H.M.S. Pinafore

In 1875, Richard D'Oyly Carte, who was then managing the Royalty Theatre for Selina Dolaro, brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to write their second show, a one-act opera entitled Trial by Jury.

[13][14]Despite Gilbert's disclaimer, audiences, critics and even the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, identified Sir Joseph Porter with W. H. Smith, a politician who had recently been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty despite having neither military nor nautical experience.

As was to be his usual practice in his later operas, Sullivan left the overture for the last moment, sketching it out and entrusting it to the company's music director, in this case Alfred Cellier, to complete.

His fellow sailors (excepting Dick Deadeye, the grim and ugly realist of the crew) offer their sympathies, but they can give Ralph little hope that his love will ever be returned.

Later that night, under a full moon, Captain Corcoran reviews his concerns: his "kindly crew rebels", his "daughter to a tar is partial", his friends seem to desert him, and Sir Joseph has threatened a court-martial.

[39] In late August 1878, Sullivan used some of the Pinafore music, arranged by his assistant Hamilton Clarke, during several successful promenade concerts at Covent Garden that generated interest and stimulated ticket sales.

[49] In November, Carte returned to America with Gilbert, Sullivan and a company of strong singers, including J. H. Ryley as Sir Joseph, Blanche Roosevelt as Josephine, Alice Barnett as Little Buttercup, Furneaux Cook as Dick Deadeye, Hugh Talbot as Ralph Rackstraw and Jessie Bond as Cousin Hebe.

was uncensored, shocking such prominent audience members as Lewis Carroll,[n 8] who later wrote: "a bevy of sweet innocent-looking girls sing, with bright and happy looks, the chorus 'He said, Damn me!

[Gilbert and Sullivan] have on previous occasions been productive of such legitimate amusement, such novel forms of drollery, such original wit, and unexpected whimsicality, that nothing was more natural than for the audience to anticipate an evening of thorough enjoyment.

[114] Similarly, The Illustrated London News concluded that the production was a success and that the plot, though slight, served as a good vehicle for Gilbert's "caustic humour and quaint satire".

"[116] The Daily News, The Globe, The Times (which particularly praised Grossmith, Barrington and Everard) and The Standard concurred, the last commenting favourably on the chorus acting, which, it said, "adds to the reality of the illusion".

[11] Upon the publication of the vocal score, a review by The Academy joined the chorus of regret that Sullivan had sunk so low as to compose music for Pinafore and hoped that he would turn to projects "more worthy of his great ability".

Pinafore ... has been given, and with great success, wherever there are theaters – from Moscow to Buenos Aires, from Cape Town to Shanghai; in Madrid, Ottawa and Melbourne; even in Paris, Rome, Vienna and Berlin.

It praised the cast, singling out Leo Sheffield as the Captain, Henry Lytton as Sir Joseph, Elsie Griffin as Josephine, James Hay as Ralph, Bertha Lewis as Little Buttercup and the "splendid" choral tone.

[127] Two years later, it gave an even more glowing report of that season's performances, calling Derek Oldham an "ideal hero" as Ralph, noting that Sydney Granville "fairly brought down the house" with his song, that Darrell Fancourt's Deadeye was "an admirably sustained piece of caricature" and that it was a "great pleasure" to hear the returning principals.

Productions of Pinafore, both amateur and professional, range from the traditional, in the D'Oyly Carte vein, to the broadly adapted, such as that of the very successful Essgee Entertainment (formed by Simon Gallaher) in Australia and Opera della Luna in Britain.

An engaging and even relatively suspenseful story is populated with varied and well-drawn characters who speak and sing witty, literate, and often outrageously funny dialogue and lyrics [and] has a score that ... has plenty of tunes for the audience to go away humming".

[144] Historian H. M. Walbrook wrote in 1921 that Pinafore "satirizes the type of nautical drama of which Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan is a typical instance, and the 'God's Englishman' sort of patriotism which consists in shouting a platitude, striking an attitude, and doing little or nothing to help one's country".

[154] In a satire of the libertarian traditions of nautical melodrama, Sir Joseph tells the crew of the Pinafore that they are "any man's equal" (excepting his), and he writes a song for them that glorifies the British sailor.

[154] Jones notes that the union between Ralph and Josephine "becomes acceptable only through the absurd second-act revelation of Buttercup's inadvertent switching of the infants" and concludes that Gilbert is a "conservative satirist [who] ultimately advocated preserving the status quo ... [and] set out to show [that] love definitely does not level all ranks".

Thus, Pinafore found broadbased success by appealing to the intellectual theatregoer seeking satire, the middle-class theatre-goer looking for a comfortable confirmation of the "existing social order" and the working-class audience who saw a satisfying melodramatic victory for the common man.

[159] The best-known songs from the opera[160][161] include "I'm called Little Buttercup", a waltz tune introducing the character, which Sullivan repeats in the entr'acte and in the Act II finale to imprint the melody on the mind of the audience;[162] and "A British tar" (a glee for three men describing the ideal sailor), composed by Sir Joseph "to encourage independent thought and action in the lower branches of the service, and to teach the principle that a British sailor is any man's equal, excepting mine".

[155] Another popular number is Sir Joseph's song "When I was a Lad", recounting the meteoric rise of his career, which bears similarities to that of W. H. Smith, the civilian news entrepreneur who had risen to the position of First Lord of the Admiralty in 1877.

[164] The musicologist Gervase Hughes was impressed with the introduction to the opening chorus which includes "a rousing nautical tune ... in a key of no nonsense, C major ... a modulation to the mediant minor, where to our surprise a plaintive oboe gives us the first verse of "Sorry her lot" in 2/4 [time].

But on the serious side, he enhances the moments of true emotional climax, as in Josephine's Act II aria, and added musical interest to concerted numbers by "subtly shifting the rhythms and bar groupings.

"[158] During rehearsals for the original production, Gilbert added a ballad for Captain Corcoran in which he urged his daughter to forget the common sailor with whom she is in love, because "at every step, he would commit solecisms that society would never pardon."

Ian Talbot directed, and Gary Wilmot starred as Deadeye, with Scarlett Strallen as Josephine, Desmond Barrit as Sir Joseph and Leslie Nichol as Buttercup.

For example, in his comedy album My Son, the Celebrity, Allan Sherman parodies "When I Was a Lad" from the point of view of a young man who goes to an Ivy League school and then rises to prominence in business.

According to Jones, "Pinafore launched the first media blitz in the United States" beginning in 1879,[139] and recent ads include a television campaign for Terry's Chocolate Orange featuring a pastiche of "When I Was a Lad".

Pinafore in Jazz", produced and directed by Max Liebman, starring Perry Como, Buddy Hackett, Kitty Kallen, Bill Hayes, Pat Carroll and Herb Shriner.