The Yeomen of the Guard
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| Original title: | The Yeomen of the Guard |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Arthur Sullivan |
| Libretto : | William Schwenck Gilbert |
| Premiere: | October 3, 1888 |
| Place of premiere: | Savoy Theater , London |
| Place and time of the action: | Tower of London, 16th century |
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The Yeomen of the Guard is an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan , it premiered on October 3, 1888 at the Savoy Theater . Although the Yeomen of the Guard actually exists as a unit, the opera takes place under the Yeomen Warders .
The action takes place in the Tower of London during the reign of Henry VIII. The main character is the scientist and alchemist Colonel Fairfax, who is to be executed in the Tower. A game of love, romances and deception unfolds around his execution and escape, at the end of which all characters survive and two questionable marriages are concluded,
Though it contains numerous puns and comedy, The Yeomen of the Guard is Gilbert and Sullivan's darkest and most emotional opera. It is considered one of the best and deepest works by Arthur Sullivan and is the only opera of the two without a happy ending. The language the characters speak and sing is not contemporary Victorian English, but a historicizing pseudo Shakespeare English.
action
The main character is Colonel Fairfax, who is imprisoned in the Tower on false accusations of his cousin and is about to be executed. Should Fairfax die unmarried, the cousin would inherit all of his fortune. The Yeomen Warder (in the play: Yeoman of the Guard) Sergeant Meryll and his daughter Phoebe try to help Fairfax. Phoebe has fallen in love with Fairfax from afar: they try to free Fairfax from the cell and pass him off as Phoebe's brother Leonard, who is about to take up a position as Yeoman of the Guard. At the same time, with the help of the Lieutenant of the Tower , Fairfax marries the passing singer Elsie Maynard in order to rob his brother of his inheritance. Maynard, who is already engaged to the fool Jack Point, only gets involved in the deal as she is assured that her husband will only live a few days. A few minutes after the marriage, escape and disguise succeed. After lengthy entanglements, the plot is resolved and Fairfax can live. The marriage with Maynard continues, however, whereupon Point falls from a disappointed love into madness. Phoebe, in love with Fairfax, marries senior jailer and assistant torturer Wilfred Shabolt to keep quiet about Fairfax's illegal escape and the escape agents.
music
Sullivan had already turned away from the comical and entertaining Savoy operas before the creation of the Yeomen and began to work as a composer of classical, more serious operas since 1882. Gilbert first had to persuade him to continue working for the Yeomen. Sullivan's approach, which has now changed, is clearly audible in the Yeomen. For example, the overture is not a potpourri of set pieces from hits in the opera, but a sonata of its own . Musically, the opera is much more diverse and varied than older operas by Gilbert and Sullivan, while at the same time Sullivan succeeds in weaving the often disparate accumulation of individual hits into one continuous piece with an inner connection. The grim, gloomy atmosphere that is associated with the Tower in England pervades the opera from the first to the last bar. Sullivan also used a larger orchestra for the first time, to which he would remain loyal for the rest of his career. He himself rated the Yeomen as the best of all of his Savoy operas.
Emergence
According to Gilbert, he got the idea for the opera when he saw an advertisement that was decorated with a Yeomen Warder. However, early on, critics pointed out similarities to numerous other works, in particular to The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy in which a very similar plot is set against a historicizing background. Similar motifs can already be found in Gilbert's earlier poems or in the bestselling novel The Tower of London, A Historical Romance by William Harrison Ainsworth.
Web links
- Synopsis , German Sullivan Society
- Yeomen: Summary, History, Premiere Reviews (english)
Remarks
- ↑ Nigel Burton: The Yeomen of the Guard: Apogee of a Style. In: The Musical Times, Vol. 129, No. 1750 (Dec., 1988), p. 657
- ↑ Nigel Burton: The Yeomen of the Guard: Apogee of a Style. In: The Musical Times, Vol. 129, No. 1750 (Dec., 1988), p. 658
- ↑ Alan Fischler: From Weydon-Prior to Tower Green: The Sources of the Yeomen of the Guard. In: ELH, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 203-205