Customer Reviews

The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan

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I invested in this book intending to listen to and memorize all fourteen of the Savoy operas...I now know ten of them practically from heart, which scares my friends terribly. The funny thing is that, although I intended to buy it solely so that I could sing the words to Sullivan's wonderful hummable tunes, I found myself reading the plays just for the pleasure of Gilbert's clever rymes and horribly improbable plotlines. His "Bab" illustrations are also included beside the text, which opens up another side of Gilbert's genius. But be forewarned: There are several mistakes in the text - mostly words such as "is" being replaced with "it," but also some words that are different. Perhaps the words have changed over time from the origonal texts, but once in a while you'll find a word sung differently than what's written. I treat the book like I'd treat an edition of Shakespeare - dramatic work is always bent and changed slightly. In spite of the minor textual mistakes, it is a very useful book and it's nice to have the libretto laid out without any commentary or annotations.

Back in prehistoric times when records were brittle things and only came in one speed, 78 RPM's, one of my mother's favorite albums was "H.M.S. Pinafore." She played it frequently. Too young to understand the satire, I was attracted by the catchy music. I loved to hear the captain sing "I am the Captain of the Pinafore," immediately followed by the response of the chorus. This plus "Poor Little Buttercup" and "The Ruler of the Queen's Navee" made a fan of me for life.

Several years later, and after having attended performances of several of these comic operas, I began to read Gilbert's lyrics. I must confess that I got much greater enjoyment out of reading lyrics that were from Gilbert and Sullivan performances that I had attended. I think that must be because neither the words nor the music are nearly as enjoyable in the absence of the other.

I have read that Gilbert and Sullivan had a very stormy relationship. I'm glad that they managed to work together as often as they did because they really complemented one another. What they accomplished as a team speaks for itself in the continued performance of so many of their works over a hundred years after they were first performed.

I have an older hardback of THE COMPLETE PLAYS and I found some humor in the following which may have been corrected in later copies. The book starts off with Chronological Biographies of each man. In Gilbert's it states< "first meeting with Arthur Sullivan autumn of 1870." In Sullivan's we find the following. "Met W. S. Gilbert 1871." Something metaphysical afoot perhaps.

In summary, in my opinion, the works in this book, while certainly enjoyable reading, were really meant to be performed in order to give maximum enjoyment. Others may very well disagree with this opinion and I see nothing wrong with that.

This book is full of musical plays and the scripts are worded well for possible performance. The only problem is that the sheet music is missing and from experience it is a headache to find but other than that it is a good book that stimulates the imagination.