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The Light of the World is an oratorio composed in 1873 by Arthur Sullivan. Sullivan wrote the libretto with the assistance of George Grove, based on the New Testament. The story of the oratorio narrates the whole life of Christ, focusing on his deeds on Earth as preacher, healer and prophet. The oratorio was inspired by William Holman Hunt's popular 1853–54 painting, The Light of the World.
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The work was first performed at the Birmingham Festival on 27 August 1873 and was the composer's second oratorio, the first being The Prodigal Son (1869).
Background
Historian Michael Ainger suggests that the idea for the libretto of The Light of the World came to Sullivan when he viewed a chapel near Norwich, England, in September 1872. Composing the oratorio occupied Sullivan during much of 1873. Sullivan's introduction to the work says that, unlike Handel's Messiah, which focuses on Christ's "spiritual idea", or J. S. Bach's Passion music, which focuses on Christ's suffering, the purpose of The Light of the World is to "set forth the human aspect of the life of our Lord on earth, exemplifying it by some of the actual incidents in his career, which bear specially upon His attributes of Preacher, Healer and Prophet."
Sullivan made several visits to Birmingham to rehearse the chorus. During the rehearsal period, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (a son of Queen Victoria), announced his engagement to the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, daughter of Tsar Alexander II. The Duke and Duchess married in 1874. Sullivan was a friend of the Duke's, and upon learning of the betrothal, he sought and received permission to dedicate the oratorio to Grand Duchess Marie.
The Duke was present at the premiere at the Birmingham Festival on 27 August 1873. The soloists were Thérèse Tietjens, Zelia Trebelli-Bettini, John Sims Reeves and Charles Santley. As Sullivan appeared on the platform to conduct his new work, he was met with a "hearty and unanimous greeting.... The last outgrowth of his genius leaves far behind all that preceded it", reported The Times. The President of the Festival, the Earl of Shrewsbury, publicly congratulated the composer at the end of the performance, amidst the cheers of the audience.
Sullivan was presented with a "handsome silver cup and a considerable sum of money" after the premiere, and he derived income from the sale of scores. Nevertheless, his earnings from the oratorio amounted to a small sum compared with the fortune that he would later make from composing the Savoy operas with W. S. Gilbert. After its premiere in Birmingham, performances followed in other towns and cities. The Light of the World was widely performed throughout Great Britain and elsewhere during Sullivan's lifetime. Since then it has seldom been performed, and there is no professional recording of the oratorio.
Critical reaction
Sullivan took on a difficult task in retracing the ground covered by Handel's Messiah. The press was, initially, enthusiastic. The Observer wrote: "The oratorio is one of imagination, of not only clever ideas, but of really devotional religious thought. The orchestra is handled throughout in a manner which only one who is fully acquainted with each instrument, its individual capabilities, and its effect in combination, is able to appreciate. The instrumentation is never obtrusive, but it is always delicate and expressive, while many orchestral passages are notable for the beauty of the scoring. The vocal parts, solo and choral... exhibit great talent in treatment, and, considering the nature of the subject, are written with considerable variety. In conclusion The Light of the World is a great production.
Similarly, The Standard commented, "After due reflection the general opinion is that in his oratorio Mr. Arthur Sullivan has enriched the world's musical library with a fine work, distinctly representative of the modern school of composition, and calculated to exist in that sphere where it holds a prominent position as a specimen of the new type of oratorio, the dignity of which it upholds. Considering the difficulties of precedent with which Mr. Sullivan had to deal, in Handel's Messiah and Bach's Passion music, not to mention Mendelssohn's unfinished Christus, he may be said to have entered the lists against an array of giants. To say that in the face of these he has held his own ground, if he has not encroached on theirs, is to bestow praise of the highest significance.... The Light of the World... even steers clear of that magnetic rock, Mendelssohn, upon which so many fair and well-freighted barks have been lured to their doom.
While Charles Gounod described the work as a masterpiece, by 1899, reviewers no longer put it in the same class as the greatest oratorios: "The Light of the World may not take rank with the highest examples of oratorio art, but its undoubted merits entitle it to an honoured and intimate companionship with its more favoured brethren." Subsequent critical assessments have not been even this kind. "Only rarely in the course of this ponderous two and three-quarter hour progress does the vital composer of The Tempest and the 'Irish' Symphony surface", observed Chrisopher Webber in reviewing a recording in 2000. Another reviewer found a middle ground: "The main weakness of The Light of the World [is] the lifeless music given to the baritone (Jesus) part. ... Study of this score revealed ... many fine choruses, brilliant solos, and beautiful pastoral passages. While not of a consistency or individuality of The Martyr of Antioch or The Golden Legend, The Light of the World has more than enough virtues to justify a professional revival."