Peter Goffin
Encyclopedia
Peter Goffin F.R.S.A. (28 February 1906 - 22 March 1974), was an English set and costume designer and stage manager, known for his work with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
.
, England, the son of Willam Earl Goffin and Elizabeth Goffin, née Underwood. From 1922 to 1930 he worked as an interior decorator and mural painter locally. As a young man, he was taken on by the local repertory theatre in Plymouth as a designer, going on to Dartington Hall
from 1931-34 where he took over responsibility for staging, costumes and lighting of the Dance-Drama Group. In 1935 and 1936 he was resident director at the Barn Theatre, Chesham Bois
, Buckinghamshire
.
In 1936, Goffin went to the Westminster Theatre in London, working with Harley Granville Barker and Michael MacOwan on a range of productions, from classics such as Volpone
, Uncle Vanya
and Troilus and Cressida
, to modern works including Mourning Becomes Electra
, Heartbreak House
, and T. S. Eliot
's The Family Reunion. In 1938 Goffin was invited by the government to supervise a course on stagecraft and to lecture on the subject.
During his Dartington days, Goffin met Bridget D'Oyly Carte
. She introduced him to her father, Rupert
, who commissioned Goffin to redesign the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
's production of The Yeomen of the Guard
in 1938. Goffin's new set caused dissent among traditionalists because it did not depict the familiar backdrop of the White Tower
. Martyn Green
, the reigning principal comedian, was far from happy with his new costume, and he implied in his memoirs that it was one of the reasons why he later left the company.
For Rupert and later Bridget D'Oyly Carte, he designed new sets and costumes for Ruddigore
(1948), Patience
(1957), The Mikado
(1958 – sets only, most of the celebrated Charles Ricketts
costumes being retained), The Gondoliers
(1958), Trial by Jury
(1959), H.M.S. Pinafore
(1961), and Iolanthe
(1961). He also created a unit set – a framework on which the sets for each opera could easily be interchanged, which, according to Frederic Lloyd
, the General Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Company, "saved the management an enormous amount of expense and facilitated taking more operas to more theatres." In addition, Goffin designed a number of posters and other graphic art for the D'Oyly Carte organisation.
Goffin wrote books including Stage Lighting (1938), The Realm of Art (1946), Stage Lighting For Amateurs (1947) and The art and science of stage management (1953). His The Realm of Art, and his meeting Leon MacLaren
, led the School of Economic Science
to begin teaching philosophy; Goffin later presented their early public philosophy lectures. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1948.
He was married to Margaret Wallace Dale. Goffin died in Buckinghamshire
at the age of 68.
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...
.
Biography
Goffin was born in PlymouthPlymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, England, the son of Willam Earl Goffin and Elizabeth Goffin, née Underwood. From 1922 to 1930 he worked as an interior decorator and mural painter locally. As a young man, he was taken on by the local repertory theatre in Plymouth as a designer, going on to Dartington Hall
Dartington Hall
The Dartington Hall Trust, near Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom is a charity specialising in the arts, social justice and sustainability.The Trust currently runs 16 charitable programmes, including The Dartington International Summer School and Schumacher Environmental College...
from 1931-34 where he took over responsibility for staging, costumes and lighting of the Dance-Drama Group. In 1935 and 1936 he was resident director at the Barn Theatre, Chesham Bois
Chesham Bois
Chesham Bois is a village in Buckinghamshire, England, adjacent to both Amersham and Chesham.-History:...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
.
In 1936, Goffin went to the Westminster Theatre in London, working with Harley Granville Barker and Michael MacOwan on a range of productions, from classics such as Volpone
Volpone
Volpone is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and beast fable...
, Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
and Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus...
, to modern works including Mourning Becomes Electra
Mourning Becomes Electra
Mourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932...
, Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety...
, and T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's The Family Reunion. In 1938 Goffin was invited by the government to supervise a course on stagecraft and to lecture on the subject.
During his Dartington days, Goffin met Bridget D'Oyly Carte
Bridget D'Oyly Carte
Dame Bridget Cicely D'Oyly Carte, DBE , was the granddaughter of impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte and the only daughter of Rupert D'Oyly Carte...
. She introduced him to her father, Rupert
Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948....
, who commissioned Goffin to redesign the 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...
's production of The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
in 1938. Goffin's new set caused dissent among traditionalists because it did not depict the familiar backdrop of the White Tower
White Tower
-Geography and history:* White Tower of Thessaloniki, a monument and museum in Greece* White Tower of Tehran, Iran* White Tower of Tsarskoye Selo, landscape architecture element in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia...
. Martyn Green
Martyn Green
William Martyn-Green , better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed and recorded with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.After army service in World War I,...
, the reigning principal comedian, was far from happy with his new costume, and he implied in his memoirs that it was one of the reasons why he later left the company.
For Rupert and later Bridget D'Oyly Carte, he designed new sets and costumes for 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...
(1948), 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...
(1957), The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
(1958 – sets only, most of the celebrated Charles Ricketts
Charles Ricketts
Charles de Sousy Ricketts was a versatile English artist, illustrator, author and printer, and is best known for his work as book designer and typographer from 1896 to 1904 with the Vale Press, and his work in the theatre as a set and costume designer.-Life and career:Ricketts was born in Geneva...
costumes being retained), 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...
(1958), Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
(1959), H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
(1961), and Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
(1961). He also created a unit set – a framework on which the sets for each opera could easily be interchanged, which, according to Frederic Lloyd
Frederic Lloyd
Frederic Lloyd, OBE , was an English theatre manager. Most notably, Lloyd was the General Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1951 until its closure in 1982.-Biography:...
, the General Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Company, "saved the management an enormous amount of expense and facilitated taking more operas to more theatres." In addition, Goffin designed a number of posters and other graphic art for the D'Oyly Carte organisation.
Goffin wrote books including Stage Lighting (1938), The Realm of Art (1946), Stage Lighting For Amateurs (1947) and The art and science of stage management (1953). His The Realm of Art, and his meeting Leon MacLaren
Leon MacLaren
Leon MacLaren was a barrister, politician, philosopher and the founder of the School of Economic Science MacLaren was inspired by Henry George, Socrates, Dr Francis Roles, Pyotr Ouspensky, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and finally the philosophy of Advaita Vedānta through the Shankaracharyas of Jyoti...
, led the School of Economic Science
School of Economic Science
The School of Economic Science , a registered charity based in Mandeville Place, near Oxford Street in London, provides courses in what it calls "Practical Philosophy" and "Economics with Justice". The courses are based on the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, which sees an underlying unity in...
to begin teaching philosophy; Goffin later presented their early public philosophy lectures. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1948.
He was married to Margaret Wallace Dale. Goffin died in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
at the age of 68.