A Sensation Novel
Encyclopedia
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...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...
. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration
Royal Gallery of Illustration
The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a performance venue located at 14 Regent Street near Waterloo Place in London, in what was formerly the home of John Nash, designer of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and other urban improvements undertaken at the commission of George IV.From 1855 to about 1876,...
. New music was later composed by "Florian Pascal" (a pseudonym for Joseph Williams, Jr., 1847-1923), and only four of German Reed's songs survive.
The piece satirises the sensation novel
Sensation novel
The sensation novel was a literary genre of fiction popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s, following on from earlier melodramatic novels and the Newgate novels, which focused on tales woven around criminal biographies, also descend from the gothic and romantic genres of fiction...
s popular as pulp detective fiction in the Victorian era
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...
. Later in his career, when Gilbert wrote the famous series of Savoy opera
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...
s with 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...
, he reused elements of A Sensation Novel in their opera Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
.
Background
A Sensation Novel is the fourth in a series of six short musical entertainments written by Gilbert for Thomas German ReedThomas German Reed
Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...
and his wife Priscilla
Priscilla Horton
Priscilla Horton, later Priscilla German Reed , was a popular English singer and actress, known for her role as Ariel in W. C. Macready's production of The Tempest in 1838 and "fairy" burlesques at Covent Garden Theatre. Later, she was known, along with her husband, Thomas German Reed, for...
between 1869 and 1875. The German Reeds presented respectable, family-friendly musical entertainments
German Reed Entertainment
German Reed Entertainment was founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed together with his wife, Priscilla Reed née Horton...
at their Gallery of Illustration beginning in 1855, at a time when the theatre in Britain had gained a poor reputation as an unsavory institution and was not attended by much of the middle class. Shakespeare was played, but most of the entertainments available in theatres consisted of poorly translated French 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, risque burlesques and incomprehensible broad farces. The Gallery of Illustration was a 500-seat theatre with a small stage that only allowed for four or five characters with accompaniment by a piano, harmonium and sometimes a harp. Pascal's new score, written more than twenty years later, sounds like early Debussy. It serves to bring the work to the stage, but has been criticised as sounding out of period for this 1871 work.
A Sensation Novel satirises the sensation novel
Sensation novel
The sensation novel was a literary genre of fiction popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s, following on from earlier melodramatic novels and the Newgate novels, which focused on tales woven around criminal biographies, also descend from the gothic and romantic genres of fiction...
s popular as pulp detective fiction in the Victorian era
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...
. The play concerns stock melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
characters who take on a life of their own and comment negatively on the absurd plot their author forces them into. Music is a continual and essential element of the dramatic action throughout the piece. As scholar Jane W. Stedman observes in her book Gilbert Before Sullivan, this play anticipates Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
's Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author is a play by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.The play is a satirical tragicomedy. It was first performed in 1921 at the Teatro Valle in Rome, to a very mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" .Subsequently the play enjoyed a much...
. Fans of 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...
will notice that Sir Ruthven Glenaloon prefigures Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, Baronet of Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
; Alice Grey, the virtuous heroine, is a foundling like Rose Maybud in Ruddigore; and that other elements of the piece anticipate the Savoy Opera
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...
s, including babies switched at birth
Babies switched at birth
Babies switched at birth are babies who, because of either error or malfeasance, are interchanged with each other at birth or very soon thereafter, leading to them being unknowingly raised by parents who are not their biological parents...
and a self-decapitation. Gilbert's casting of the large, ungainly Richard Corney Grain
Richard Corney Grain
Richard Corney Grain , known by his stage name Corney Grain, was an entertainer and songwriter of the late Victorian era.-Biography:...
as the "spirit of romance" was a joke that foreshadowed his casting of the rather large Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington
Rutland Barrington was an English singer, actor, comedian, and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades...
as the image of perfect manly beauty in Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
.
Like some of Gilbert's other pieces for German Reed, most of the original score of A Sensation Novel is lost (four songs survive), although there have been re-settings by other composers.
Roles
- Author/Sir Ruthven Glenaloon/Bus Conductor (baritoneBaritoneBaritone 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...
) – Thomas German ReedThomas German ReedThomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable... - The Spirit of Romance/Gripper (bass) – R. Corney GrainRichard Corney GrainRichard Corney Grain , known by his stage name Corney Grain, was an entertainer and songwriter of the late Victorian era.-Biography:...
- Herbert de Browne (tenorTenorThe 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...
) – Arthur CecilArthur CecilArthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C... - Alice Grey (sopranoSopranoA 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...
) – Fanny HollandFanny HollandFanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.-Life and career:... - Lady Rockalda (contraltoContraltoContralto 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...
) – Priscilla German Reed
Act I
Writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
. Frustrated, he summons the Spirit, who informs him that the five characters he is using - the mild-mannered hero, the pure heroine, the villain and villainess, and the detective - are possessions that the Spirit has merely lent to him, and that they have lives of their own outside the text. The Spirit explains that the characters are all sinners who, as punishment for the crimes of their lives, must spend eternity playing character the exact opposite to their true selves. Upon learning that his characters will come to life at the end of the first and second volume of his book, and before the final chapter of the third, the author, nervously reflecting that he has just finished the first volume, leaves his home before they appear, claiming to have an important meeting he had suddenly remembered.
When the characters do appear, it is apparent that they are quite different from the way they appear in the book. The sexy young vixen of the novel, Lady Rockalda (who loves the hero of the novel), is a world-weary and overindulgent mother of five unruly boys in life. Sir Ruthven, the villainous baronet, is a very kind-hearted, timid and shy individual. Not only are their personalities quite different outside the novel, but so are their love interests. The hero and heroine are quite bored with each other's insipidity: Herbert, the good, noble, pure and bland hero of the novel (who is a beer swilling, womanising, music hall frequenting young rover outside it), hates Rockalda in the novel but is in love with Rockalda outside it, while Alice Grey, the pure, virginal heroine, who hates Ruthven in the novel, is confident, aggressive, independent and in love with Sir Ruthven outside it. In live, Alice hates Herbert and Herbert hates Alice.
While they are in the novel, the characters are all miserable. Only during the few hours they get each night, free from the constraints of the authors' will, can they find even a little happiness. Therefore, they plot to work out how to prolong their time together and how to thwart the authors' schemes. The characters ridicule the trite, foolish and stuffy scenes they are forced to perform as part of the novel. Soon they are joined by Gripper, the novel's useless detective, who apologizes for arriving late. He explains, however, that it is part of his job to be forever late - if he caught villains and stopped evil plots in a timely manner, no sensation novel would advance past the first volume. The characters realize that if Gripper were ever to be on time, their novel would be forced into its "happy" conclusion, with Alice and Herbert's marriage, a prospect that horrifies them all. Soon after this realization, their time is up and they must return to their script.
Act II
The characters reassemble in Act II, the second volume. Herbert has been sent by the author to Central Africa for almost the whole remainder of the book, since he was "getting so confoundedly insipid no reader could stand [him]." Thus far, however, Herbert and Alice's marriage has been delayed, since Ruthven stopped the train that was to have taken her to Africa with him. The convoluted plot that they are enmeshed in seems to indicate that Alice is the rightful daughter of a Duke, whose place was deviously stolen by Rockalda, but Ruthven thinks she may actually be his long-lost granddaughter - which would be quite disappointing, as it would end any hope of their marriage. Rockalda and Alice get into an argument about who is really the Duke's daughter, but they are interrupted by Gripper's late appearance. He tells the assembled characters that he believes himself to be Ruthven's long-lost granddaughter. Their time is soon up, and they reluctantly return to their book.Act III
At the start of Act III, which takes place just before the final chapter of the third volume, Herbert and Alice both enter, both in wedding dress and both depressed about what seems to be their inevitable end. Rockalda also comes to meet them, but Ruthven is nowhere to be found. Reading the manuscript, the characters discover that Ruthven has decapitated himself. They angrily call the author and inform him that they will rebel until he brings Ruthven back, and for good measure demand that he marry them to the characters they actually love. The author at first protests that it is impossible, but eventually gives in. Gripper rushes in, late as always, and refuses to be Sir Ruthven's granddaughter. The author, bullied into submission, agrees to bring Ruthven back, marry him to Alice, allow Herbert and Rockalda to marry, and reveal Gripper to be Sherlock Holmes in disguise. All ends happily.- Note on the Ending: This synopsis is based on the version of the libretto published in Gilbert Before Sullivan. Since Sherlock HolmesSherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
had not yet appeared in print in 1871, this ending must have been introduced in a later re-printing of the text. Stedman states that she relied on a 1912 edition of the libretto (Stedman, p. 229), and she does not report how the original version ended.
Act I
- 2. "Take of best quill pens a score" (Author)
- 3a. "In half a minute they'll be here!" (Spirit and Author)
- 3b. Melodrame
- 4. "Like a motherly old lady" (Lady Rockalda)
- 5. Melodrame (enter Ruthven)
- 6a. Melodrame (enter Herbert)
- 6b. Melodrame (enter Alice)
- 7. "Goodness gracious!" (Lady Rockalda, Alice, Sir Ruthven, Herbert)
- 8. Melodrame (enter Gripper)
- 9. "Increase my woes" (Ensemble)
Act II
- 10. Introduction, melodrame (enter Lady Rockalda and Sir Ruthven)
- 11a. "No father's care, that I'm aware"* (Alice)
- 11b. "Well, once upon a time" (Sir Ruthven)
- 11c. Melodrame (enter Lady Rockalda)
- 12a. "With rage infuriate I burn!"* (Alice and Lady Rockalda)
- 12b. Melodrame (enter Gripper)
- 13. "When information I receive that Jones has been a-forging"* (Gripper)
- 14. "We must depart, our masters call us" (Ensemble)
Act III
- 15a. Introduction (enter Herbert)
- 15b. "Oh, agony! and oh, despair!"* (Herbert)
- 16. Melodrame (enter Rockalda)
- 17. Melodrame (enter Gripper)
- 18. "I'm delighted; I'm delighted" (Lady Rockalda, Alice, Herbert and Gripper)
The songs for which settings composed by German Reed still survive are marked with an asterisk (*).
External links
- A Sensation Novel at The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive
- Libretto
- A Sensation Novel at A Gilbert & Sullivan Discography
- Review of the original production by The TimesThe TimesThe 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...
- Family/situation tree for the characters in the piece
- Introduction to autobiography of Jesse Bond
