Gilbert & Sullivan Opera

This a new assessment" because it is an attempt to re-evaluate the operas from a modern critical standpoint, and to study them, when the need arises, in relation to literature and music outside Gilbert and Sullivan. The reader without musical training need not be alarmed by the examples of music notation: they are included to make the references clearer for those who can read music, and to enable them to " hear" brief passages they do not know or have forgotten. For historical purposes, other than biographical, the author has used mainly contemporary reviews and interviews in the serious musical journals of the period, sources largely untapped until this study.

Each work is treated in chronological order and original and late productions are critically examined. The text is augmented with 55 illustrations.