Ivanhoe (opera) - Background

Background

After the days of Michael Balfe and his contemporaries, the fashion in London, led by the Prince of Wales, was for opera houses to present mostly imported operas from Italy, France and Germany. English opera went into decline, and no through-composed operas were written in England after 1844 until 1874. After this, a few English composers wrote new operas in English, some with English themes, and the Carl Rosa Opera Company produced many of these in the late 1870s and 1880s. Arthur Sullivan had long dreamed of writing a grand opera in what he called an "eclectic" style that would build on the existing European styles. In an 1885 interview, he said:

"The opera of the future is a compromise. I have thought and worked and toiled and dreamt of it. Not the French school, with gaudy and tinsel tunes, its lambent lights and shades, its theatrical effects and clap-trap; not the Wagnerian school, with its somberness and heavy ear-splitting airs, with its mysticism and unreal sentiment; not the Italian school, with its fantastic airs and fioriture and far-fetched effects. It is a compromise between these three – a sort of eclectic school, a selection of the merits of each one. I myself will make an attempt to produce a grand opera of this new school. ... Yes, it will be an historical work, and it is the dream of my life. I do not believe in opera based on gods and myths. That is the fault of the German school. It is metaphysical music – it is philosophy. What we want are plots that give rise to characters of flesh and blood, with human emotions and human passions. Music should speak to the heart, and not to the head. Such a work as I contemplate will take some time."

During the late 1870s and through the 1880s, Richard D'Oyly Carte had earned great success by producing the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. By the late 1880s, perhaps encouraged by the operas produced by Carl Rosa, Carte aspired to do for grand opera what he had done for comic opera, with the assistance of Arthur Sullivan, who had long yearned to compose more serious works. In May 1888, Sullivan noted in his diary that, after a performance of his cantata The Golden Legend given at Albert Hall by command of Queen Victoria, the queen said to him, "You ought to write a grand opera – you would do it so well!" Carte began building the Royal English Opera House in December 1888, and he commissioned Sullivan to write the venture's inaugural work. George Bernard Shaw wondered, in August 1889, about the wisdom of building a new opera house when the three existing ones (Royal Opera House, Her Majesty's Theatre and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), were underutilised. During 1890, Carte contacted several composers, including Frederick Cowen, asking them to compose operas to succeed Ivanhoe in the new house.

Sullivan asked his usual collaborator, W. S. Gilbert to supply the libretto for a grand opera, but Gilbert declined, writing that in grand opera the librettist's role is subordinate to that of the composer, and that the public would, in any case, not accept a serious work from his pen. Gilbert recommended Julian Sturgis to write the libretto. Sturgis had written the libretto for Nadeshda by Arthur Goring Thomas (1885), which had been produced with success by Carl Rosa. Ivanhoe had been treated operatically previously, including an 1826 pastiche opera with music by Rossini and operas by Marschner in 1829, Pacini in 1832 and Nicolai in 1840. Both Sullivan and the critics noted that Scott's novel, with its many scenes, would make for a complex adaptation. Sturgis set to work on Ivanhoe in the spring or early summer of 1889. The libretto uses some of the language directly from the novel and does not change the basic story. However, in condensing the lengthy and action-packed novel for a stage work, the libretto relies on the audience's knowledge of the novel and omits many scenes, also entirely omitting the characters of Gurth the Swineherd, Oswald, Cedric's manservant, some of King John's advisors, and Athelstane the Unready, among others. Richard Traubner, writes in Opera News, that "Sturgis's libretto, given his quotes from Scott and the quasi-medieval English, is still sketchy, and the complex story does not really move forward with any operatic satisfaction."

While Sturgis worked on Ivanhoe, Sullivan was composing The Gondoliers, with a libretto by Gilbert, for the Savoy Theatre. After The Gondoliers opened and Sullivan took his annual holiday in Monte Carlo, he finally began the composition of Ivanhoe in May 1890, finishing the score in December 1890. Chorus rehearsals for Ivanhoe began in November, with Alfred Cellier as chorus master, and his brother François Cellier became musical director of the new theatre. In April 1890, Gilbert challenged Carte over partnership expenses at the Savoy Theatre, including a new carpet for the lobby. To Gilbert's surprise and indignation, Sullivan sided with Carte – after all, Carte was producing his opera – and Gilbert sued Carte and Sullivan in May. The lawsuit was ongoing during much of the period of composition of Ivanhoe, and Sullivan wrote to Gilbert in September 1890 that he was "physically and mentally ill over this wretched business. I have not yet got over the shock of seeing our names coupled ... in hostile antagonism over a few miserable pounds". Sullivan completed the score too late to meet Carte's planned production date, and costs mounted as the producer had to pay performers, crew and others, while the theatre sat empty. Sullivan was required to pay Carte a contractual penalty of £3,000 for his delay.