Faust up to date
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| Faust up to Date | |
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| Sheet music | |
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| Music | Meyer Lutz |
| Lyrics | G. R. Sims Henry Pettitt |
| Book | G. R. Sims Henry Pettitt |
| Productions | 1888 West End |
Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz. The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt. The piece was first performed at the Gaiety Theatre, London on 30 October 1888, produced by George Edwardes and ran until August 1889. It starred Florence St. John as Margaret, E. J. Lonnen as Mephistopheles, Fanny Robina as Faust, George Stone as Valentine, and Mabel Love as Totchen.[1] A highlight of the piece was a dance for four women.[2] It was revived in July 1892, with Florence St. John again playing the role of Margaret, Edmund Payne as Mephistopheles and Arthur Williams as Valentine. The piece enjoyed subsequent productions in New York,[3] Australia (with Robert Courtneidge as Valentine)[4] and elsewhere.
Faust up to Date was a spoof of Gounod's opera Faust, which had first been performed in London in 1864, and followed on from an earlier Lutz musical Mephistopheles, or Faust and Marguerite.
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[edit] Background
This type of burlesque, or travesty was popular in Britain at the time. Other examples include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed (1883), Little Jack Sheppard (1885), Monte Cristo Jr (1886), Pretty Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim (1887), Mazeppa, Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue (1888), Carmen up to Data (1890), Cinder Ellen up too Late (1891) and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross).[5]
John Hollingshead had managed the Gaiety Theatre from 1868 to 1886 as a venue for variety, continental operetta, light comedy, and numerous musical burlesques composed or arranged by the theatre's music director, Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. Hollingshead called himself a "licensed dealer in legs, short skirts, French adaptations, Shakespeare, taste and musical glasses."[6] In 1886, Hollingshead ceded the management of the theatre to George Edwardes, whom he had hired in 1885. Edwardes expanded the burlesque format from one act to full-length pieces with original music by Lutz, instead of scores compiled from popular tunes.[7] Nellie Farren, as the theatre's "principal boy," and Fred Leslie starred at the Gaiety for over 20 years. Leslie wrote many of its pieces under his pseudonym, "A. C. Torr".[8] In the early 1890s, as Burlesque went out of fashion, Edwardes changed the focus of the theatre from musical burlesque to the new genre of Edwardian musical comedy.
[edit] References
- Adams, William Davenport. A dictionary of the drama (1904), p. 502 Chatto & Windus
- Hollingshead, John. Good Old Gaiety: An Historiette & Remembrance (1903) London:Gaity Theatre Co
- Advertisement in The Times, 30 October 1888
- Review in The Times, 31 October 1888
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mabel Love biography
- ^ NY Times review of the London opening, containing some information about the plot
- ^ NY Times review
- ^ Courtneidge biography
- ^ Programme for Carmen up to Data
- ^ Arthur Lloyd Music Hall site (on Gaiety) Cuttings accessed 01 Mar 2007
- ^ "Theatrical Humour in the Seventies", The Times, 20 February 1914, p. 9, col. D
- ^ Stewart, Maurice. 'The spark that lit the bonfire', in Gilbert and Sullivan News (London) Spring 2003.
