Drum" (Female Chorus, Pietro, Bartolo, and Nita)
No. 11. "Those days of old" and "Allow that the plan I devise"(Nita, with Bartolo and Pietro)
No. 12. "Oh luck unequalled" ... "I'm only joking" .... "Oh, whither, whither, whither, do you speed you?" (Ultrice, Teresa, and Alfredo)
No. 13. "Finale Act I" (Ensemble)

Act II

No. 14. "Entr'acte" (By Ivan Caryll)
No. 15, "I'd be a young girl if I could" (Minestra and Risotto)
No. 16. "All alone to my eerie" (Teresa)
No. 17. "If I can catch this jolly Jack-Patch" (Teresa and Minestra)
No. 18. "If our action's stiff and crude" (Bartolo and Nita)
No. 19. "Where gentlemen are eaten up with jealousy" (Bartolo, Nita, and Pietro)
No. 20. "Time there was when earthly joy" (Chorus (with Soprano and Contralto solo), Arrostino, and Pietro)
No. 20a. OPTIONAL SONG: "When your clothes, from your hat to your socks" (Pietro) (By Ivan Caryll)¹
No. 21. "The Duke and Duchess hither wend their way" (Luigi, Arrostino, Alfredo and Chorus)
No. 22. "Willow, willow, where's my love?" (Teresa)
No. 23. "In days gone by" (Alfredo, Teresa, and Ultrice)
No. 24. "An hour? Nay, nay." (Ultrice)
No. 25. "Oh, please you not to go away" (Chorus, Pietro, Elvino, Alfredo, Ultrice, Bartolo, Nita)
No. 26. "Ophelia was a dainty little maid" (Pietro, Bartolo, and Nita)
No. 27. "Finale" (Ensemble)

¹ The placement of this song changed within the act before it was cut. "Ophelia was a dainty little maid" replaced it. However, it was included on the only commercial recording of The Mountebanks.

Critical reception

At the first night, the audience's response was enthusiastic. The producer, Horace Sedger, came before the curtain at the end to explain that Gilbert preferred, because of the death of Cellier, not to take a curtain call. Reviews for the libretto were consistently excellent. Cellier's music received mixed reviews. 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...

noted with approval that Gilbert had returned to his favourite device of a magic potion, already seen in 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...

and The Sorcerer

The Sorcerer

, and found the dialogue "crammed with quips of the true Gilbertian ring." The reviewer was more cautious about the score, attempting to balance respect for the recently-dead Cellier with a clear conclusion that the music was derivative of the composer's earlier works and also of the Savoy operas. The Pall Mall Gazette thought the libretto so good that it "places Mr Gilbert so very far in advance of any living English librettist." The paper's critic was more emphatic than his Times colleague, saying, "Mr Cellier's portion of the work is disappointing," adding that the composer never rose in this piece "to within measurable distance of his predecessor.... If we judge the late Alfred Cellier's score by a somewhat high standard it is all Sir Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

's fault." The Era

The Era (newspaper)

The Era was a British weekly paper, published from 1838 to 1939. Originally a general newspaper, it became noted for its sports coverage, and later for its theatrical content.-History:...

also noted Gilbert's reuse of old ideas, but asked, "who would wish Mr Gilbert to adopt a new style?" The paper thought equally well of the score, rating it as highly as Cellier's best-known piece, Dorothy. The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

called the music "accompaniment merely" but found it "completely satisfactory" as such. The Manchester Guardian considered the music "a triumph." All the reviewers singled out for particular praise the duet for the automata, "Put a penny in the slot".

A later critic, Hesketh Pearson

Hesketh Pearson

Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson was a British actor, theatre director and writer. He is known mainly for his popular biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial success....

, rated the libretto of The Mountebanks "as good as any but the best Savoy

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...

pieces".

External links

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