The Mountebanks is a comic opera in two acts with music by Alfred Cellier and Ivan Caryll and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The story concerns a magic potion that causes the person to whom it is administered to become what he or she has pretended to be. It is similar to several "magic lozenge" plots that Gilbert had proposed to the composer Arthur Sullivan, but that Sullivan had rejected, earlier in their careers. To set his libretto to music, Gilbert turned to Cellier, who had previously been a musical director for Gilbert and Sullivan and had since become a successful composer. During the composition of the piece Cellier died, and the score was finished by the original production's musical director, Ivan Caryll, who became a successful composer of Edwardian Musical Comedy.
The opera was first produced at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 4 January 1892, for a run of 229 performances. It also toured extensively, had a short Broadway run, in 1893, American tours and Australian productions. The original cast included Geraldine Ulmar, Frank Wyatt, Lionel Brough, Eva Moore and Furneaux Cook. The American cast included Hayden Coffin and Lillian Russell. A professional recording of the work was released in 2018.Canning, Hugh. "On record: Classical", The Sunday Times, 22 July 2018, Features, p. 25; and "W.S. Gilbert & Alfred Cellier: The Mountebanks & Alfred Cellier: Suite Symphonique", Dutton Vocalion, March 2018
Background The story of the opera revolves around a magic potion that transforms those who drink it into whoever, or whatever, they pretend to be. The idea was clearly important to Gilbert, as he repeatedly urged his famous collaborator, Arthur Sullivan, to set this story, or a similar one, to music. For example, he had written a treatment of the opera in 1884, which Sullivan rejected, both because of the story's mechanical contrivance, and because they had already produced an opera concerning a magic potion, The Sorcerer (1877);Gilbert had also written an earlier burlesque of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore called Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack (1866); a play, The Palace of Truth (1870), which explores the consequences of a magical environment in which people are required to tell the truth unknowingly, with unintended consequences; a short story called An Elixir of Love in 1876, on the same theme as The Sorcerer, and another play involving a magic potion and magic pills, Foggerty's Fairy (1881). Sullivan felt that the story lacked "human emotion".Stedman, pp. 283–85"Cellier. The Mountebanks". The Gramophone, September 1965, p. 85, accessed 14 July 2010 The idea of a magic potion that changes human behaviour has long been a common theme of literature and opera. The device allows Gilbert to explore "how people behave when they are forced to live with the consequences of their own actions", and how much control people really have over their own thoughts and feelings.Smith, J. Donald. Introduction to Cellier, Alfred and W. S. Gilbert, The Mountebanks, Gordon-Powell, Robin (ed. music) and Smith, J. Donald (ed. libretto), The Amber Ring, Vol. 1, 2014 (available at [email protected])
The Gilbert and Sullivan partnership and their Savoy operas dominated the London musical stage from the late 1870s to 1890. When that partnership temporarily disbanded, due to a quarrel over finances after the production of The Gondoliers, Gilbert sought another composer who would collaborate on the "magic lozenge" idea that Sullivan had rejected. He eventually found a willing partner in Alfred Cellier, a logical choice for Gilbert. The two had collaborated once before (Topsyturveydom, 1874), and Cellier had been the musical director for Gilbert and Sullivan's early operas. Cellier had also achieved much success apart from Gilbert and Sullivan, particularly with his comic opera Dorothy (1886), a smash hit. It played for over 900 performances, considerably more than The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most successful piece. Dorothy set and held the record for longest-running piece of musical theatre in history until the turn of the century.Gillan, Don. Longest Running Plays in London and New York, 1875 to 1920 at the Stage Beauty website (2007)
Composition Gilbert and Cellier agreed to collaborate on The Mountebanks in July 1890, and Gilbert began fleshing out the libretto, but unlike his usual daily interactions with Sullivan during development of a libretto, he found Cellier to be far less responsive.Smith, J. Donald. "The Mountebanks, By W. S. Gilbert and A. Goring Thomas"], Magazine, No. 102, Sir Arthur Sullivan Society, London, Spring 2020, pp. 13–22 He was annoyed when Cellier sailed for Australia in mid-December without having responded to Gilbert's repeated queries about potential conflicts between some plot changes that he had suggested and an opera that Cellier was planning with the librettist B. C. Stephenson, The Black Mask, including a Spanish setting involving guerillas during the Peninsular War. Gilbert then completed the first act assuming that there were no conflicts. He finally received a response from Cellier by early January, stating that Gilbert's change in the setting of The Mountebanks from Sicily to Spain would indeed conflict with The Black Mask; Gilbert replied that he was ending the collaboration, and that Horace Sedger, the manager and lessee of London's Lyric Theatre, where the piece was to be produced, agreed with this. In early February, Gilbert approached the composer Arthur Goring Thomas to set the libretto to music, and Thomas sketched out music to four musical numbers. For unknown reasons, possibly Thomas's poor health, he never set the opera; when Cellier returned to England in April 1891, he sought, through his and Gilbert's mutual friend, Edward Chappell, to mend fences with Gilbert, and, after some flattery, succeeded. Gilbert changed his setting back to Sicily, and the guerillas again became brigands; it turned out that The Black Mask was never produced.
Cellier suffered from tuberculosis for most of his adult life,Stedman, p. 279 but during the composition of The Mountebanks he deteriorated rapidly and died, at the age of 47, while the opera was still in rehearsals. All of the melodies and vocal lines in the opera were composed by Cellier, but the orchestration was incomplete when he died. The score was completed by the Lyric Theatre's musical director, Ivan Caryll, a successful composer who became one of the best-known composers of Edwardian Musical Comedy.Gänzl, Kurt, "Caryll, Ivan (1861–1921)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 12 January 2011 Caryll composed the entr'acte, using the melody from Number 16, and he wrote or modified the orchestration for more than half a dozen of the songs. He chose the 4th movement of Cellier's 1878 orchestral piece, the Suite Symphonique, to use as the opera's overture.A vocal score, with dialogue, is available at Lulu.com One song whose lyrics were printed in the libretto available on the first night were never set to music, and another was cut before the opening night.Smith, J. Donald. "The Missing Songs of The Mountebanks", W. S. Gilbert Society Journal, Vol. 4, part 4, issue 30, pp. 15–31 (2012) After Cellier's illness prevented him from finishing the score, Gilbert modified the libretto around the gaps, and the order of some of the music was changed.
Productions and recordings
The Mountebankss initial run of 229 performances surpassed most of Gilbert's later works and even a few of his collaborations with Sullivan.Stedman, p. 285 Gilbert engaged his old friends John D'Auban, to choreograph the piece, and Percy Anderson, to design costumes.The Mountebanks at The Guide to Musical Theatre, accessed 15 December 2009 The initial run closed on 5 August 1892. Despite the opera's warm reception, Gilbert wrote on 7 January 1892, shortly after the premiere, "I had to make rough & ready alterations to supply gaps – musical gaps – caused by poor Cellier's inability to complete his work. It follows that Act 2 stands out as a very poor piece of dramatic construction ... this is the worst libretto I have written. Perhaps I am growing old."Quoted in Stedman, p. 283
The success of the London production led its producer, Sedger, to establish at least three touring companies, which visited major towns and cities in Britain for a year and a half, from March 1892 to mid-November 1893.Newcastle Weekly Courant, 23 April 1892; Birmingham Daily Post, 3 May 1892; Glasgow Herald, 20 December 1892; Leeds Mercury, 23 December 1892; Liverpool Mercury, 13 March 1893; Ipswich Journal, 6 May 1893. Louie René played Ultrice on one tour in 1893.The Era, 12 November 1892, p. 20; and 7 October 1893, p. 7 While playing in Manchester, one touring company found itself competing with a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring company at a nearby theatre. The strained relations between Carte and Gilbert after The Gondoliers did not prevent the two companies from playing a cricket match in May 1892.The Era, 16 April 1892 Relations between Gilbert and his new producer had also deteriorated, and the author unsuccessfully sued Sedger for cutting the size of the chorus in the London production without his approval. It was toured for a year in America by the Lillian Russell Opera Company, starring Lillian Russell and C. Hayden Coffin, including a run of a month and a half at the Garden Theatre on Broadway, opening on 11 January 1893. It was also produced in Australia and New Zealand by the J. C. Williamson company until 1900.
Gilbert and Cellier's widow later sold the performing and score rental rights to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Occasional amateur performances were staged in Britain, America and Australia until the Second World War, and the professional J. C. Williamson company continued to perform it occasionally in Australia and New Zealand. After that, the first known staging was in New York City, in 1955, in a small-scale production at the St. John's Theater, in Greenwich Village, by the Chamber Opera Players, accompanied only by a piano."Mountebanks, an Opera, In U. S. Debut in Village"], New York Herald Tribune, 2 December 1955, p. 13 It was produced in 1964 by the Washington, D.C., Lyric Theatre Company, with orchestra, and the company recorded the score. The Lyric Theatre company so damaged the orchestra parts that D'Oyly Carte stopped renting them out, and all further amateur performances could be accompanied only by piano until James Gillespie's Ramsgate production in 1982, which used orchestra parts that he copied from Australia.