By: Jeff Clarke (Opera della Luna)

Jeff Clarke (Opera della Luna) — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 08:09:01 +0000

As your site is called Operetta Research, I feel I ought to just correct an erroneous fact in the review. Your critic reports that I have expanded the role of Hebe by using dialogue, from G&S’s Patience. I can see why he might have thought this – but it is not the case. When HMS Pinafore was originally being produced the role of Cousin Hebe was written for a well-known actress Mrs Howard Paul, who had played Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer. Dissatisfied with her role, Mrs Howard Paul pulled out of the show in rehearsal. A young unknown soubrette called Jessie Bond was cast to take over. Gilbert, unsure of Bond’s skills decided to cut a scene in the second act where Hebe interferes to the extent that Sir Joseph tells her sharply not to, to which she exclaims “Crushed!”. Although Jessie Bond went on to create all the mezzo roles in the subsequent G&S operas,and indeed became a star of the D’Oyly Carte company, Gilbert never replaced the scene in HMS Pinafore. But we have. He later used the exclamation “Crushed” for Lady Jane in Patience, which is why your critic will have thought that the dialogue came from Patience. It doesn’t, it’s original Pinafore.

Comments on: Gilbert & Sullivan At Wilton’s Music Hall: An “HMS Pinafore” Performance To Remember

By: Jeff Clarke (Opera della Luna)