Surviving Music
Only three musical passages from Thespis are known to survive: the ballad "Little maid of Arcadee", the chorus "Climbing over rocky mountain", and the ballet music. The fate of Sullivan's score has long been a subject for speculation. In 1978, Isaac Asimov wrote a time travel story, "Fair Exchange?", which focused on a character travelling back to 1871 to rescue the score to Thespis before Sullivan could destroy it. But Sullivan is not known to have destroyed it, and the ballet, at least, was still available to be reused in 1897.
Read more about this topic: Thespis (opera)
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