Carmen up to Data
Encyclopedia
Carmen up to Data is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz
. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen
. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt
.
After a tryout in Liverpool
in September 1890, the piece premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, London
, on 4 October 1890, produced by George Edwardes
. It starred Florence St. John
in the title role, Letty Lind
as Mercedes, Jenny Dawson as Escamillo, Maria Jones as Michaela, Blanche Massey
as Morales, E. J. Lonnen
as José and Arthur Williams
as Captain Zuniga.
In the December 1890 issue of Punch magazine
, the reviewer wrote, "In calling their burlesque 'Carmen up to Data' possibly the two dear clever boys who wrote it intended some crypto-jocosity of which the hidden meaning is known only to the initiated in these sublime mysteries. Why 'Data'? On the other hand, 'Why not?' However attractive or not as a heading in a bill of the play, the Gaiety 'Carmen' is, on the whole, a merry, bright, and light burlesque-ish piece."
The piece was a success and toured throughout the English-speaking world, reaching Australia by 1892
, starring Selina Dolaro
and Durward Lely
. An earlier burlesque of Carmen, called Carmen: or, Sold for a Song, by Robert Reece
, had also been produced at the Folly Theatre
in 1879, and several other burlesques followed. Burlesque of opera or classical works was popular in Britain from the 1860s to the 1880s. Other examples at the Gaiety include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed
(1883), Little Jack Sheppard
(1885), Monte Cristo Jr (1886), Pretty Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim
(1887), Mazeppa, Faust up to Date
(1888), Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué
(1888), Cinder Ellen up too Late
(1891), and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross
).
John Hollingshead
managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental operetta
, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques composed or arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses." In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Edwardes expanded the burlesque format from one act to full-length pieces with original music by Lutz, instead of scores compiled from popular tunes, and choreography by the theatre's dance-master, John D'Auban
. Nellie Farren
, as the theatre's "principal boy," and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. Leslie wrote many of its pieces under his pseudonym, "A. C. Torr". In the early 1890s, as Burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy
.
Meyer Lutz
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....
. The piece was a spoof of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt
Henry Pettitt
Henry Alfred Pettitt , was a British actor and dramatist.With Augustus Harris, he wrote the play Burmah, produced on Broadway in 1896. With G. R...
.
After a tryout in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
in September 1890, the piece premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, London
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
, on 4 October 1890, produced by George Edwardes
George Edwardes
George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....
. It starred Florence St. John
Florence St. John
Florence St. John , was an English singer and actress of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras famous for her roles in operetta, musical burlesque, music hall, opera and, later, comic plays.-Life and career:...
in the title role, Letty Lind
Letty Lind
Letitia Elizabeth Rudge, better known as Letty Lind , was an English actress, dancer and acrobat, best known for her work in burlesque at the Gaiety Theatre, and in musical theatre at Daly's Theatre, in London....
as Mercedes, Jenny Dawson as Escamillo, Maria Jones as Michaela, Blanche Massey
Blanche Massey
Blanche Massey was a Gaiety Girl and actress best known for her stage appearances in London and the United States in the 1890s. Among her appearances in many productions with the George Edwardes company, especially Edwardian musical comedies, she was perhaps most remembered for A Gaiety Girl...
as Morales, E. J. Lonnen
E. J. Lonnen
E. J. Lonnen was an English actor and comedian known for his performances in musical burlesques and musicals, particularly at the Gaiety Theatre, London at the end of the Victorian era.-Biography:...
as José and Arthur Williams
Arthur Williams (actor)
Arthur Williams was an English actor, singer and playwright best remembered for his roles in comic operas, musical burlesques and Edwardian musical comedies...
as Captain Zuniga.
In the December 1890 issue of Punch magazine
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
, the reviewer wrote, "In calling their burlesque 'Carmen up to Data' possibly the two dear clever boys who wrote it intended some crypto-jocosity of which the hidden meaning is known only to the initiated in these sublime mysteries. Why 'Data'? On the other hand, 'Why not?' However attractive or not as a heading in a bill of the play, the Gaiety 'Carmen' is, on the whole, a merry, bright, and light burlesque-ish piece."
The piece was a success and toured throughout the English-speaking world, reaching Australia by 1892
Background
Bizet's Carmen had first been produced in English in London in 1879 at Her Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, starring Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro
Selina Dolaro was an English singer, actress, theatre manager and writer. During a career in operetta and other forms of musical theatre, she managed several of her own opera companies and raised four children as a single mother...
and Durward Lely
Durward Lely
Durward Lely was a Scottish opera singer primarily known as the creator of five tenor roles in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, including Nanki-Poo in The Mikado....
. An earlier burlesque of Carmen, called Carmen: or, Sold for a Song, by Robert Reece
Robert Reece
Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the...
, had also been produced at the Folly Theatre
Folly Theatre
The Folly Theatre was a London theatre of the late 19th century, in William IV Street, near Charing Cross, in the City of Westminster. It was converted from the house of a religious order, and became a small theatre, with a capacity of 900 seated and standing. The theatre specialised in presenting...
in 1879, and several other burlesques followed. Burlesque of opera or classical works was popular in Britain from the 1860s to the 1880s. Other examples at the Gaiety include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed
Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed
Galatea, or Pygmalion Re-Versed is a musical burlesque that parodies the Pygmalion legend, and specifically W. S. Gilbert's play Pygmalion and Galatea. The libretto was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and W. Webster. The score was composed by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz...
(1883), Little Jack Sheppard
Little Jack Sheppard
Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke...
(1885), Monte Cristo Jr (1886), Pretty Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim
Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim is a musical burlesque written by Richard Henry . The music was composed by Meyer Lutz...
(1887), Mazeppa, Faust up to Date
Faust up to date
Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz . The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt...
(1888), Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué
Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun...
(1888), Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late
Cinder Ellen up too Late is a musical burlesque written by Frederick Hobson Leslie and W. T. Vincent, with music arranged by Meyer Lutz from compositions by Lionel Monckton, Sidney Jones, Walter Slaughter, Osmond Carr, Scott Gatti, Jacobi, Robertson, and Leopold Wenzel. Additional lyrics were...
(1891), and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross
Adrian Ross
For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
).
John Hollingshead
John Hollingshead
John Hollingshead was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of the 19th century. He is best remembered as the first manager of the Gaiety Theatre, London...
managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental 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:...
, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques composed or arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses." In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Edwardes expanded the burlesque format from one act to full-length pieces with original music by Lutz, instead of scores compiled from popular tunes, and choreography by the theatre's dance-master, 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...
. Nellie Farren
Nellie Farren
Nellie Farren was an English actress and singer best known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre.Born into a theatrical family, Farren began acting as a child...
, as the theatre's "principal boy," and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. Leslie wrote many of its pieces under his pseudonym, "A. C. Torr". In the early 1890s, as Burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
.