Ivan Caryll

Félix Marie Henri Tilkin[1] (12 May 1861 – 29 November 1921), better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian-born composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language, who made his career in London and later New York.

After this he moved to New York City, where he became an American citizen; his last works, including The Girl Behind the Gun (which became a London hit as Kissing Time), incorporated the new fox-trot and one-step rhythms.

He attempted to raise orchestral standards by banning the deputy system, under which a player who was offered a lucrative engagement could send a substitute to perform in the theatre.

[5] This was followed the same year by Monte Cristo Jr., a burlesque for the Gaiety and then by a number of shows produced for the Lyric, culminating with the very successful Little Christopher Columbus (1893).

[7] Also in 1892, with George Dance, Caryll adapted an opéra comique called Ma mie Rosette, based on a French piece by Paul Lacôme, starring Jessie Bond and Courtice Pounds at the Globe Theatre.

[3] Caryll's first big success at the Gaiety was The Shop Girl (1894), which ran for an almost unprecedented 546 performances and heralded a new form of respectable musical comedy in London.

Caryll's output also included songs, dances and salon pieces for his own light orchestra, for which Edward Elgar composed his shapely Serenade Lyrique in 1899.

[4] Still, they continued to work together, producing several successes: The Spring Chicken (1905), The New Aladdin (1906), The Girls of Gottenberg (1907), and the even more popular Our Miss Gibbs (1909), which ran for 636 performances.

[2] Caryll relocated to New York City in 1910, where he became an American citizen and composed more than a dozen Broadway musicals,[12] including The Pink Lady (1911, with Hugh Morton), Oh!

(1912), Chin-Chin (1914; including "Ragtime Temple Bells"),[14][15] Jack o'Lantern (1917), and The Girl Behind the Gun (1918, with a book by P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton; the following year, it was a hit in London as Kissing Time).

According to Wodehouse, Caryll was widely known as "Fabulous Felix", and "lived en prince ... having apartments in both London and Paris as well as a villa containing five bathrooms overlooking the Deauville racecourse.