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The World's Greatest Classical Music
Gilbert & Sullivan: 67 Selections from 13 Operettas for Voice and Piano
(World's Greatest Classical Music). The masters of English operetta, lyricist/librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan defined the genre and influenced all musical theatre after them. This comprehensive collection in our acclaimed World's Great Classical Music series presents 67 selections from 13 of their collaborations, including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado . Features arias, duets and ensembles all newly engraved in their original keys for voice and piano, a biography of Gilbert & Sullivan, a plot synopsis for each show, and Gilbert's own illustrations of characters.
- GenresMusic
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
W.S. Gilbert
718 books37 followersBritish playwright and lyricist Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) wrote a series of comic operas, including
Her Majesty's Ship Pinafore
(1878) and
The Pirates of Penzance
(1879), with composer Sir Arthur Sullivan.
This English dramatist, librettist, poet, and illustrator in collaboration with composer Sullivan produced fourteen comic operas, which include The Mikado , one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre.
Opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups throughout and beyond the English-speaking world continue to perform regularly these operas as well as most of their other Savoy operas. From these works, lines, such as "short, sharp shock", "What, never? Well, hardly ever!", and "Let the punishment fit the crime," form common phrases of the English language.
Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads , an extensive collection of light verse, which his own comical drawings accompany.
His creative output included more than 75 plays and libretti, numerous stories, poems, lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces. His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature , the "lyrical facility" of Gilbert "and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since."
This English dramatist, librettist, poet, and illustrator in collaboration with composer Sullivan produced fourteen comic operas, which include The Mikado , one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre.
Opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups throughout and beyond the English-speaking world continue to perform regularly these operas as well as most of their other Savoy operas. From these works, lines, such as "short, sharp shock", "What, never? Well, hardly ever!", and "Let the punishment fit the crime," form common phrases of the English language.
Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads , an extensive collection of light verse, which his own comical drawings accompany.
His creative output included more than 75 plays and libretti, numerous stories, poems, lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces. His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature , the "lyrical facility" of Gilbert "and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since."
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