Most books written on Gilbert and Sullivan have focused on the authors rather than on their work. Examining all 14 operas in detail, this book offers a fresh look at the works themselves.
Welcome to Topsy-Turvydom, a magicalkingdom (well, more like an opera stage)full of pirates, policemen, fairies, and fakemustaches! Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivanhave ruled this kingdom together in peace,but one day, Mr. Sullivan decides he'shad enough. Every opera they write is thesame silly old story, and he's ready forsomething different. Something serious!Mr. Gilbert is stunned. He's lost hisbusiness partner and his best friend, andhe needs a brilliant idea in order to gethim back. When Mr. Gilbert comes acrossa Japanese street fair, inspiration strikes,and The Mikado is born! Gilbert andSullivan reunite for their greatest workyet, showing that good things can comefrom an argument between friends.
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.
This colorful history of a powerful family brings the world they lived in—the glittering Rome of the Italian Renaissance—to life. The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame—Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who inspired Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty’s dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale. From the author of The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici and other acclaimed works, The Borgias and Their Enemies is “a fascinating read” (Library Journal).
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.
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This biography tells the story of Alice May, a touring prima donna in the nineteenth century who took part in pioneering performances of the popular light operas of the day, including the first production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer.