The Yeomen of The Guard - Analysis of The Text and Music

Analysis of The Text and Music

The opera is different from the rest of the series in a number of respects. Its tone is somewhat darker and more serious in character. There is no satire of British institutions. Instead of the opera opening with a chorus, the curtain rises on a single figure seated at a spinning-wheel singing a touching ballad. The Daily Telegraph's review of Yeomen was very admiring of Sullivan's efforts:

The accompaniments...are delightful to hear, and especially does the treatment of the woodwind compel admiring attention. Schubert himself could hardly have handled those instruments more deftly, written for them more lovingly.... We place the songs and choruses in The Yeomen of the Guard before all his previous efforts of this particular kind. Thus the music follows the book to a higher plane, and we have a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage. (Allen, p. 312).

The Times noted, "It should... be acknowledged that Mr. Gilbert has earnestly endeavoured to leave familiar grooves and rise to higher things." Some reviewers, however, suggested that Gilbert took too much of his story from William Vincent Wallace's 1845 opera, Maritana, in which a street singer is married in secret to a gentleman. Another antecedent of Yeomen is Gilbert's 1875 tragedy, Broken Hearts. There, the love triangle among Prince Florian, Lady Vavir and the hunchbacked servant Mousta parallels the triangle in Yeomen among Fairfax, Elsie and Point.

The opera dates to a time before the Yeomen of the Guard and the Yeomen Warders were split into two corps and concerns what are today the Yeomen Warders. These are guardians of the Tower of London (and the crown jewels) who are selected for this position as a reward for long and meritorious service to the crown. Today, they act as tour guides at the Tower of London. The Yeomen Warders are often incorrectly referred to as Yeomen of the Guard, which is actually a distinct corps of royal bodyguards. Gilbert shared this confusion (or didn't care to be precise in the matter) by naming the opera The Yeomen of the Guard. However, Gilbert and Sullivan were careful to replicate the historical Tower as closely as possible in the opera's settings, costumes and music. For instance, during the Act I finale, the bell of St. Peter's tolls for the coming execution as was the custom at the time.

The character of the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Richard Cholmondeley, is the only character in all of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas that is based overtly on an historical figure. Cholmondeley was the Lieutenant of the Tower from 1513 to 1520, during the reign of Henry VIII. Cholmondeley lost some favour with the City of London authorities during the Evil May Day riots of 1517: He ordered the firing of some of the Tower's artillery at the city to try to quell rioting by gangs of young Londoners who took control of London for several days and were attacking foreigners, especially the wealthy foreign merchants and bankers of Lombard Street, London. Nevertheless, Cholmondeley continued serving at the Tower for three more years until ill-health forced him to resign. He was responsible for the rebuilding of the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, the parish church of the Tower of London, where there is a prominent tomb in his memory.