Top of the Tree or Mr. Gilbert & the Unlikely Yankee
A Victorian Rock Opera for the Ages
...here's an exhibition that is highly intellectual - To see it we expect you all - To see it we expect you all - -
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The Mountebanks is a comic opera with words by William S. Gilbert.
The music is by Alfred Cellier, with some additional material by conductor Ivan Caryll.
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The Mountebanks was first produced at the Lyric Theatre, London, in January of 1892, and ran for 229 performances. It was then performed extensively in Britain, America (including Broadway) and Australia.
Cellier created a sophisticated and evocative soundtrack that faithfully serves the complex storyline. The Mountebanks was very popular in its day, and even though the play itself languished it left its influence on 20th century entertainment.
The story involves several groups of people who all drink from a tainted wineskin that causes them to be whoever or whatever they happened to be pretending to be when they drank it. It’s from 1892, after The Gondoliers and before Utopia Limited, during the time when Gilbert and Sullivan were not working together. The Mountebanks pursues a theme that Sullivan didn’t wish to re-visit, the “lozenge” or “philter” plot device.
The idea of a magic potion that changes human behavior has long been a common theme of literature and opera. The device allowed Gilbert to explore "how people behave when they are forced to live with the consequences of their own actions.”
Gilbert used this theme repeatedly in plays and stories, most notably in The Sorcerer (1877), also in The Palace of Truth (1870), and as early as Dulcamara, or The Little Duck and the Big Quack (1866). After The Sorcerer, Sullivan was opposed to using the idea again, and in fact this dispute was at the core of the artistic differences between Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s understandable that Sullivan expected more, but it’s apparent that Gilbert liked these situations. Within the bounds of repressive propriety, they gave him a chance to say things which would be otherwise unacceptable about society, monarchy, military, gender roles, etc. But the “lozenge” scenario also goes deep within, invoking self awareness and reflection, questioning reality and the nature of truth and perception, and being suddenly forced into another point of view; the “shifting of the assemblage point” as Carlos Castaneda called it. Occasions of swapped identities, incongruity, and role confusion persist throughout Gilbert’s operas, plays and stories.
Palace of Truth
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Throughout his partnership with Gilbert, Sir Arthur refused to re-visit the “lozenge” idea partly because they had done it already, but also because he felt that the plot device doesn’t lend itself to real human situations and genuine interactions. And on the surface The Mountebanks is absurdly implausible. Yet strangely enough it has very relatable situations-
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If you’ve ever done a gig with your ex, there’s Bartolo and Nita -
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Those days of old How mad were we To banish! Thy love was told Querido mi, In Spanish -
And timid I, A-flush with shame Elysian, Could only sigh, Dieu, comme je t'aime! (Parisian.)
There are “monks’ who in the company of females are torn between their higher and lower urges.
ARROSTINO-
These blandishments I pray you curb, Nor think us churls - nor think us churls; Our pious calm do not disturb, Now there's good girls - now there's good girls!
Though our emotions, as you see, We try to freeze - we try to freeze! We don't, as yet, pretend to be St. Anthonies - St. Anthonies;
And there’s this happily coupled verse, from Risotto and Minestra:
MINESTRA. With your snapping and your snarling!
RISOTTO. You're a dear, and you're a darling!
MINESTRA. Do you mean it?
RISOTTO. Yes I mean it!
BOTH. Oh, my darling! Oh, my dear!
There is also a continuing theme in Gilbert’s work that explores the nature of humor and its role in relation to drama. In The Mountebanks, Bartolo the clown is a recognizable Gilbert character; an actor who was laughed at derisively while rendering a dramatic scene.
BARTOLO….How you loved me!
NITA. Yes; but when I loved you you told me you were a leading tragedian. But a clown - I really don't see how I could love a clown.
BARTOLO. I didn't deceive you. I've played the first acts - and the first alone - of all our tragedies. No human eye has ever seen me in the second act of anything! My last appearance was three months ago. I played the moody Dane. As no one else has ever played him, so I played that Dane. Gods! how they laughed! I see them now - I hear their ribald roars. The whole house rocked with laughter! I've a soul that cannot brook contempt.
"Laugh on!" I said; "laugh on, and laugh your fill - you laugh your last! No man shall ever laugh at me again - I'll be a clown!" I kept my word - they laugh at me no more…..............
“Though I'm a buffoon, recollect I command your respect! I cannot for money be vulgarly funny, My object's to make you reflect!”
This Mountebanks point of view is potentially the result of Gilbert’s reaction to 1888’s Brantinghame Hall debacle-
“In general, the critics felt that the play (Brantinghame Hall) reflected Gilbert's 1860s style more than his more mature playwriting.
The closing line, "Let us pray", added by Gilbert late in the play's construction, was widely believed to ruin the final scene and cause hilarity where drama was needed. Gilbert soon cut the line, but it was too late, and the play folded…”
but if you go back to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Brantinghame Hall situation seems like a self fulfilling prophesy-
“W.S. Gilbert's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern first appeared in the periodical "Fun" in 1874, but was not performed in public until 1891. A benefit performance in 1904 had a cast that included Gilbert himself as King Claudius…The play opens with the King confessing to his wife an indiscretion of his youth: he was once guilty of writing a five-act tragedy. But his play closed half-way through the first act as a result of hysterical laughter from the first-night audience. For the opening performance, Claudius had packed the theatre with sycophantic courtiers, but, he confesses, "My tragedy was more than even sycophants could stand." The humiliated Claudius then decrees that anyone who mentioned the play is to be executed.
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https://gsarchive.net/gilbert/plays/mountebanks/mountebanks_home.html
Gilbert as King Claudius, with Marion Terry, 1908
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Mountebanks Roles and Original Cast- Lyric Theatre 1892
Arrostino Annegato, Captain of the Tamorras – a Secret Society – Frank Wyatt
Giorgio Raviolo, a Member of his Band – Arthur Playfair
Luigi Spaghetti, a Member of his Band – Charles Gilbert
Alfredo, a Young Peasant, loved by Ultrice, but in love with Teresa – J. Robertson
Pietro, Proprietor of a Troupe of Mountebanks – Lionel Brough (later Cairns James)
Bartolo, his Clown – Harry Monkhouse
Elvino di Pasta, an Innkeeper – Furneaux Cook
Risotto, one of the Tamorras – just married to Minestra – Cecil Burt
Beppo – A member of the Mountebanks' crew) – Gilbert Porteous
Teresa, a Village Beauty, loved by Alfredo, and in love with herself – Geraldine Ulmar
Ultrice, Elvino's niece, in love with, and detested by, Alfredo – Lucille Saunders
Nita, a Dancing Girl – Aida Jenoure
Minestra, Risotto's Bride – Eva Moore
Tamorras, Monks, Village Girls.
The full score of the opera was published in 2014 by Robin Gordon-Powell, followed by a piano/vocal score. A 2015 production was staged in Palo Alto, California by Lyric Theatre, directed by John Hart, using Gordon-Powell's score. The score was finally recorded professionally and released in 2018 with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by John Andrews. A reviewer praised the recording, conducting and performances and noted Cellier's "fine lyrical detail and sumptuous orchestration with which he provides a wide variety of musical effects. … one is aware of the growing sophistication in Gilbert's choice of words in his lyrics during this mature period of his writing...”
ULTRICE
The days of scorn are past - With passion he's demented! Triumphant I, at last! My heart is now contented.
Frolic, fun, and flummery - Magic, mirth, and mummery - (That's the showman's summary)
Thanks to Ian Bond (pictured here as Strephon in Iolanthe) for the Mountebanks images.
Bartolo and Nita as Hamlet and Ophelia
Ophelie
by
Paul
Albert
Steck
Illustrated London news
Mountebanks model stage, 1892. From Leslie Baily's "The Gilbert and Sullivan Book" 1953 edition.
Mountebanks model stage, 1892. From Wells 1901, correctly identified by Michael Walters
The rejected "lozenge plot" from Top of the Tree, or Mister Gilbert and the Unlikely Yankee
