Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Respectable Capers'

Class, Respectability and the Savoy Operas 1877–1909

Michael Goron

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137594778
• eBook ISBN: 9781137594785
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre History & Criticism

This innovative account of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership provides a unique insight into the experience of both attending and performing in the original productions of the most influential and enduring pieces of English-language musical theatre.

In the 1870s, Savoy impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte astutely realized that a conscious move to respectability in a West End which, until then, had favored the racy delights of burlesque and French operetta, would attract a new, lucrative morally 'decent' audience.

This book examines the commercial, material and human factors underlying the Victorian productions of the Savoy operas. Unusually for a book on 'G&S', it focuses on people and things rather than author biography or literary criticism. Examining theatre architecture, interior design, marketing, and typical audiences, as well as the working conditions and personal lives of the members of a Victorian theatre-company, 'Respectable Capers' explains how the Gilbert and Sullivan operas helped to transform the West End into the family-friendly 'theatre land' which still exists today.

© The Author(s) 2016

Michael GoronGilbert and Sullivan's 'Respectable Capers'Palgrave Studies in British Musical Theatre10.1057/978-1-137-59478-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Michael Goron^{1, 2}

(1)

Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK

(2)

University of Winchester, Winchester, UK

End Abstract

Introduction

Why produce a new study of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas which seeks primarily to re-assert their appeal to late-Victorian ‘middle-England’? Received wisdom, together with much existing literature on the Gilbert/Sullivan/Carte collaboration would indicate that the values of both the creators and the original audience of the Savoy operas were self-evidently bourgeois. Indeed, it is likely that the subsequent survival of the company through the twentieth century depended on the extent to which such ‘respectable’ values, or at least a nostalgic affection for these values, remained relevant to succeeding generations of spectators.¹ However, the originality of this exploration derives in part from a desire to examine the much-discussed Savoy phenomenon and its historical context specifically from the viewpoint of ideas of class, culture and ideology. Perhaps because of the popularity and ubiquity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the fact that, unlike much Victorian theatre, they are well known and still performed (and therefore cannot be ‘rediscovered’), they have, until recently, been relatively neglected by serious academics. In consequence, the application of issues of ideology and class as they relate to historical theatre production have rarely been employed to examine either the internal functioning of the original D’Oyly Carte Opera Company or its output and reception. This book is an attempt to redress the imbalance.

The general (non-specifically academic) literature on Gilbert and Sullivan is, to quote D’Oyly Carte historian Tony Joseph, ‘colossal’. Dillard’s Gilbert and Sullivan bibliography (1991) runs to 208 pages and contains 1056 separate items. As a bibliography, it omits press coverage, excludes unpublished archival material, and naturally predates information made available on modern electronic databases and in publications from the last 20 or so years. This superabundance provides a wealth of primary source material and secondary re-evaluation for the modern scholar, as well as much enjoyment for the interested general reader. However, while containing a great deal of biographical information and some criticism of musical and literary style, the overriding emphasis within the literature is on celebration and commemoration of a much-loved oeuvre and its creators. It does not provide much analysis or critical appraisal of the cultural forces which brought the operas into being and which underpinned their popularity.

Part of my task, therefore, is to locate a discussion of the company within the framework of contemporary academic trends towards reassessing the development of British theatre practice, and specifically that of the West End, during the nineteenth century. The bedrock of this recent reconsideration is formed by prominent studies such as Jacky Bratton’s work on the increased divergence of high and low theatrical forms through the nineteenth century (2004), Davis and Emeljanow’s study of audience demographics (2001) and Tracey C. Davis’s examinations of the economics of production and women in the theatrical workplace during this period (2000, 1991). The results of such scholarship have cast new light on the social and cultural factors underpinning Victorian theatre performance and spectatorship, and have been correspondingly influential in the stimulation and explication of my ideas.

Gratifyingly, there has, very recently, been a small but significant increase in studies using modern academic methods to specifically reassess the Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration (Lee 2010; Williams 2011). Most closely related to my approach is Regina Oost’s Gilbert and Sullivan—Class and the Savoy Tradition (2009). Oost’s extensive and meticulous research concentrates on charting the development of the D’Oyly Carte theatre brand within a consumer culture. Her method is to establish relationships between the consumerist tendencies of the late-Victorian bourgeoisie and cultural values contained within the libretti. Oost’s conception of the importance of social class is limited as, for her purposes, class identity is defined almost exclusively by consumption and brand loyalty. She bypasses discussion of the place of D’Oyly Carte personnel within the social structure of their time, and the effects of class-related attitudes on their working lives.

Instead, I examine potential fissures and disparities in what Oost takes to be a comfortably middle-class entertainment experience. Her coverage concludes with a return to the texts of the operas as a vindication of her ideas concerning consumption. In contrast with Oost’s study and with most of the available literature, my argument uses the texts as one of several starting points for examining the mentalité of the late-Victorian bourgeoisie. Dramatic texts, while an essential component of this investigation, are not its focus. Consequently, my approach to the libretti is largely based on the function they fulfil in representing and reinforcing contemporary attitudes.

The operas are, and were, capable of being received and read polysemically by critics and audiences. They can be seen, for example, as genuine critiques of social practices and values (Hayter 1987), as reflecting ‘the levelling absurdities of the human condition’ (Crowther 2000, p. 121) or, as previously mentioned, as a celebration of conspicuous consumption, and veneration of social status (Oost 2009, pp. 1, p.107–16). For the purposes of the argument presented here, it will be presupposed that the satirical intent of the operas was intended primarily as a means of safely exploring and removing contemporary social and cultural anxieties through laughter, while tacitly reaffirming the values which instigated those anxieties in the first place.² Hence their popularity with an affluent audience base, whose social position and financial standing required the maintenance of a stable, hierarchical and essentially deferential society. The Savoy audience was presented with a satirical critique of itself which avoided any kind of true radicalism, and which implicitly celebrated the very values which were being mocked. Occasionally a hint of an earlier, more radical Gilbert appears. Take for example the song ‘Fold Your Flapping Wings’ from Act Two of Iolanthe. In its original incarnation, Gilbert’s House of Lords satire contained a moment in which Strephon, newly elected to Parliament, reflects on the detrimental effects of social inequality on the disadvantaged:

Take a tipsy lout

Gathered from the gutter –

Hustle him about –

Strap him to a shutter:

What am I but he,

Washed at hours stated –

Fed on filigree –

Clothed and educated?

The social criticism is unambiguous. However, Gilbert was perfectly willing to cut the number following negative press reviews which commented on the inappropriateness of such sentiments in a comic opera (Bradley 2001, p. 436). Clearly he had gone too far.

In common with Iolanthe, the other Savoy operas are permeated by both a criticism and implied reassertion of the culture and values of the Victorian ‘middle class’. Relocating the operas firmly within the customs of this culturally dominant group, and seeing the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and its work as being specific to a particular time and place, can enable an examination of the relationship between ‘historical forms of theatrical expression and the dominant ideology of a historical period’ (McConachie 2007, p. 92). It can also rescue the operas from being regarded as the pieces of vague, culturally ubiquitous ‘Victoriana’ imagined by later (twentieth- and twenty-first-century) audiences when viewing the works through the nostalgic prism of ‘heritage’ culture.

So the fundamental intention of this book is to examine ways in which late-Victorian attitudes influenced the development and work of the D’Oyly Carte Company, and the early production and performance of this organisation’s most important cultural product, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. A basic premise of the argument is that a sector of West End theatre in the mid nineteenth century was remade in the image of the respectable ‘middle classes’,³ and reflected the lifestyle, convictions and prejudices of this sector. Two interconnecting themes will be explored. First, that the presence of this organisation as a popular, financially successful and influential theatrical brand can be understood as a particularly important artistic manifestation of a specifically ‘middle-class’ nineteenth-century British cultural ideology. Second, that issues specific to the Victorian theatre, such as the drive towards social acceptability, and the recognition of theatre work as a valid professional pursuit (particularly for female practitioners) are particularly evident in the working lives of the D’Oyly Carte founders and employees.

Another central question is the extent to which the company and its output can be seen to represent a high point of ‘middle-class’ cultural dominance in the latter part of the century. ‘Middle-class’ culture can be so described because it was adopted and propounded by those who were members of the wide social grouping designated as middle class by the financial classifications of contemporary economists. But the term ‘middle class’ can be seen as a cultural, as well as an economic, designation. While the aristocracy retained much of the nation’s wealth and ultimate political power, and the working classes were far more numerous,⁴ the dominance of the middle classes as employers, and as the major creators and disseminators of cultural products, placed them in a position of cultural authority. Their values and practices were typically propounded in the wider culture by opinion formers who were themselves predominantly economically and occupationally bourgeois. Many of those who held positions of power as employers, professionals, administrators and educators were ‘middle class’ both occupationally and culturally.

Those who wished to improve their living circumstances might do so through processes of acculturation—adopting modes of thought, behaviour and consumption which enabled them to raise their social standing or affiliate themselves advantageously with the economically superior and higher-status ‘middle classes’. People desirous of raising their economic and social conditions by pursuing non-manual occupations were inevitably doing so within the expanding middle-class sphere and were, to some extent, absorbing its values. This kind of acquisition has been explained by Pierre Bourdieu as a desire for ‘cultural capital’—the ‘form of value associated with culturally authorised tastes, consumption patterns, attributes, skills, and awards’ (as described by Webb et al. 2002, p. x). Underlying the attributes of the types of ‘cultural capital’ available in mid- to late-nineteenth-century Britain can be seen a variety of modes of thought and behaviour which, in various combinations, were the manifestation of a late-Victorian ‘middle-class’ ideology. For the sake of conciseness, I propose to refer to this collection of values as ‘respectable’ or pertaining to ‘respectability’.⁵

‘Respectability’ was, at least in the first half of the century, underpinned by the moral strictures of evangelical Christianity. It encompassed the acceptance and public demonstration of cleanliness, sobriety, thrift, sexual probity, appropriateness of dress and personal presentation, correct speech, and the importance of ‘manners’ and etiquette as indicators of individual status. To these may be added wider social concerns such as the general acceptance of existing social divisions and hierarchies to secure societal cohesion, and a consciousness of the importance of hard work to achieve financial and personal success. Domesticity was idealised, promoting a notional division between a comfortable, morally dependable family life and the distasteful problems of greed, exploitation and ambition associated with the workplace. Desirable bourgeois housing distanced the ‘middle-class’ family from the reminders of urban working life by being located as far away from the workplace as was financially practicable.

The foundations of this ideological outlook are marvellously lampooned by Gilbert and Sullivan in Ruddigore, which is set ‘early in the nineteenth century’. Two theatrical stock characters, the villain of Victorian melodrama and the mad heroine of romantic opera, are introduced in Act One. By a twist of plot, they reappear in the second act transformed into starched, black-suited, evangelical do-gooders. They explain their transformation from reprobacy to respectability in song, while executing a comically stiff dance to Sullivan’s intentionally portentous accompanying woodwind melody:

MARGARET: I was once an exceedingly odd young lady

DESPARD: Suffering much from spleen and vapours.

MARGARET: Clergymen thought my conduct shady

DESPARD: She didn’t spend much upon linen-draper...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. The Gilbert and Sullivan Operas and ‘Middle-Class’ Ideals
• 3. The West End: ‘Middle-Class’ Values and Commercialisation
• 4. Patience at the Savoy
• 5. Savoy Audiences 1881–1909
• 6. ‘The D’Oyly Carte Boarding School’: Female Respectability at the Savoy*
• 7. ‘The Placid English Style’: Ideology and Performance
• 8. Conclusion
• Backmatter