The Fortune Hunter
Gilbert was the librettist of the extraordinarily successful Savoy operas, written in collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan.
[10] Aboard the ship Africa, Vicomte Armand De Breville, a young and impoverished French aristocrat, is fencing with his friend Sir Cuthbert Jameson.
Armand had, some time earlier, proposed marriage to a crude but wealthy American woman, Euphemia Van Zyl, but she instead married the elderly Duke of Dundee.
Sir Cuthbert and Armand are both now romantically interested in another passenger, a strong-willed Australian heiress named Diana Caverel.
Sir Cuthbert doubts that Euphemia would take up with a married man, but Diana notes that the Duchess might not know of Armand's marriage; indeed his own parents have only just been informed of it.
They are shocked to find out that her father was a mere merchant and state that they would have forbidden the marriage, noting that Armand was underage.
A letter arrives from Armand, also stating that he was underage at the time of the wedding, and informing Diana that he is moving to annul the marriage.
However, this has the unintended effect of angering Armand's parents, who balk at his dishonourable actions and state that they would not do anything to harm Diana's reputation.
In Monte Carlo at the Duchess's villa, six months later, Euphemia decides to leave the Duke and return to America to marry Armand.
Sir Cuthbert arrives and angrily accuses Armand of lying in the letter about his parents' intention to annul his marriage.
The first-night audience was enthusiastic, but the play's tragic ending, as well as Gilbert's treatment of Diana and his familiar theme of "woman victimized by man's double standards" (compare Charity),[11] together with his old-fashioned style, dissatisfied the critics.
[9] After the short Birmingham run, as the play was moving to the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh, Gilbert gave an interview to a reporter from the Evening Despatch.
[13] For example, The New York Times reported Gilbert as saying: "London critics attack an author as if he was a scoundrel of the worst type, and I do not feel disposed to put myself forward as a cock-shy for these gentlemen...
"[14] The paper continued: After so many years of distinguished successes as a comic opera librettist in collaboration with Sir Arthur Sullivan, Mr. Gilbert returned to serious play writing only to score a failure.
The critics are unanimous in their verdict that the play lacks the elements of strength and popularity and that no amount of carpentering, tinkering, or revising could infuse life into it.
This after Mr. Gilbert had announced, seemingly without thought of the possibility of failure, that he had resolved to forswear comic opera for more important work.
[16] In 1906 and afterwards for several years, Gilbert worked on The Fortune Hunter, rewriting it under different titles, but he did not succeed in reviving interest in the play.
The Fortune Hunter may be little remembered today, but the letter is frequently quoted:[9] In the face of Saturday the officials and the [railway] company stand helpless and appalled.
This day, which recurs at stated and well-ascertained intervals, is treated as a phenomenon entirely outside the ordinary operations of nature and, as a consequence, no attempt whatever is made to grapple with its inherent difficulties.
