Gilbert and Sullivan. Over the years the two names have been fused together to form a kind of mythic two-headed wonder who wrote some of the wittiest and most melodic comic operas ever. You can almost say it in one breath, “Gilbert and Sullivan.” William S. Gilbert wrote the words and Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote the music. Individually they were excellent, together they were miraculous.
William Gilbert was a highly successful poet, playwright and illustrator whose ballads and comedies was the toast of Victorian England. Sir Arthur Sullivan was a prolific composer who excelled in every genre. His sacred music, chamber works, cantatas, oratorios and songs were the very model of “serious music.”
If they hadn’t partnered both men would most likely have ended up with brief biographical entries in the Grove Dictionary of Music. They would have been respected, but hardly remembered or beloved. But the stars aligned when the English impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte brought the team together in 1875 for Trial by Jury. The work was a success and Carte built the Savoy Theatre, the place where 14 Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas were produced. The D’Oyly Carte exclusive ownership of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas lasted until 1950, the year Sullivan’s copyright expired. While the D’Oyly Carte connection to Gilbert and Sullivan is inescapable, there are many who felt the music was not given its due because of the less than stellar quality of many of the company’s singers.
These recordings conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent rectify that. Sargent did conduct at the Savoy, but his recordings from the late 1950s and early 1960s uses opera singers in leading roles and features the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and Pro Arte Orchestra. Some of England’s greatest opera and oratorio singers are featured, including Sir Geraint Evans, Elsie Morison, Richard Lewis and Owen Brannigan in principal roles. EMI Classics has reissued these seminal recordings and we are proud to offer them to you.
by Craig Zeichner
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