The Beauty Stone - Production, Reception and Aftermath

Production, Reception and Aftermath

The Beauty Stone premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 28 May 1898. Sullivan conducted the premiere, as he always did with his operas. It closed on 16 July 1898 after a run of just 50 performances, making it the least successful of Sullivan's operas. In contrast, the most successful shows that opened in London in 1898 had far longer runs: The Belle of New York (697 performances); A Greek Slave (349 performances); and A Runaway Girl (593 performances). The cast of The Beauty Stone included Savoy regulars Walter Passmore, Rosina Brandram, Ruth Vincent, Emmie Owen and Henry Lytton. Some of the music is more challenging than the typical Savoy Opera, and so Sullivan insisted on casting several opera singers, including Covent Garden opera soprano Pauline Joran as Saida (at an increased salary), and the size of the chorus was increased. Choreography was by John D'Auban. Costumes by Percy Anderson and sets by William Telbin, Jr. (d. 1931) were universally praised by the critics.

Savoy Theatre audiences were not enthusiastic about the piece. "The Savoy is in the minds of the public so essentially identified with a light after-dinner entertainment that romantic opera is not to the taste of its patrons". Reviewers noted that the opera was "mounted with the artistic finish, completeness, and liberality customary at this popular theatre. Sir Arthur has had to deal with a subject differing widely from those which, at the Savoy, his dainty and humorous muse is so thoroughly identified. This, and the inferiority of the lyrics … must be taken into account. … Speaking for ourselves, we confess freely to disappointment." They found it too long, disjointed and dull, disliked the pseudo-archaic dialogue and nearly all condemned the lyrics. They noted its lack of humour and the satire for which Savoy pieces had been famous. A few critics found much to like in the story, and many praised most of the cast (except for Philip and Guntran) and Sullivan's music, or at least some of it.

In The Saturday Review, Max Beerbohm wrote, "Lyrics written by gentlemen who have had no experience in the difficult art of writing words for music, and sung in a theatre which one associates with Mr. W. S. Gilbert, are not likely to charm the most amenable audience." He said of Carr and Pinero, "I am sure that the indisputable dulness of their Beauty Stone comes, mainly, from their pseudo-archaic manner." Pinero commented, many years later: "I doubt whether any of us had much faith in The Beauty Stone, as likely to attract the Savoy public in large numbers, but we – Sullivan, Carr and I – did what we wanted to do; and, though it doesn't pay the butcher's bill, there lies the artist's reward. Sullivan disagreed, hoping "that one day The Beauty Stone may be revived, with about half the libretto ruthlessly cut away".

The opera was revived on tour by the Carl Rosa Opera Company in 1901–02, which drastically cut the dialogue, reducing the running time of the piece to about 2½ hours. When Sullivan died, his autograph scores passed to his nephew, Herbert Sullivan, and then to Herbert's widow. After her death, the collection was broken up and sold by auction at Sotheby's in London on 13 June 1966. Some items were sold for considerable sums (the score of Trial by Jury sold for £9,000), but the manuscript of The Beauty Stone sold for a mere £110 to a dealer and eventually was acquired by the collector Colin Prestige. Upon his death, almost forty years later, the manuscript was bequeathed to Oriel College, Oxford, and in December 2005 scholars from the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society were able to examine the manuscript, along with other Sullivan autograph manuscripts. They discovered, at the back of The Beauty Stone, the items that had been cut after opening night, which were completely unknown to that time. Since then, these items have been performed in concert, although no full professional productions of the opera have been given since Carl Rosa's over a century ago.

The Beauty Stone received its first recording in 1983 by Edinburgh's The Prince Consort, which was remastered and released by Pearl in 2003.