The Gondoliers
Unbeknownst to the brothers, who have just married Venetian farm girls, the heir was wed in infancy to the daughter of the Spanish Duke of Plaza-Toro, who is herself in love with her father's servant.
The libretto also reflects Gilbert's fascination with the "Stock Company Act", highlighting the absurd convergence of natural persons and legal entities, which plays an even larger part in the next opera, Utopia Limited.
As in several of their earlier operas, by setting the work comfortably far away from England, Gilbert was emboldened to direct sharper criticism at the nobility and the institution of the monarchy itself.
On 9 January 1889, three months into that opera's fourteen-month run, Sullivan informed the librettist that he "wanted to do some dramatic work on a larger musical scale", that he "wished to get rid of the 'strongly marked rhythm', and 'rhymed' couplets, and have words that would have a chance of developing 'musical effects'.
"[2] Gilbert counselled strongly that the partnership should continue on its former course: I have thought carefully over your letter, and while I quite understand and sympathize with your desire to write what, for want of a better term, I suppose we must call 'grand opera,' I cannot believe that it would succeed either at the Savoy or at Carte's new theatre....
Again, the success of the Yeoman [sic] – which is a step in the direction of serious opera – has not been so convincing as to warrant us in assuming that the public want something more earnest still.
"[3] A series of increasingly acrimonious letters followed over the ensuing weeks, with Sullivan laying down new terms for the collaboration, and Gilbert insisting that he had always bent over backwards to comply with the composer's musical requirements.
I say that when you deliberately assert that for 12 years you, incomparably the greatest English musician of the age – a man whose genius is a proverb wherever the English tongue is spoken – a man who can deal en prince with operatic managers, singers, music publishers and musical societies – when you, who hold this unparalleled position, deliberately state that you have submitted silently and uncomplainingly for 12 years to be extinguished, ignored, set aside, rebuffed, and generally effaced by your librettist, you grievously reflect, not upon him, but upon yourself and the noble art of which you are so eminent a professor.
Gilbert suggested an opera based on a theatrical company, which Sullivan rejected (though a version of it would be resurrected in 1896 as The Grand Duke), but he accepted an idea "connected with Venice and Venetian life, and this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music.
"[8] Leslie Baily notes, "The bubbling, champagne-quality of the libretto brought out the gayest Sullivan, and the Italian setting called up a warm, southern response from his own ancestry.
The Graphic (14 December 1889) pointed out that the music contains not only an English idiom but 'the composer has borrowed from France the stately gavotte, from Spain the Andalusian cachucha, from Italy the saltarello and the tarantella, and from Venice itself the Venetian barcarolle'.
"[12] As scholar Andrew Crowther has explained: After all, the carpet was only one of a number of disputed items, and the real issue lay not in the mere money value of these things, but in whether Carte could be trusted with the financial affairs of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Gilbert wrote to Sullivan on 28 May 1891, a year after the end of the "Quarrel", that Carte had admitted "an unintentional overcharge of nearly £1,000 in the electric lighting accounts alone.
[15] After many failed attempts by Carte and his wife, Gilbert and Sullivan reunited through the efforts of their music publisher, Tom Chappell.
[16] In 1893, they produced their penultimate collaboration, Utopia, Limited, but The Gondoliers would prove to be Gilbert and Sullivan's last big hit.
[13] The scene opens in Venice with 24 farm girls declaring their passionate love for a pair of gondoliers, Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri.
The infant prince was taken from his home by the Grand Inquisitor, after the king of Barataria became a Wesleyan Methodist "of the most bigoted and persecuting type", and taken to Venice.
As the wife of the new king, Casilda is now the reigning queen of Barataria, and her parents have brought her to meet with the Grand Inquisitor to be introduced to her husband.
When the Grand Inquisitor arrives, he explains that the prince was raised incognito by Baptisto Palmieri, a humble gondolier, who had a young son of his own about the same age.
Fortunately, the nurse who took care of the infant prince (and who happens to be Luiz's mother), is now living in the mountains, married to "a highly respectable brigand".
In the next scene, the two gondoliers have married Tessa and Gianetta, and as they are extolling the virtues of marriage, Don Alhambra arrives and informs them that one of them is the King of Barataria, but no one knows which.
The Grand Inquisitor neglects to mention that the King is married to Casilda, fearing that it would cause the men to refuse to leave their new wives.
As the two wives are imagining what it will be like to be a queen, their friends enter, and Marco and Giuseppe announce their discovery and promise to reign in a Republican fashion.
They are now dressed in style, and the Duke explains how he was applied for by the public under the Limited Liability Company Act, and how they now earn a very good living.
[19] From then on, it was never absent from the touring repertory until it was omitted from the final two seasons (September 1980–February 1982) before the closing of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
[citation needed] A new production, with new sets and costumes designed by Charles Ricketts, was prepared for the opening of the renovated Savoy Theatre on 21 October 1929.
[7] The critic Ernest Newman wrote: "It was a subtle stroke to open with The Gondoliers; there is a peculiar richness of blood in the music of this work that makes the new theatre and the new designs and dresses by Mr. Charles Ricketts particularly appropriate.
[28] The first non-D'Oyly Carte professional production in the United Kingdom was given by Scottish Opera on 12 December 1968, with Ian Wallace as the Duke.
[29] There was also a production by the New Sadler's Wells Opera in February 1984, with John Fryatt as the Duke and Donald Adams as Don Alhambra.
[30] The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in London and New York during Gilbert's lifetime: The following tables show the casts of the principal early productions and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring repertory at various times through to the company's 1982 closure.
