Opera’s Odd Couple: How Gilbert and Sullivan Found Harmony in Humor
Dig into the team behind the comedy of pirate proportions at Seattle Opera. Plus, the 25th annual Gregory Awards is this week and the windy city comes to 5th Avenue Theatre’s stage.
Gilbert and Sullivan? Why is the librettist listed first? Come to think of it, why is the librettist listed at all? Convention dictates that an opera belongs to its composer: it’s Puccini’s Tosca, Strauss’s Daphne, Bizet’s Carmen. Well, that convention —not crediting the librettist—makes some sense if we’re talking about operas performed in languages foreign to most of the audience. When Seattleites come to hear Tosca, Daphne, or Carmen, the words are not the draw. You’re probably not even listening to the words but instead reading how some nincompoop translated them.
But a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan, in America, offers a different kind of experience: here the original words are not only available to the audience, they’re full and chewy and erudite and playful and difficult, rich with rhyme, popping with paradox, personality, and pitiful puns. William Schwenck Gilbert was an opera librettist and then some. As a purveyor of humor, drama, and social criticism in late Victorian England, he was the successor to Charles Dickens. Dickens and Gilbert were huge celebrities; their verbal works were unprecedentedly popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
At least, Gilbert’s writing achieved that kind of popularity—when set to music by Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan. Their Venn diagram overlap—the intersection of these separate geniuses—was so extraordinary, their creations still delight 150 years later...
Celebrate 25 years of the Gregory Awards. Join the Puget Sound performing arts community for a night honoring the artists and organizations who make our stages shine.
On the Stage
Chicago
Musical Theatre | 5th Avenue Theatre & Seattle Theatre Group
Now – November 2 | Tickets
Chicago is still the one musical with everything that makes Broadway shimmy-shake: a universal tale of fame, fortune, and all that jazz, with one showstopping song after another and the most astonishing dancing you’ve ever seen.
More Events
- Shrew | Union Arts Center | Now – November 2 | View Print Program
- The Little Foxes | Intiman Theatre | Now – November 2 | View Print Program
- Deconstructing Dark Side of the Moon | Tacoma Arts Live | October 25 | View Print Program
- Sir András Schiff in Recital | Seattle Symphony | October 29 | View Print Program
Next Line
- Seattle Opera has just announced they will present a world premiere opera by composer Huang Ruo and librettist James Schamus. The Wedding Banquet will play at McCaw Hall this January.
- Artist Trust has announced the 2025 Grants for Artist Projects recipients. GAP gives project-based grants of $1,500 to support artists of all disciplines across Washington State.
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