In 1870s England, an impresario, a librettist, and a composer revolutionized musical theatre with a series of productions known as the Savoy operas.
Richard D’Oyly Carte
Having seen the short comic opera Thespis during the Gaiety Theatre’s 1871 Christmas show, theatrical agent-producer Richard D’Oyly Carte invited its creators to write a brief piece for him in 1875. As manager at the Royalty Theatre, he wanted a brief one-act companion piece for his feature presentation – Offenbach’s La Perichole.
Those collaborators, William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan had earned some success in separate work during the years prior to D’Oyly Carte’s invitation. The result of their second pairing was the funny and melodic Trial by Jury that launched a 25-year partnership.
Critics and audiences loved the combination of Gilbert’s witty satire and Sullivan’s light-hearted music that presented a welcome change from insipid drawing-room style entertainments or bawdy burlesques and French operetta adaptations prevalent on London’s musical stages.
Gilbert, Sullivan, and the Savoy Theatre
With the extraordinary success of Trial by Jury, Carte enlisted partners to lease the Opera Comique and form The Comedy Opera Company for production of the pair’s work.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer, which opened in 1877 showed a fair profit, but during the extremely hot summer of 1878 when numbers of theatre attendees diminished, their H.M.S. Pinafore received only light audience response. Carte dissolved the company when his partners demonstrated great concern for their capital investments and posted closing notices for the show without consultation.
Later in the season, as audience numbers increased, H.M.S. Pinafore became the top show of the season. The former directors attempted to claim ownership of costumes and sets by hiring thugs to remove them from the theatre, but lost the struggle behind the scenes and in court.
The impresario’s new partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan, The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company developed into an extremely successful theatrical venture. The comic operas drew great crowds of delighted audiences in London and throughout the British Isles, and eventually in most English-speaking countries. The company presented a Royal Command Performance of The Gondoliers at Windsor Castle for Queen Victoria in 1891.
Carte, considered a great stage manager with a touch of genius, realized his dream with the 1881 opening of his Savoy Theatre on the Strand and the luxurious Savoy Theatre in 1889. Though all works of Gilbert and Sullivan are known as Savoy operas, the first presented at the new venue was Patience.
Helen Lenoir Carte
Early in his career, Carte hired a remarkable Scottish woman, Helen Lenoir who became his indispensible assistant and his second wife. A member of the Savoy Companies, actor-singer Henry Lytton wrote of her in his autobiography, “There was hardly a department of this great enterprise which did not benefit...from Mrs. Carte’s remarkable genius...She was a born business woman...no financial statement was too intricate for her and no contract too abstruse...”
Mrs. Carte, whose talents extended to fine judgment of talent and artistic matters pertaining to staging, frequently managed the popular productions of Gilbert and Sullivan shows in Canada and the United States.
Touring the British Isles
The witty dialogue and sparkling music of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas drew slightly different responses from audiences in areas of the British Isles. Audiences in Northern England and Scotland, though not as demonstrative as those in the south, always welcomed D’Oyly Carte Company performances warmly.
As declared by Lytton, “Nowhere are there truer lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan than the Irish”. Unsure about the cause of the enthusiasm – the fantastic wit of Gilbert or the music of the Irishman Sullivan – he declared that they had no better reception anywhere.
“The Grand Duke” Finale
Following intense arguments over the cost of a new carpet purchased by Carte for the theatre, the partners separated for four years – an action regretted later by all parties. With the delightful Utopia Limited, Gilbert and Sullivan reunited in 1893, but their 25-year partnership ended following presentation of their 13th piece, The Grand Duke in 1896.
Sullivan died in 1900, and Gilbert in 1911. Following Richard D’Oyly Carte’s 1901 death, Helen Carte accepted responsibility for the company and maintenance of its Savoy traditions until her 1913 death when Richard’s son Rupert took control. He succeeded in reviving interest in the Victorian era musicals with his 18-week staging of the comic operas at the Princes Theatre in 1919. Following his 1948 demise, his daughter Bridget, the only surviving member of the family, carried the responsibilities.
Legacy of D’Oyly Carte Opera Company
In 1961, when the operas’ copyrights ended, Bridget donated all the company’s rights and staging properties with a value of at least £150,000 to the newly established D’Oyly Carte Opera Trust. She also donated £30,000 in cash to the Trust, and formed the Bridget D’Oyly Carte Ltd. In 1975, at the Savoy Theatre, she presented each of Gilbert and Sullivan’s pieces in chronological order during a two-week celebration of the Trial by Jury centenary.
The final curtain fell on the company February 27, 1982 due to rising production costs. Prior to her death a few years later, Bridget (now Dame of the British Empire) provided funds to support the Trust’s reformation of the company for brief theatrical seasons in major centres under the name New D’Oyly Carte.
With its extensive library, the company supplies professional companies, amateur societies, educational organizations, and festivals with orchestral parts for all Gilbert and Sullivan works.
The legacies of impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte, librettist William Gilbert, and composer Arthur Sullivan continue with each revival of the delightful comic operas.
Sources:
Henry A. Lytton, Secrets of a Savoyard, Jarrolds, Ltd. 1922
Diana Burleigh, Richard D’Oyly Carte and the Dynasty He Founded, Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed Oct. 10, 2011
Kathleen Airdrie - Kathleen has thirty years' freelance writing experience covering history, biographical profiles, environmental and social issues
