The Gentleman in Black is a two-act comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

 written in 1870 with a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by W. S. Gilbert

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 music by Frederic Clay

Frederic Clay

Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...

. The "musical comedietta" opened at the Charing Cross 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...

 on 26 May 1870. It played for 26 performances, until the theatre closed at the end of the season.

Produced soon after Gilbert first met 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...

, but before the two had collaborated, Gilbert's first full-length comic opera, The Gentleman in Black, was based on the theatrically popular theory of metempsychosis

Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis is a philosophical term in the Greek language referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. It is a doctrine popular among a number of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Druzism wherein an individual incarnates from one...

. Gilbert and Frederic Clay

Frederic Clay

Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...

 had collaborated previously on a one-act opera, Ages Ago

Ages Ago

Ages Ago is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven year long collaboration between the two. The piece was revived many times, including at St...

. The music was not published and is now lost. The piece was never revived, although modern performances have been given, fitting music by Sullivan to the Gilbert lyrics.

The libretto is included in Original Plays by W. S. Gilbert in Four Series, in the fourth volume in the series (1911) published by Chatto and Windus

Chatto and Windus

Chatto & Windus has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House, publishers. It was originally an important publisher of books in London, founded in the Victorian era....

 of London.

Background

From the mid-1860s through the early 1870s, W. S. Gilbert

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...

 was extremely productive, writing a large quantity of comic verse, theatre reviews and other journalistic pieces, short stories, and dozens of plays and comic operas. His output in 1870 alone included dozens of his popular comic Bab Ballads

Bab Ballads

The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan...

; two blank verse comedies, The Princess

The Princess (play)

The Princess is a blank verse farcical play, in five scenes with music, by W. S. Gilbert which adapts and parodies Alfred Lord Tennyson's humorous 1847 narrative poem, The Princess: A Medley. It was first produced at the Olympic Theatre in London on 8 January 1870.Gilbert called the piece "a...

and The Palace of Truth

The Palace of Truth

The Palace of Truth is a three-act blank verse "Fairy Comedy" by W. S. Gilbert first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 19 November 1870, partly adapted from Madame de Genlis's fairy story, Le Palais de Vérite. The play ran for approximately 140 performances and then toured the British...

; two comic operas, Our Island Home

Our Island Home

Our Island Home is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Thomas German Reed that premiered on June 20, 1870 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration...

and The Gentleman in Black; and various other short stories, comic pieces, and reviews appearing in various periodicals and newspapers. In 1871 he was even busier, producing seven plays and operas.

Gilbert's dramatic writing during this time was evolving from his early musical burlesques. Some of his work during this period exhibited a more restrained style, exemplified by a series of successful "fairy comedies", such as The Palace of Truth

The Palace of Truth

The Palace of Truth is a three-act blank verse "Fairy Comedy" by W. S. Gilbert first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 19 November 1870, partly adapted from Madame de Genlis's fairy story, Le Palais de Vérite. The play ran for approximately 140 performances and then toured the British...

(1870). At the same time, he was developing his unique style of absurdist humour, described as "Topsy-Turvy", made up of "a combination of wit, irony, topsyturvydom, parody, observation, theatrical technique, and profound intelligence". The opera The Gentleman in Black, one of Gilbert's most absurdist pieces, dates from the middle of this period, when Gilbert was trying different styles and working towards the mature comic style of his later work, including the famous series 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...

 operas.

The story of The Gentleman in Black contains early glimpses of some of the "Topsy Turvy" ideas that Gilbert would later use in his more famous works written 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...

, including the switching of infants who grow up to be different ages (as in 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...

) and plot devices that depend on technical errors involving the calendar (as in The Pirates of Penzance

The Pirates of Penzance

The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...

). The music was in an "Offenbachian

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

" vein, and the story is a "dramatic variation of the pseudo-German supernatural tale, such as Dickens's 'The Baron of Grogswig'", "The Metapsychosis" or Gilbert's own "The Triumph of Vice".

Synopsis

The opera is set in 1584 with Act I in the Market Place of a German Village and Act II at the Gates of Castle Schlachenschloss.

Act I
Bertha Pompopplesdorf, who considers herself the prettiest girl in the village, is engaged to Hans Gopp, a handsome, kindly, but simple villager (Gopp was originally played by a woman). Hans is jealous of the rich, but ugly, old and unpleasant Baron

Baron

Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...

 Otto von Schlachenstein, who is strangely attractive to women. The Baron woos Bertha. Bertha pretends to be in love with the Baron to teach Hans a lesson. Depressed by this, Hans wishes that he could swap places with the Baron. At the same time, the Baron, realising that Bertha is just using him, envies Hans and wants to swap places with him. The Gentleman in Black (the King of the Gnome

Gnome

A gnome is a diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature...

s) has the power to transfer souls. He offers to make the two men's wishes come true by exchanging their souls and bodies for one month. The date is the 13 August 1584, and so the souls will revert to their original bodies on 13 September. He utters this spell:

Otto's body, grim and droll,

Shrine young Hans's simple soul;

Otto's soul, of moral shoddy,

Occupy young Hans's body!

Act II
After the souls are transferred, Hans notices that Bertha is attracted to his former body, which now contains the Baron's soul. Hans is now rich, but he is old and ugly, with a large family. To the Baron, the attention of Bertha and the advantages of a younger body are not sufficient compensation for the life of poverty that he now must live. He devises a cunning plan. He tells Hans that, as babies, they were both nursed by Hans's mother, and that the peasant baby was jealous of the young Baron.

"One night – the babes were three weeks old, and were wonderfully alike – the peasant's babe crept from his clothes basket, quietly removed the sleeping Baron from his sumptuous cradle, placed the Baron's son in the clothes basket, and creeping into the Baron's cradle, covered himself up and went to sleep. The cheat was never discovered! The peasant's son was brought up as the young Baron – the young Baron as the peasants son."

Hans: "But I think you must be mistaken, for you are twenty years older than I am."

Baron: "I am now – but when I was three weeks old, of course I was the same age as you were when you were three weeks old.... You see I am naturally quicker than you are – besides, I'm ashamed to say I've lived a very fast life".

Hans signs a contract agreeing to these facts and stipulating that they should resume their original social positions immediately. So Hans becomes a peasant in the old Baron's body but assumes that he will be a youthful Baron beginning on September 13. However, this is all a trick so that the Baron can immediately regain his baronial station. By September 13, he says, "I shall destroy the paper, and prove by the fact that I am twenty years older than he is, it's utterly impossible we could have been changed at birth – I shall return to my rank, and he will be punished as an impostor." But an announcement is made before the Baron puts his plan into action:

"Proclamation! Whereas certain irregularities have crept into the calendar in the course of the last 1584 years, and whereas these irregularities (although in themselves unimportant), constitute in the aggregate a considerable space of time, be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, that from this date forward, thirteen days be omitted from the calendar

Calendar reform

A calendar reform is any significant revision of a calendar system. The term sometimes is used instead for a proposal to switch to a different calendar.Most calendars have several rules which could be altered by reform:...

, whereby this third day of September under the Old Style becomes the thirteenth day of September under the New Style!"

The result of this imperfectly calculated proclamation is that the Baron and Hans find themselves immediately in their original bodies. Hans and Bertha begin a life of youthful nobility, and the Baron is left an ugly, old peasant.

Original cast

• The Baron Otto von Schlachenstein - Edward Danvers
• Grumpff, his steward - William M. Terrott
• Hans Gopp, a Villager - Emily Fowler
  Emily Fowler
  Emily Fowler was an English actress, singer and theatre manager. Beginning in musical burlesques, she later played in contemporary drama and English classics.-Career:...
  
  
• The Gentleman in Black - Charles P. Flockton
• Tintelstein, Syndic of Schlachenschloss - F. Robson
• Schlipps, an Innkeeper - Mr. Herbert
• Bertha Pomopplesdorf - Emmeline Cole
• The Baroness von Schlachenstein - Helen Maxse
• Maria, a market girl - Miss Dalton
• Gretchen, a market girl - Rose Roberts
• Emma - Miss Wilson

External links

• Libretto of The Gentleman in Black
• Synopsis of the opera by Philip Sternenberg (2008)