Henry A. Lytton

“ He is, that is to say, an artiste to his finger-tips, and no real artiste, even when he is a humorist, has any place for buffoonery. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan operas themselves, he is always so clean and wholesome and pleasant. The clearness of his enunciation is a gift in itself, and his dancing reminds us of the time when all our dancing was so charming and graceful, and thus so different to what it is to-day. ”

“ I have been told more than once by members of the company how, when they have felt disheartened for some reason or other, he would come along with some cheery word, some little bit of advice and encouragement that would make all the difference to them. Often and often he has brightened up the dreary work of rehearsals by his buoyant humour and all-compelling good spirits.
What a happy family must be a company that is led by one who is so entirely free from vanity and petty jealousy and whose one aim is to help the performance along! ”

“ Certainly Fairfax knows these arts much better than Point. Before the jester's eyes he begins to fascinate the girl with sweet words and tender caresses, and the utter disillusionment of poor Jack Point, a victim of the fickleness of womankind and outwitted in love, is reflected in that haunting number, "When a wooer goes a wooing." Events now race towards their end—an end that to two at least has all the joyous warmth of romance, but to the one pathetic figure in his motley the blackness of despair. ”

“ The whole of his stage career was spent with these operas.
It was not everybody who understood Billington. Sometimes he could be uncommonly moody and gruff, and if he did not feel in the mood to talk, he would make it clear that he wanted no introductions to one's own acquaintances. But under the rugged surface he was a fine-hearted fellow, who lived life heartily and lived it well, and nothing pleased him better, apart from a game of golf, than to sit and gossip with those whose society he liked. ”

“ You are an actor. I am an actor. Come with me to a meeting at which I am to make a speech and I will show you a real-life drama truer than ever you will see or hear on the stage. The audience would kill me if they dare. ”

“ Upon Rupert D'Oyly Carte's shoulders has fallen the mantle of a splendid heritage. Speaking as the oldest member of his company, and no less as one who may claim also to be a friend, I can assure him that the happy family of artistes who serve under his banner, and who play in these pieces night by night with all the more zest because they love them for their own freshness and grace, will always do their part under him in keeping alight the "sacred lamp" of real English comedy that was first kindled into undying fires within the portals of the Savoy. ”

“ Nowhere are there truer lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan than the Irish. It may be that Gilbert's fantastic wit is the wit they best understand, and it may be, too, that their hearts are warmed by the "plaintive song" of their fellow countryman, Sullivan. Whatever the cause, we have no better receptions anywhere. One feature of our Dublin and Belfast audiences is, oddly enough, shared with those at Oxford and Cambridge. They do not merely clap, but openly cheer again and again, throwing all conventional decorum away. ”

“ Cellier had his heart and soul in every performance, and what that means is known only to those who work on the stage, and who do sometimes become dull and listless because of their very familiarity with the parts they are playing or because the audience cannot easily be aroused to "concert pitch." What brightness they may give to their acting is of a superficial and mechanical kind that can give them no pleasure. It is at just such times as these that a real conductor is worth his weight in gold. ”

“ Yes, we British people can often see ourselves in [125] these characters as if in a mirror, and it is probably due to this, together with the exquisite blend of inimitable music and wit, that the popularity of these operas is so strong and enduring. Stage "puppets" as they may be, they do show us a lot about both our virtues and follies, but rather more about our follies, because as a race we are notoriously shy of our praises being sung! They are always ready to own up to their weaknesses in some capital song. So like the self-depreciating British! ”

“ Contrast this with Wagner, who makes a terrible fuss about the merest trifle, and works up his orchestration in a manner that might suggest that the heavens were falling. Whether we like our music like this must be a matter of taste and individual discretion. Here in Gilbert and Sullivan at all events we have common sense—for there can be common sense even in the ridiculous—and a tranquilising atmosphere. In a busy, workaday world, with its ceaseless nervous and physical strain, it is surely a grateful attribute, a pleasant diversion between the burdens of one day and those of the next! ”

“ Lady Angela implores her to "Try, try, try to love." She dilates upon the "Ennobling and unselfish passion" until Patience declares, "I won't go to bed until I'm head over ears in love with somebody." Patience soliloquises, "I had no idea love was a duty. No wonder they all look so unhappy. I'll go at once and fall in love with—" but stops, startled by a figure almost as grotesque as Bunthorne, and exclaims, "A stranger!" The stranger is Archibald Grosvenor, an idyllic poet, who plunges boldly into a declaration of love with his "Prithee pretty maiden, will you marry me." ”

“ Gilbert, who had himself followed the law before he transferred his talents to the stage, took as his subject an imaginary breach of promise case between Edwin and Angelina. That it is a faithful picture of a court of law and of those who minister there one would never dare to suggest! But as a very free and clever burlesque even those who follow the vocation of the wig and gown will admit its claims immediately.
When the curtain rises we see the interior of a court of justice, and the barristers, solicitors and jury are already in their places. ”

“ Give your audience credit for humorous perception. Gilbert's wit, in other words, is such that the actor must not force his lines through fear, as it were, that the people in front will otherwise not be intelligent enough to "see the joke." Indeed, the more serious and intense he is in many cases, the more oblivious he pretends to be to the absurdity of what he is saying, the quainter and more delightful is the effect on the other side of the footlights. ”

“ Then began the vagabondage of the strolling player. Jack and Elsie made but a poor living, though they looked forward to the time when the smiles of fortune, the rewards of honest mirth, would allow them to marry. Certainly Jack Point had a pretty wit, and beneath the motley there beat a true heart of gold, too soon to be broken by tragedy. It was the old, old story of the jester who to the world's eye was a merry and boisterous fellow, though in his inner being he was suffering all the while the tortures of anguish. ”

“ Lytton is bound to have that aim because of his intense loyalty to the operas themselves, but how much springs as well from that inherent kindness of his, which, with that complete lack of affectation, makes him so truly one of Nature's gentlemen. "Each for all and all for each" was the motto of the heart-breaking Commonwealth days, of which he tells us such a pathetic human story here, and it seems to remain his motto now that he has climbed to the top of his profession as a principal of the D'Oyly Carte Company.
Lytton's acting always seems to me in such perfect "poise." ”

“ Sir Arthur Sullivan I knew least of the famous triumvirate at the Savoy. I was under him, of course, at rehearsals, and we had pleasant little talks from time to time, but my relations with him were neither so frequent nor so intimate as they were with the other [58] two partners. We had a mutual friend in Francois Cellier, about whose work as conductor I shall have more to say, and it was through him that I learned much about the fine personal and musical qualities of the composer.
Certainly Sullivan was a great man, intensely devoted to his art, and fame and fortune never spoilt a man less. ”

“ Robin is such a shy fellow that he cannot summon up the pluck to propose to Rose Maybud. She, it seems, would not be unwilling to return his affections if he declared them, and she gives more than a broad hint to her bashful lover in a delightful duet, "Poor Little Man." But Robin has to do his love-making by proxy. Luckily or otherwise, Richard has just returned from the sea, and this hearty British tar sings a rollicking song in the Dibdin manner about how his man-o'-war, the "Tom-Tit," met a little French frigate, and how they had "pity on a poor Parley-voo." ”

“ If it is true, as friends have often told me, that one of the chief merits of my work is the clearness of my elocution in all parts of the house, it is due to the advice given to me in those early days by two of the greatest figures connected with the stage, Gilbert and Irving. Seeing that these operas are now being played by hundreds of amateur societies each year, I want to pass on to those who perform in them this golden rule: Always pitch your voice to reach the man listening from the furthest part of the building. ”

“ Notwithstanding that he seems a little hurt about the outrageous attacks on his morality which he has to write and publish at their command, he at least sees the irresistible humour of the strange situation, and he proceeds to sing a capital song about what a farce life is, alike when one's born, when one becomes married, and when one reaches the disillusioned years. ”

“ Then as Commissionaire Pooh-Bah is ordered to find Yum-Yum, Ko-Ko orders her to go along with the Archbishop (Pooh-Bah) , who will marry her to Nanki-Poo at once. Waving aside all questions, Ko-Ko urges them off just as the procession heralding the Mikado and Katisha enters the garden to the strains of "Miya sama, miya sama." The Mikado extols himself as "a true philanthropist" and declares "my object all sublime, I shall achieve in time; to let the punishment fit the crime." His list of social crimes and the penalties prescribed for each class of offender are equally amusing. ”

“ Then Lord Fisher spoke of the exertion needed in our dances on the stage. "Energy! Energy! That's what we want," he declared. "Why, I was fed by my mother until I was quite a big baby. I refused to be weaned—I was so determined even in those days! You must have good natural food when you are born. It means everything. It gives you stamina—it makes a man of you." ”