His Excellency (opera) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The Times praised Gilbert's libretto, rating it his best since The Mikado. The paper thought Carr's music an inferior copy of the Sullivan style, but nevertheless better than "that more vulgar mould in which he has found favour with the purveyors of variety entertainments." The paper judged the cast "exceptionally strong". Its comments on Nancy McIntosh accorded, to some degree, with Sullivan's: " has of late made rapid progress and has become an actress of decided skill and charm, though her voice and singing are scarcely as good as they were when she came out." The Manchester Guardian concurred, attributing the "undeniable triumph" of the piece solely to Gilbert's "inventive genius as a librettist and stage manager." The Saturday Review rated Gilbert's libretto "a pretty fair specimen" of "genuine Gilbertian humour", but lamented the absence of Sullivan; of Carr's contribution, it said, "the music is neat, easy, the technical writing skilful, the orchestration correct; in fact there is nothing wrong with it. And this is the gravest reproach one can make to a writer of opéra-bouffe music – plenty should be the matter with it." The critic of The Theatre disagreed with the positive assessments, calling the libretto "the worst that Mr. Gilbert ever wrote – worse even than The Mountebanks, which was bad enough."