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Tag: G&S

  • Hebe in HMS Pinafore

    Hebe in HMS Pinafore

    The Name is Bond – Jessie Bond

    By the 1890s, Jessie Charlotte Bond was at the peak of her G&S career. She was the leading mezzo-soprano in all of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous Savoy operas. She had starred in shows from HMS Pinafore to The Gondoliers, each time creating new roles with more and more importance. Jessie was a real star.

    As with so many successful stage careers it all began with being in the right place at the right time.

    Back in November 1877, W S Gilbert could have been forgiven for feeling rather pleased. His partnership with composer Arthur Sullivan had produced another success. Their new opera, The Sorcerer was playing to ecstatic audiences at the Opera Comique. The impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte was delighted with full houses for every performance and had agreed very favourable terms for their next venture.

    The established star of the Opera Comique, Mrs Isabella Howard Paul was spellbinding audiences as Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer.  Celebrated for her clever acting and comic impressions of well know singers of the day, Isabella was at the peak of her glittering 25-year stage career. Gilbert was determined to write a suitable role for her in the new opera, HMS Pinafore.

    The leading mezzo-soprano in the new opera was the role of Cousin Hebe. Gilbert set out to write a part for Hebe that would make the most of Isabella’s talents, with ample opportunity for her to include her own famous songs, impressions and comic turns.

    But there was a bit of a snag. Isabella’s voice had deteriorated over the years and although still only 44, she couldn’t successfully sing the music Sullivan composed for Hebe. He wasn’t prepared to compromise a note and was reluctant to use her. Gilbert agreed that there was indeed a problem with her singing.

    They hit on an ingenious plan to keep all Isabella’s clever business and special dialogue in the show, but to give the actual singing to a newcomer. Jessie Bond was charming and had a lovely voice. She was 25 and pretty. Isabella hated her on sight.

    Isabella as Lady Sangazure

    Jessie Bond

     

    It will be no surprise to you, and it is quite astonishing that it was a surprise to Messrs G&S that, on hearing of their brilliant wheeze to give her songs to Jessie, Isabella upped and left, never to grace the stage of the Opera Comique again.

    Now, excellent singer though she was, Jessie had little or no experience of acting. She had been careful to stipulate that she should have “no talking to do, only singing parts”. Sullivan had been entirely captivated by her audition and she had to be included in the cast. Just for the singing, of course. Hebe’s dialogue was cut to the one or two lines Jessie thought she could manage.

     

    We think that is a bit of a shame and indeed Jessie went on to be a brilliant actor as well as a fine singer.

    For our production of HMS Pinafore our creative team have given Hebe, played by the brilliant singer and actor Cat Lee, rather more to do.

    Our director Paula Fraser has introduced music from other G&S operas for her to sing and to emphasise her role in the production. She has also found some of Sir Jospeh’s dialogue sits perfectly with Hebe’s enhanced role.

    Instead of Hebe being in favour of the marriage of Sir Joseph to Josephine, Paula has changed Hebe’s character to be hopelessly in love with Sir Joseph and unable to leave his side. She is delighted by everything he does, is overly excited about being on ship and steals some of Sir Joseph’s thunder – which does not make him look upon her as favourably as she would like.

    It is no surprise that Hebe encourages Ralph to continue in his pursuit of Josephine so that she can marry Sir Joseph herself, but will her undying devotion be enough?

    Cat Lee in Iolanthe

  • And the latest is…

    News update

    Last show was the brilliant spooky Jack the Ripper. The second time we have performed this wonderful production penned by Ron Pember and Denis de Marne.

    Our next venture is to be part of an enormous choir for the Wolverton Light Orchestra Christmas Concert on Sunday 10th December 2023.

    You can sing with us if you wish…

  • Ring a ring of roses

    Ring a ring of roses

    A plague on your roses?

    “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” or “Ring a Ring o’ Rosie” is an English nursery rhyme or folksong and playground singing game. It first appeared in print in 1881, but it is reported that a version was already being sung to the current tune in the 1790s and similar rhymes are known from across Europe

    It is unknown what the earliest version of the rhyme was or when it began. Many incarnations of the game have a group of children form a ring, dance in a circle around a person, and stoop or curtsy with the final line. The slowest child to do so is faced with a penalty and takes their place in the centre of the ring.

    We probably recognise this version:

    Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
    A pocket full of posies,
    A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
    We all fall down

    Since after the Second World War, in the UK the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this; Peter and Iona Opie, the leading authorities on nursery rhymes, remarked:

    ‘The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and “all fall down” was exactly what happened’.

    However, folklore scholars regard this explanation of the rhyme as baseless for several reasons: it didn’t appear until the mid-twentieth century, the symptoms described do not fit especially well with the Great Plague, and European and 19th-century versions of the rhyme suggest that the “fall” was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy or other form of bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.

    In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, in a letter to Private Eye, the rhyme was jokingly proposed as the “ideal choice” of song to accompany hand-washing in order to ward off infection.

    What do you think?

  • The first Frederic – Llewellyn Cadwaladr

    The first Frederic – Llewellyn Cadwaladr

    Piracy in Paignton?

    Allow me to introduce you to Arthur Dendy. No, not the towel-toting galactic traveller. That was Arthur Dent.  Arthur Hyde Dendy was the upright, uptight Birmingham barrister who transformed Paignton from a place famous for little more than growing cabbages into a flourishing seaside resort.  Arthur owned hotels, ran the local paper,  introduced a horse drawn bus service and built Paignton’s pier.

    By 1879, Arthur would have been a contented man as he strolled along the pier he had built. It had opened in June and became an instant hit with tourists, many of whom took advantage of the boat trips Arthur operated or hired bathing machines from one of his other companies. Arthur’s pretty daughter Mary had married the son of a baronet in May, and they were already expecting his first grandchild.

    Back in 1873, Arthur had built the town’s first theatre, the Royal Bijou. The theatre was small, no more than 50 seats but very luxurious and was said to be the venue for high class theatrical and other entertainments. No boisterousness or horseplay though. That was Torquay and Arthur would have none of it. His mantra was ‘Paignton prefers to be select, dignified and discreet’. Little did he know what was coming that December 1879.

    Llewellyn Cadwaladr had little inkling that December either. He was just 22, a trained tenor and had been singing the role of Ralph Rackstraw in Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s Second Pinafore Company since August. They were a touring company and the current run in Torquay’s splendid Lyceum Theatre had been a success with both locals and visitors. It was while he was performing his duties in the second Pinafore company that a shocking message arrived from London. To his amazement, Llewellyn learned that he had been chosen to take the leading tenor role in the world premiere of a brand-new Gilbert and Sullivan production. One can easily imagine his delight at such a plum booking. A young and newly qualified singer getting the leading part in the latest blockbuster from the world’s most famous and successful theatrical writing duo.

    There was, however, a snag. Well, several snags really. The world premiere of The Pirates of Penzance was to be in Paignton, not Torquay. Paignton had just one available theatre, Mr Dendy’s Royal Bijou. It held a mere 50 paying customers. There was to be only one performance. It was for no better reason than to establish the British copyright before the show was performed by the main company in glitzy, glamorous New York.  Poor Llewellyn would create the role of Frederic in front of fewer than 50 people on a December afternoon in the former cabbage town of Paignton. Llewellyn could be forgiven for feeling a bit crestfallen.

    There was another problem. Mr D’Oyly Carte was most anxious that no one should be able to make pirate copies of the new opera. The cast were not to see the score or libretto until the very last minute. They could not rehearse the opera; they would take the scores onstage with them. Those scores would be hastily printed copies wired from London. There would be no scenery and they would wear their HMS Pinafore costumes. The show was set for Monday 29th December at 2pm.  By the morning of the 29th Llewellyn and the rest of the cast still had no word of what they were actually supposed to be performing. The wire service from London apparently finding the transmission of some 9,000 words and accompanying music score something of a challenge. The production was hastily re-scheduled for Tuesday 30th.

     

    And they did it.  Dressed as sailors, sisters, cousins and aunts from HMS Pinafore with no scenery and holding the printed scores in their hands, the gallant crew of the second Pinafore company performed the first ever production of The Pirates of Penzance.  It has to be said that the theatre was not particularly full. That was hardly to be expected in Paignton in December, but those who attended were rather impressed. One unexpected member of the audience was Benjamin Disraeli, the prime minister. He had been in Paignton visiting his long-time mistress who lived conveniently close in Roundham Road. By then “Dizzy” was an energetic 75 year old.

    In those far off days, politicians used to tell parliament what they had been up to in their spare time and Disraeli accordingly reported his attendance – without of course mentioning Roundham Road. A back bencher, having not heard of Paignton, asked Dizzy where it was. There is nothing prime ministers like more than a soft question from a back bencher and Disraeli obliged with a fulsome answer in praise of the resort. In his detailed reply, the prime minister said he had won a penny and a coconut on the pier. He then announced an increase in income tax. An increase bringing the tax to nearly 2%…..

    Arthur Dendy went on to build sports grounds in Paignton for archery, cycling and rugby.  He died in 1886 at the age of 65 leaving behind a splendid pier and much else still to be found in that town.

    In 1880, his Paignton pier-head pavilion hosted a production of HMS Pinafore, re-titled ‘HMS Pinafore on the Water’, performed by the main D’Oyly Carte company.

    Llewellyn never got to create a new role for Gilbert and Sullivan again though he went on to take leading roles in many revivals of their operas over the following 16 years.

    He died in Chelsea in London at the age of 53. He is buried in an unmarked grave in the Actors’ Acre in Brookwood Cemetery.