The Mountebanks

Background

The story of the opera revolves around a magic potion that transforms those who drink it into whoever, or whatever, they pretend to be. The idea was clearly important to Gilbert, as he repeatedly urged his famous collaborator, Arthur Sullivan, to set this story, or a similar one, to music. For example, he had written a treatment of the opera in 1884, which Sullivan rejected, both because of the story's mechanical contrivance, and because they had already produced an opera concerning a magic potion, The Sorcerer. The idea of a magic potion that changes human behavior has long been a common theme of literature and opera. The device allowed Gilbert to explore "how people behave when they are forced to live with the consequences of their own actions."

The Gilbert and Sullivan partnership and their Savoy operas dominated the London musical stage from the late 1870s to 1890. When that partnership temporarily disbanded, due to a quarrel over finances after the production of The Gondoliers, Gilbert sought another composer who would collaborate on the idea that Sullivan had repeatedly rejected. He eventually found a willing partner in Alfred Cellier, a logical choice for Gilbert. The two had collaborated once before (Topsyturveydom, 1874), and Cellier had been the music director for Gilbert and Sullivan's early operas. Cellier had also achieved much success apart from Gilbert and Sullivan, particularly with his comic opera Dorothy (1886), a smash hit. It played for over 900 performances, considerably more than The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most successful piece. Dorothy set and held the record for longest-running piece of musical theatre in history until the turn of the century.

Cellier suffered from tuberculosis for most of his adult life, but during the composition of The Mountebanks, he deteriorated rapidly and died, at the age of 47, while the opera was still in rehearsals. All of the melodies and vocal lines in the opera were composed by Cellier, but he did not complete the orchestration before his death. The score was completed by the Lyric Theatre's musical director, Ivan Caryll, a successful composer in his own right. Caryll composed the entr'acte, using the melody from Number 16, and he wrote or modified the orchestration for more than half a dozen of the songs. He chose the 4th movement of Cellier's 1878 orchestral piece, the Suite Symphonique, to use as the opera's overture. One song whose lyrics were printed in the libretto available on the first night were never set to music, and another was cut before the opening night. After Cellier's illness prevented him from finishing the score, Gilbert modified the libretto around the gaps, and the order of some of the music was changed.

Productions

The Mountebanks' initial run of 229 performances surpassed most of Gilbert's later works and even a few of his collaborations with Sullivan. Gilbert engaged his old friends John D'Auban, to choreograph the piece, and Percy Anderson, to design costumes. The initial run closed on 5 August 1892. Despite the opera's warm reception, Gilbert wrote on 7 January 1892, shortly after the premiere, "I had to make rough & ready alterations to supply gaps – musical gaps – caused by poor Cellier's inability to complete his work. It follows that Act 2 stands out as a very poor piece of dramatic construction ... this is the worst libretto I have written. Perhaps I am growing old."

The success of the London production led its producer, Horace Sedger, to establish at least three touring companies, which visited major towns and cities in Britain for a year and a half, from March 1892 to mid-November 1893. Louie René played Ultrice on one tour in 1893. While playing in Manchester, one touring company found itself competing with a D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring company at a nearby theatre. The strained relations between Carte and Gilbert after The Gondoliers did not prevent the two companies from playing a cricket match in May 1892. Relations between Gilbert and his new producer had also deteriorated, and the author unsuccessfully sued Sedger for cutting the size of the chorus in the London production without his approval. It was toured for a year in America by the Lillian Russell Opera Company, starring Lillian Russell and C. Hayden Coffin, including a run of a month and a half at the Garden Theatre on Broadway, opening on January 11, 1893. It was also produced in Australia and New Zealand by the J. C. Williamson company until 1900.

Gilbert and Cellier's widow later sold the performing and score rental rights to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Occasional amateur performances were staged in Britain, America and Australia until the Second World War, and the professional Williamson company continued to perform it occasionally in Australia and New Zealand. After that, the first known production was by the Washington, D.C., Lyric Theatre Company, in 1964. Amateur performances accompanied only by piano followed until James Gillespie's Ramsgate production in 1982, which used orchestra parts from Australia. The Lyric Theatre Company of Washington D.C. recorded it in 1964.

The full score of the opera was published in 2014 by Robin Gordon-Powell, followed by a piano/vocal score. A 2015 production was staged in Palo Alto, California by Lyric Theatre, directed by John Hart, using Gordon-Powell's score.

Roles and original cast

Act I

Outside a mountain Inn on a picturesque Sicilian pass, a procession of Dominican monks sings a chorus (in Latin) about the inconveniences of monastic life. As soon as the coast is clear, the Tamorras appear. They are a secret society of bandits bent on revenge against the descendants of those who wrongly imprisoned an ancestor's friend five hundred years previously. The Tamorras tell Elvino, the innkeeper, that they are planning to get married – one man each day for the next three weeks. The first is Risotto, who is marrying Minestra later that day. Elvino asks them to conduct their revels in a whisper, so as not to disturb the poor old dying alchemist who occupies the second floor of the inn. Arrostino, the Tamorras's leader, has learned that the Duke and Duchess of Pallavicini will be passing through the village. He suggests that the Tamorras capture the monastery and disguise themselves as monks. Minestra will dress as an old woman and lure the Duke into the monastery, where he will be taken captive and held for ransom.

Alfredo, a young peasant, is in love with Teresa, the village beauty. He sings a ballad about her, but it is clear that she does not love him in return. She suggests that he marry Elvino's niece, Ultrice, who follows Alfredo everywhere, but Alfredo wants nothing to do with Ultrice. Elvino is concerned that he does not know the proper protocol for entertaining a Duke and Duchess. He suggests that Alfredo impersonate a Duke, so that he can practice his manners. Alfredo implores Teresa to impersonate the Duchess, but Teresa insists that Ultrice play the role.

A troupe of strolling players arrives. Their leader, Pietro, offers the villagers a dress rehearsal of a performance to be given later to the Duke and Duchess. Among the novelties to be presented, he promises "two world-renowned life-size clock-work automata, representing Hamlet and Ophelia". Nita and Bartolo, two of the troupe's members, were formerly engaged, but Nita became disenchanted with Bartolo's inability to play tragedy, and she is now engaged to Pietro. While they are discussing this, Beppo rushes in to tell Pietro that the clock-work automata have been detained at the border. Pietro wonders how his troupe will deliver the promised performance.

Elvino and Ultrice have a problem of their own. Their alchemist tenant has blown himself up while searching for the philosopher's stone, leaving six weeks' rent unpaid. All he has left behind is a bottle of "medicine" with a label on it. Believing the medicine to be useless, Elvino gives it to Pietro. Pietro reads the label and learns that the mysterious liquid "has the effect of making every one who drinks it exactly what he pretends to be". Pietro hatches the idea of administering the potion to Bartolo and Nita, who will pretend to be the clock-work Hamlet and Ophelia when the Duke and Duchess arrive. After the performance, Pietro can reverse the potion by burning the label. While preparing for the performance, Pietro accidentally drops the label, which Ultrice retrieves. Ultrice realises that if she and Alfredo drink the potion while they are pretending to be the Duke and Duchess, Alfredo's feigned love for her will become a reality.

Teresa, meanwhile, decides that, to taunt Alfredo, she will pretend to be in love with him, only to dash his hopes later on. Alfredo, who overhears this, declares that he will pretend to reject Teresa. When she learns this, Teresa says that she will feign insanity. By this point, all of the major characters are pretending to be something they are not. Alfredo pretends to be a Duke married to Ultrice and indifferent to Teresa. Ultrice pretends to be Duchess, married to Alfredo. Teresa pretends to be insane with love for Alfredo. Bartolo and Nita pretend to be clock-work Hamlet and Ophelia. The Tamorras pretend to be monks. Minestra pretends to be an old lady.

Alfredo and Ultrice appear in their guise as the faux Duke and Duchess. He proposes a toast, drawing wine from Pietro's wine-skin. Pietro, who has put the Alchemist's potion into the wine-skin, implores Alfredo to stop, telling him that it contains poison from which he is already dying. Alfredo ignores the warning and distributes the wine to everyone assembled.

Act II

It is night-time outside the monastery. As the potion's label had foretold, everyone is now what they had pretended to be. Although Risotto and Minestra are married, he is disappointed to find that she is now an old woman of seventy-four. Teresa has gone completely mad with love for Alfredo. Bartolo and Nita are waxwork Hamlet and Ophelia, walking with mechanical gestures as if controlled by clockwork. Pietro, because he had pretended the wine was poisonous, is now dying slowly.

The Tamorras, who had pretended to be monks, have renounced their life of crime, and they no longer find the village girls attractive. They demand an explanation of Pietro, who explains that the wine was spiked. He promises to administer the antidote in an hour or two – as soon as Bartolo and Nita have performed for the Duke and Duchess. Alfredo, now pretending to be a Duke, greets the monks. They tell him that he has chosen a fortunate time for his arrival, as the Tamorras had planned to kidnap him. But now he is safe, as they are all virtuous monks.

Teresa is still crazed with love for Alfredo. He replies that, although he used to love her, he is now "married" to Ultrice and is blind to her charms. They are grateful that the charm will last for only another hour or so. Left alone, Ultrice admits that she alone has the antidote, and she has no intention of administering it. Pietro brings on Bartolo and Nita to entertain the Duke and Duchess, but he quickly recognises that his audience is only Alfredo and Ultrice. They explain that they are victims of a potion, and Pietro realises that the only solution to the mess is to administer the antidote. When he realises he has lost it, everyone accuses him of being a sorcerer. Bartolo and Nita discuss what it will be like to be Hamlet and Ophelia for the rest of their lives. Pietro steals the keys, so that neither one can touch the other's clockwork.

Ultrice confronts Teresa and gloats over her triumph. However, when Teresa threatens to jump off a parapet, Ultrice relents and admits that she has stolen the antidote. Pietro seizes the label and burns it. The potion's effects expire, and the characters resume their original personalities, although some seem to have learned a lesson.

Musical numbers

Overture: Cellier's Suite Symphonique

¹ The placement of this song changed within the act before it was cut. "Ophelia was a dainty little maid" replaced it. However, it was included on the only commercial recording of The Mountebanks.

Critical reception

At the first night, the audience's response was enthusiastic. The producer, Horace Sedger, came before the curtain at the end of the performance to explain that Gilbert preferred, because of the death of Cellier, not to take a curtain call. Reviews for the libretto were consistently excellent. Cellier's music received mixed reviews. The Times noted with approval that Gilbert had returned to his favourite device of a magic potion, already seen in The Palace of Truth and The Sorcerer, and found the dialogue "crammed with quips of the true Gilbertian ring." The reviewer was more cautious about the score, attempting to balance respect for the recently dead Cellier with a clear conclusion that the music was derivative of the composer's earlier works and also of the Savoy operas. The Pall Mall Gazette thought the libretto so good that it "places Mr Gilbert so very far in advance of any living English librettist." The paper's critic was more emphatic about the score than his Times colleague, saying, "Mr Cellier's portion of the work is disappointing," adding that the composer never rose in this piece "to within measurable distance of his predecessor. ... If we judge the late Alfred Cellier's score by a somewhat high standard it is all Sir Arthur Sullivan's fault." The Era also noted Gilbert's reuse of old ideas, but asked, "who would wish Mr Gilbert to adopt a new style?" The paper thought equally well of the score, rating it as highly as Cellier's best-known piece, Dorothy. The Daily Telegraph called the music "accompaniment merely" but found it "completely satisfactory" as such. The Manchester Guardian considered the music "a triumph." All the reviewers singled out for particular praise the duet for the automata, "Put a penny in the Slot".

A later critic, Hesketh Pearson, rated the libretto of The Mountebanks "as good as any but the best Savoy pieces".