W.S. Gilbert

W.S. Gilbert
Author: Jane W. Stedman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1996
Genre: Composers
ISBN: 9780198161745

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was the most brilliant dramatist of Victorian England. A daring and cynical playwright, the forerunner of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, he was also a prolific journalist and humorous poet (his Bab Ballads are still widely read), and he achieved worldwide fame through his long collaboration with the composer Arthur Sullivan, a collaboration that created such classics as H. M. S. Pinafore, The Mikado, and all the other Savoy operas. Now the story of this remarkable writer's life - and of his stormy relationship with Sullivan - is here chronicled by a renowned authority on Gilbert and on the theatrical and literary scene in Victorian London. For this biography, Jane W. Stedman has returned to original sources, has interviewed survivors, and has scoured a whole variety of Victorian periodicals for reviews, and personal comment. Gilbert emerges as a much more complex and interesting figure than has previously been thought. The book is a worthy companion piece to Arthur Jacobs's recent biography Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician.

Plays by W. S. Gilbert

Plays by W. S. Gilbert
Author: George Rowell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 1982-03-04
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780521235891

This edition includes four plays and one libretto, covering more than twenty years of the dramatist's career: The Palace of Truth (1870), Sweethearts (1874), Princess Toto (1876), Engaged (1877) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1891). The collection demonstrates that Gilbert was an original dramatist in his own right. The sophisticated irony of his plays challenged the conventions of the Victorian burlesque and sentimental comedy by demanding, and receiving, an intelligent response from the audience. George Rowell's useful and thorough introduction, which presents the theatrical background to Gilbert's development, also shows the dramatist's influence on Pinero, Wilde and Shaw. Gilbert's style combines a technique rarely realistic and stretching to fantasy with a tone apparently cynical and in fact deeply pessimistic. This odd pairing of fantasy and fatalism was recognized by his own and later generations as 'Gilbertian' and the term has been widely applied even outside the theatre.

Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan
Author: Andrew Crowther
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2011-04-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0752463853

The author of The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore and the other great Savoy libretti, W.S. Gilbert was witty, caustic and disrespectful, one of the celebrities of the late Victorian era. He wrote the most brilliantly inventive plays of his time, and with Arthur Sullivan he wrote comic operas that defined the age. He became richer and more famous than he could have imagined, but at the price of his artistic freedom. In his time Gilbert had been many things: journalist, theatre critic, cartoonist, comic poet, stage director, writer of short stories, dramatist. Andrew Crowther examines W.S. Gilbert from all these angles, using a wealth of sources to tell the story of an angry and quarrelsome man, discontented with himself and the age he lived in, raging at life's absurdities and laughing at them. In this book Gilbert's glorious, contradictory character is explored and brought vividly to life.

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan
Author: Kurt Gänzl
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2021-10-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1438485476

In this, the first book to focus on the original cast members of the classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, world-renowned musical theater expert Kurt Gänzl provides a concise history of the writing and production of each opera, vividly colored by the often little-known life stories of these early performers. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated with rare photographs, Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays delves into the professional and personal lives of the British and American actors and singers who created the celebrated "famous fourteen" Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

The Best Known Works of W.S. Gilbert

The Best Known Works of W.S. Gilbert
Author: Arthur 1842-1900 Sullivan
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-09-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781015238947

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Story of The Mikado

The Story of The Mikado
Author: William Schwenck Gilbert
Publisher:
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1924
Genre: Music
ISBN:

A lighthearted burlesque of Victorian English culture and the vagaries of love. The tale unfolds amid a fanciful version of Japanese society, in which a wandering minstrel has the misfortune to fall in love with the beautiful ward of the Lord High Executioner of Titipu.

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan
Author: Carolyn Williams
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2012
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0231148054

An examination of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, and how parody was used in the culture wars of late-nineteenth-century England.