Beginnings
Gilbert and Sullivan
The Man
  His Humor and Topsy-Turvey
  As Director
  The Inventor
  The Librettist
Later Years

BEGINNINGS
William Gilbert (1804-1890), the father of the dramatist, was a naval surgeon who was deeply attached to Italian opera and claimed descent from Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the 1583 founder of the first colony on Newfoundland. However, research has proven this false. The family was descended from Hampshire Yeoman stock, and the grandfather of William S. was a tea merchant. William did have a passion for the sea, had his own yachts during his lifetime (although he never sailed very far from land) and was very accurate in all the details of The H.M.S. Pinafore.

William Schwenck was born in 1836 and had three younger sisters. After his father received an inheritance and retired early, the family traveled. In about 1840, while in Naples, William was abducted and ransomed for twenty-five pounds. This event was a possible inspiration for the abduction in The Gondoliers. William was sent to school in Boulogne, France, and, as a result, was fluent in French all his life. He later said his childhood was the most miserable period of his existence.

Back in England at age thirteen, he was sent to Great Ealing School. He later became head boy and also wrote plays for his fellow students, acted in them and painted the sets. He planned to go to Oxford, but the Crimean War broke out so he got his degree at University of London instead and studied for an exam to become an army officer. The war ended before he could take it, and he later wrote: "Among the blessings of peace may be reckoned certain comedies, operas, farces, and extravaganzas which, if the war had lasted another six weeks, would in all probability never have been written". Prophetically, he became the secretary of the University's Scientific Society and helped transform it into a Dramatic Society.

Upon receiving his degree, he was briefly a war correspondent for The Observer. He reached Paris just before the Germans and left again, almost immediately, by last train. He became a clerk in the Education Department of the Privy Council Office where he spent the most boring four years of his life. When he received a legacy of about £400, he bought a position at the bar and became a barrister. However, he had few clients and spent a most of his time writing. (He had about twenty clients in four years and earned a total of £100.) In one of his most notable cases he prosecuted a lady who had stolen a coat. She accused him of being drunk and refused to be cross-examined. In another, he defended a woman accused of being a pickpocket, but no witnesses appeared on her behalf and, when the case collapsed, she threw a boot at him. However his years as a civil servant and as a lawyer were not wasted; many of his later works were inspired by what he observed during that time.

Gilbert was a voracious reader and wrote constantly. Although there is no evidence he ever took art lessons, he had a gift for drawing. He began his association with Fun, a weekly periodical for which, among other things he wrote and illustrated his Bab Ballads. One of these Ballads is Trial by Jury which was expanded into the one-act opera. Another, The Bumboat Woman, introduce the character of Little Buttercup in H.M.S Pinafore. They established his reputation as a wit with his clever word play and satiric slant on life. (As a child he had been called Bab, short for baby by his family.) They are all that remains from his days as a journalist which also included a stint as the London correspondent for a Russian newspaper. He had written fifteen farces and burlesques by the age of twenty, but all these early works were rejected by theatres. However, he made the genre his own and they led to his latter operetta librettos. Many of the Bab Ballads may be found on the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive (http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/index.html) by clicking on W.S. Gilbert. When his income from his comedy writing far exceeded his income as a lawyer, he turned to writing full-time.

His first professional play Uncle Baby (1863) ran seven weeks. He longed to produce works more elegant in tone than his burlesques such as the one called The Merry Zingara or the Tipsy Gipsy and the Pipsy-Wipsey. His first real success was a burlesque of Donizetti's opera, The Elixir of Love called Dulcamara or The Little Duck and the Great Quack. It was written in one week and earned him £30. Typical of the time, it was a burlesque and rather tasteless. He also wrote a burlesque, La Vivandière, based on The Daughter of the Regiment. Another The Pretty Druidess or The Mother, The Maid and The Mistletoe, parodying Bellini's Norma, and the play Pygmalian and Galatee is based of the myth and on Ovid's story. Breaking the mold of earlier burlesques, these were comic without being vulgar. He also wrote Christmas pantomimes such as Harlequin Cock-Robin and Jenny Wren.

In the 1870s Gilbert started to write plays he called 'Fairy Comedies' which were more refined; the first was what he called a 'respectful perversion' of Tennyson's Princess. This was a great success and formed the basis for his later Princess Ida.

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN
Gilbert soon tired of frivolous works and, after he and Arthur Sullivan were brought together by Richard D'Oyly Carte, his output became even more refined. In 1906 he said in a speech:

When Sullivan and I began to collaborate, English comic opera had practically ceased to exist. Such musical entertainment as held the stage were adaptations of the plots of the operas of Offenbach [and others]. The plots had generally been 'bowdlerized' out of intelligibility, and when they had not been subjected to this treatment they were frankly improper, whereas the ladies' dresses suggested that the management had gone on the principle of doing a little and doing it well. Sullivan and I ... resolved that our plots, however ridiculous, should be coherent, that our dialogue should be void of offence; that ... no lady of the company should be required to wear a dress that she could not wear with absolute propriety at a private fancy ball. I believe I may say we proved our case.

The collaboration is discussed in another article.

THE MAN
Gilbert was one of the most complex men of the Victorian age. It is difficult to say anything definite about him because accounts of his character vary in the extreme.

There are a few facts. He married Lucy Agnes Turner daughter of an Indian Army officer, eleven years his junior. They never had any children. He joined the West Yorkshire Militia and became a captain with the Royal Aberdeenshire Highlanders. He liked to wear his kilt and was adept at the Highland Reel. After he became famous, his father decided to follow his example and became a published writer whose first novel, The Magic Mirror, was illustrated by his famous son. A big man, he was six feet, for inches tall. He was a was a billiard sharp and prided himself on this. He lived in a large mansion in Kensington in contrast to Sullivan who lived in an apartment.

Gilbert was a man of strict principles, standards and morals, both in the theatre and in his private life. He insisted that the dressing rooms for men and women cast members be on opposite sides of the stage and forbade any mingling during intermissions. If a male member of the audience made a move on one of the women singers he would be given the chance of leaving quietly or being thrown out. The company had real affection for him. Jessie Bond, the first Iolanthe wrote:

My part in Iolanthe was written expressly for me. Gilbert was always considerate and thoughtful, and wished me to have one with not too much physical exertion, so as to spare my still weak ankle. He called to see me one afternoon, and told me about the new opera he was writing with a special part for me. "You will not have to dance, and hardly to move", he said, "and as you are always laughing, I have written a song to show that you can be serious when you like". That song "He Loves" proved to be one of the successes of the opera.

However, when she asked for a raise, he wrote: "The moral of the whole thing is, come to me when you want anything, and if it's right that you should have it, you shall have it". She did not get a raise.

Gilbert also had definite ideas on the role of theatre.

I think that the stage of a theatre is not a proper pulpit from which to disseminate doctrines possibly of anarchism, socialism and agnosticism. It is not the proper platform upon which to discuss questions of adultery and free love before a mixed audience composed of people of all ages, of both sexes, of all ways of thinking, of all conditions of life, and of various degrees of education.

In contrasting Gilbert's work with that of others, G.K. Chesterton said that Beaumarchais's Figaro helped fuel the French Revolution, but no one ever thought Pinafore would cause the English to revolt.

Yet one author says he was "a highly abnormal personality, was capable of hysterical anger, sustained vindictiveness, bullying, metal cruelty and total selfishness", and that most biographies of him are 'hagiographical whitewash'. Some of these charges are a result of the 'cruelty' in many of his libretti such as boiling in oil, suicide, burial alive, extraction of teeth, etc. and of his collection of 'macabre' objects such as the Japanese executioner's sword he hung on his wall. The English author, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, said: "The man ... was essentially cruel, and delighted in cruelty, ... his addiction ... to finding fun in every form of torture and capital punishment. This indeed persists in his work from The Bab Ballads right through the plays". He also criticized Gilbert's treatment of older women on stage just because they were growing old and losing their beauty.

In fact, Gilbert was an anomaly in the Bohemian world of the theatre and, although working well with others, had trouble making and keeping close friends. His acidic wit made some of his victims quail, yet he himself was highly sensitive to insults. He spoke disparagingly about minorities and foreigners, but he loved animals and had many pets including some exotic ones; he could never kill any living being. The claim he made that he did not know a note of music, that he had not the ear to distinguish 'God save the King' from "Rule Britannia" is often quoted but was certainly typical of his exaggerations.

His Humor and Topsy-Turvy
G. K. Chesterton said : "Gilbert had been granted a piercing vision of the insanity of reason". His nonsense was based on parody of human foibles, close in feeling to Dickens but not crusading like Dickens. It was not written in rancor, although some have taken it that way. His world was indeed Topsy-Turvy, an up-side-down view of British society. Isaac Goldberg said: "He attacked individual foibles rather than sociological error. Even political burlesques [were] usually aimed at the person not the institution. He was always thinking of the 'young lady in the dress circle". His wit could be acerbic. When a woman asked him if Bach was still composing, he replied, "No, madam. Just now dear Bach is by way of decomposing".

The Inventor
Gilbert was very innovative. At rehearsals he started to give instructions to the stage by phone. He devised a system to print seat numbers and a house plan on tickets to help guests find their seats. When he suggested the audience queue for unreserved seats he was told the English would never stand for it, but they obediently lined up and are now noted for their patience in queues for all sorts of purposes. Until then. as in Shakespeare's time, actors had been given only their own parts or 'sides'. Gilbert gave everyone, even those in smaller roles, the entire play so they could know it better and realize the relationships between all of the characters. As another innovation, he made the chorus members act! Until then the practice had been for choristers to file on stage, stand and sing. Gilbert insisted they assume characterizations and react to each other and the rest of the cast. (Bizet had had a similar problem with his Carmen in Paris a few years previously. When he insisted the chorus move and act while singing they almost revolted.) The D'Oyly Carte chorus became unique for its time and most members remained with it for a years.

The Librettist
When starting a new opera there was generally a period during which Gilbert thought about it and jotted ideas in a notebook while involved in other things. Then he wrote an outline and revised it a number of times. The next step was to develop the plot as a short story, put this aside for a few weeks, and then rewrite it completely without referring to the original. The two preliminary versions were compared and a 'final' story created. Only then did he start the actual libretto, beginning almost anywhere and not writing in any particular sequence. With his natural gift for clever rhymes, the verses came easiest; he found the dialogue more difficult and revised it constantly. He said: "English is (next to Italian) the very best ... language for singing purposes, provided the songwriter will take into consideration the requirements of the singer and reject words and phrases that involve a harsh collacation of consonants and a succession of open vowels". He was careful to write words to be sung which could be as clear a spoken ones.

The Director
Although he had had no control of productions for his earliest plays, this changed when he became well-known. Although it was not the usual practice at that time for the author to produce his own plays, Gilbert was in complete charge and was a harsh task master. To begin with, he designed the scenery with great care. For example, for H.M.S. Pinafore he and Sullivan graveled to the naval station at Portsmouth and visited the ships Thunderer, Victory, St. Vincent and Invincible, Gilbert making copious sketches. He had a small model theatre and figured out almost all of the stage blocking and business using wooden block for the players. Those for the men were three inches high and for the women two. They had stripes of different colors to represent the pitches of the voices. He attended the musical rehearsals taking note of possible business.

Now thoroughly prepared, Gilbert started rehearsals by reading the libretto to the cast. He then staged the chorus, added the principals and, finally, the arias. He kept revising throughout the rehearsals. A perfectionist, everything had to be repeated until it was exactly right. (He got very upset when his words could not be heard clearly and insisted on clear consonants even though that made the singing more difficult.) He was hard on people who invented their own words or business, but was willing to listen to suggestions, saying:

I only require that when an actor proposes to introduce any words which are not in the authorized dialogue, those words shall be submitted to me; and if there appears to be no good reason to the contrary, the words are duly incorporated with the text. I consider that as I am held by the audience to be responsible for all that is spoken on the stage, it is only right that nothing should be spoken that I have not authorized. Many 'gags' suggested by Grossmith, Barrington, ... and others, have rendered valuable service to my pieces.

The only general change he condoned was the replacement of Knightsbridge in The Mikado to a local site. When an actor made changes in Gilbert's later The Brigands, he got a court injunction against him and wrote:

If a grocer buys a tin of Colman's mustard, and having adulterated it with a mustard that is not Colman's nevertheless sells it across the counter as Colman's the majesty of the law is outraged, and the thunderbolts of the Courts of Chancery are not invoked in vain. This is a situation which the Courts of Chancery can grasp — it appeals to them as a mercantile outrage, concerning which there can be no two opinions. The Courts of Chancery have invariably shown themselves hopelessly unable to apply this simple principle to works written for the stage.

However, the Lord Justices refused to believe that his reputation had been ruined. How would he have reacted to the changes which have been made since the Savoy operas went out of copyright in 1961?

Although his word was law, in later years he claimed: "For twenty years, I was in command of the Savoy stage, and in all that time I never had a material difference with one of them. They were always most anxious to carry out my ideas in every way". During the rehearsals, the stage manager took copious notes on the business. These notes formed the basis for all of the authorized productions as long as the D'Oyly Carte Company held the copyright. Rehearsals were long and stressful but the artists loved their work. He made Grossmith so nervous that he was driven to the use of drugs to stay calm. Yet he did not lose his temper over honest mistakes. Underneath he was kind; on rainy nights he would pay the cab-fare for ladies of the cast. His faith in the histrionic ability of actors, especially tenors, was not great, but he often gave tenors the best business.

Before the opening he would greet all cast members but leave the theatre as soon as the overture began and walk along the Victoria Embankment during the performance, returning just in time for the curtain calls.

LATER YEARS
After his collaboration with Sullivan ended, Gilbert served proudly as a Justice of the Peace in Harrow Weald and became country squire at his estate of Grim's Dyke*. He wrote libretti for other composers, and finally received a knighthood by the now King Edward VII in 1907, more than twenty years after Sullivan received his. Health problems, including gout, added to his sometimes ill-temper, but he was loved by the staff of Grim's Dyke, including his butler who was with him for twenty-six years.

Gilbert was in Egypt when Sullivan died. Of himself, he said: "I should like to die upon a summer day in my own garden". He got his wish; he died rescuing a guest who was drowning in his private lake. (No one has bathed there since.) His funeral was simple, and he was buried in the local churchyard.

W. S. Gilbert has given more quotations to the English language than anyone since Dickens, and his works are second only to Shakespeare's in continuity of performance. Partly because he was so complex, he was written about much more often than Sullivan. In 1881 William Archer called him the most original character our theatre of the day could boast. "In such a world as that of the London theatres no one can be thoroughly popular who is not either an accomplished Philistine or an accomplished hypocrite. ... Mr. Gilbert's [plays] manifest a strong and interesting individuality, and this, it seems to me, is their chief distinction. ... The operas' humor is original if not profound."

Of himself, Gilbert said: "I am always in the habit of saying what I think, and when I think I have said too much, I am in the habit of saying that".

*The original Grim's Dyke is a prehistoric ditch running across much of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. (The house is now an hotel).

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Revised May 2009
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