The Secrets of a Savoyard Part 13

Exceedingly modest and demure, with their hands folded and their eyes cast down, they are to be exhibited in the market place as patterns of what "from the English standpoint is looked upon as maidenly perfection." In particular they are to reveal the arts of courts.h.i.+p, showing how it is proper for the young lady to be coy and interestedly agitated in turn, and how she must always rehea.r.s.e her emotions at home before the looking-gla.s.s. In the meanwhile the King, very deferential in manner, has an interview with his two Wise Men, Scaphio and Phantis.

Notwithstanding that he seems a little hurt about the outrageous attacks on his morality which he has to write and publish at their command, he at least sees the irresistible humour of the strange situation, and he proceeds to sing a capital song about what a farce life is, alike when one's born, when one becomes married, and when one reaches the disillusioned years.

Zara now arrives from her long journey. She is escorted by Captain Fitzbattleaxe, together with four troopers of the 1st Life Guards, whose resplendent bearing immediately impress the maids of Utopia. She brings with her, moreover, six representatives of the princ.i.p.al causes which, she says, have tended to make England the powerful, happy and blameless country it is, and their gifts of reorganisation are to work a miracle in her father's realm. The King and his subjects are then and there introduced to these six "Flowers of Progress." One of them, Captain Fitzbattleaxe himself, is to re-model the Utopian Army. Sir Bailey Barre, Q.C., M.P., is a logician who, according to his brief, can demonstrate that black is white or that two and two make five, just as do the clever people of England. Then there is Lord Dramaleigh, a Lord High Chamberlain, who the Princess says is to "cleanse our court from moral stain and purify our stage." A County Councillor, Mr. Blus.h.i.+ngton, has come with a mind packed with civic improvement schemes, and the wicked music-halls he also intends to purify. Mr. Goldbury is a company promoter. He floats anything from stupendous loans to foreign thrones to schemes for making peppermint-drops. Last of all comes Captain Sir Edward Corcoran, R.N., to show King Paramount how to run an invincible Navy.

Joyously do the inhabitants hail these "types of England's power, ye heaven-enlightened band." The King is impressed most of all with the idea of a "company limited." Goldbury explains just what this means, and how one can start the biggest and rashest venture on a capital, say, of eighteen-pence, and yet be safe from liability. "If you succeed," he declares, "your profits are stupendous," whereas "if you fail pop goes your eighteen-pence." It strikes the King as rather dishonest, but if it is good enough for England, the first commercial country in the world, it is good enough for Utopia. What is more, he decides to go down to posterity as the first Sovereign in Christendom who registered his Crown and State under the Joint Stock Company's Act, 1862. It is with this brilliant scheme that the first act comes to a close.

The second act is set in the Throne Room of the Palace. Fitzbattleaxe is with the Princess Zara, and he is lamenting how a tenor in love, as he is with her, cannot in his singing do himself justice. The two then discuss the remarkable changes that have come about since the country determined to be Anglicised. The King, when he enters soon afterwards, wears the dress of a British Field Marshal. He is to preside, according to the articles of a.s.sociation, over the first statutory Cabinet Council of Utopia (Limited). For this gathering the "Flowers of Progress" also arrive, and after they have ranged their chairs round in Christy Minstrel fas.h.i.+on, the proceedings open with a rollicking song by the King. This is the chorus:--

"It really is surprising What a thorough Anglicising, We have brought about--Utopia's quite another land In her enterprising movements She is England--with improvements Which we dutifully offer to our motherland!"

Following the meeting comes the courtly ceremonial of the Drawing Room.

All the ladies are presented in due form to his Majesty. Then, after a beautiful unaccompanied chorus, the stage empties.

Scaphio and Phantis, dressed as judges in red and ermine robes, now enter to storm and rage over the new order of things. All their influence has gone. The sundry schemes they had for making provision for their old age are broken and bankrupt. Even the "Palace Peeper" is in a bad way, and as to the clothes they have imported to satisfy the cravings for the English fas.h.i.+ons, their customers plead liability limited to a declared capital of eighteen-pence. The King, whom they used to bully to their hearts' content, is no longer a human being, but a corporation. Once he doffed his Crown respectfully before speaking to them, but now he dances about in lighthearted capers, telling them that all they can do is to put their grievances in writing before the Board of Utopia (Limited). The two call into their counsels the Public Exploder. Between them they work out a plot. By a revolution the Act of 1862 must be at all costs repealed.

Shortly after the trio have departed to scheme out the details, there is a delightful scene between Lord Dramaleigh and Mr. Goldbury, and the two coy Princesses, Nekaya and Kalyba. The "shrinking sensitiveness" of these young ladies is held by themselves to be most thoroughly English.

So far from that, the men have to tell them, the girls in the country they come from are blithe, frank and healthy creatures who love the freshness of the open air and the strenuous exertions of sport, and who are "in every pure enjoyment wealthy." (Gilbert, by the way, wrote this opera in the early 'nineties.) Loyally does Goldbury chant their eulogy:--

"Go search the world and search the sea.

Then come you home and sing with me, There's no such gold and no such pearl As a bright and beautiful English girl."

Nekaya and Kalyba are quickly converted to the idea that to be her natural self is woman's most winsome quality. Then follows an interlude between the Lady Sophy, whose primness is merely a cloak for ambition, and the King. Compromising paragraphs in the society paper having been explained away, the two declare their mutual love, and soon they are caught by other couples in the act of dancing and kissing. No excuses are attempted and all engage in a wild festive dance.

Enter, now, the revolutionary band under the command of Scaphio, Phantis and the Public Exploder. They relate how the prosperity of Utopia has been brought to naught by the "Flowers of Progress." Suddenly the Princess Zara remembers that, in her great scheme of reform, the most essential element of all has been forgotten, and that was--party government! Introduce that bulwark and foundation of Britain's greatness and all will be well! Legislation will thus be brought to a standstill, and then there will be "sickness in plenty, endless lawsuits, crowded jails, interminable confusion in the Army and Navy, and, in short, general and unexampled prosperity." The King decrees that party government and all its blessings shall be adopted, and the opera ends with a song of homage to a brave distant isle which Utopia is henceforward to imitate in her virtues, her charities and "her Parliamentary peculiarities."

"Great Britain is that monarchy sublime To which some add (but others do not) Ireland."

A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The literature about Savoy Opera forms a regular library. A great deal of it has been contributed to newspapers and magazines. For the latter the reader should consult Poole's "Index to Periodical Literature" and its successor, "The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature." The following list contains the chief books about the Savoyards.

GILBERT.

W. S. GILBERT: By Edith A. Browne. Stars of the Stage Series. London: John Lane, 1907.

8vo: pp. xii+96+15 plates, one of them showing Gilbert in a kilt as a (3rd) Gordon Highlander (1868-78): gives a list of Gilbert's plays. The operas are dealt with by themselves (pp.

55-84). There is a photograph of H. A. Lytton in "Patience"

(facing p. 58).

SIR WILLIAM S. GILBERT: A study in modern satire: a handbook on Gilbert and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. By Isaac Goldberg, M.A., Ph.D.

(Harvard.) Boston: Stratford Publis.h.i.+ng Co., 1913.

8vo. pp. 156. The operas are discussed pp. 83-146. "The character of Pooh-Bah is perhaps the greatest single creation of Gilbert's."

RECOLLECTIONS OF GILBERT. By G. W. Smalley. _McClure's Magazine_ (January 1903), xx, 302-304.

REAL CONVERSATION WITH GILBERT. By William Archer. _Critic_, New York (September 1901), x.x.xix, 240-240.

Mr. Archer's article on Gilbert as a dramatist in the _St.

James's Magazine_, London, in 1881 (xlix, 287), was one of the first critical appreciations of Gilbert on a big scale.

GILBERT'S HUMOUR. By Max Beerbohm. _Sat.u.r.day Review_, xcvii, 619; xcix, 696.

THE GENIUS OF GILBERT. _Blackwood's Magazine_ (July 1911), cxcix, 121-128.

THE ENGLISH ARISTOPHANES. By Walter Sichel. _Fortnightly Review_ (October 1911), xciv, 681-704.

THE LIBRETTOS OF W. S. GILBERT. By G. H. Powell. _Temple Bar_, cxxv, 36.

MR. GILBERT AS A LIBRETTIST. By J. M. Bulloch. _Evening Gazette_, Aberdeen (June 16, 17, 1890).

This was originally an address delivered to the Aberdeen University Literary Society, November 16, 1888. J. M. Bulloch also dealt with "The Pretty Wit of Mr. Gilbert" in the _Sketch_, June 12, 1898; "Mr. Gilbert's Majority as a Savoyard," in the _Sketch_, Sept. 9, 1898; and "The work of W. S. Gilbert,"

ill.u.s.trated in the _Bookbuyer_, New York, January, 1899.

GILBERT'S PROFITS FROM LIBRETTO. By G. Middleton. _Bookman_, New York (October, 1908), xxviii, 116-123.

SIR W. S. GILBERT. Leading article and biography in _The Times_, May 30, 1911, pp. 11-12.

PORTRAITS. Ten reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A. Portrait Index_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1908: p. 378) including those by Rudolf Lehman and "Spy" in _Vanity Fair_ (1881: xiii., plate 13.).

SULLIVAN.

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, HIS LIFE AND MUSIC. By B. W. Findon, London: James Nisbet and Company, 1904.

8vo. pp. viii+214+[2]: portrait of Sullivan. Dedicated to Mr.

Findon's aunt, Mary Clementina Sullivan, 1811-82, mother of Sir Arthur. List of Sullivan's works (pp. 204-214): section specially devoted to the Savoy Opera (pp. 94-126). This book was reprinted by Sisley's, Ltd. [1908] as "Sir Arthur Sullivan and his Operas."

SULLIVAN. By Sir George Grove. _Dictionary of Music_ (1908), iv, 743-747.

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN: Life story, letters, and reminiscences. By Arthur Lawrence; with critique by B. W. Findon; and bibliography by W. Bendall London: James Bowden, 1899.

8vo. pp. xvi.+360+11 plates+[8]. There are 19 ill.u.s.trations, showing Sullivan at the ages of 12, 15, 25, 44, 52 and 57, with eight facsimiles of letters or scores. M. Findon's critique occupies pp. 288-326 and the bibliography, pp. 327-360.

SOUVENIR OF SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN, Mus. Doc, M.V.O.; a brief sketch of his life. By Walter J. Wells. London: George Newnes, Ltd., 1901.

8vo. pp. viii. + 106 with 49 ill.u.s.trations. Contains "Sullivan and Gilbert" (pp. 15-31): "D'Oyly Carte" (pp. 32-46): "American Success" (pp. 47-54.) List of his works (pp. 98-104).

ARTHUR SULLIVAN. By H. Saxe Wyndham. London: George Bell and Sons, 1903.

8vo. pp. x+80, with eight ill.u.s.trations. Dedicated "to my wife through whose skill as a musician the never ending delights of Sullivan's music were first unfolded to me." One of Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians.

PORTRAITS. Twenty-one reproductions are inventoried in the _A.L.A.

Portrait Index_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1908: p. 1405) including those by Millais and by "Ape" in _Vanity Fair_ (1874: vi, plate 81).