The Grand Duke: Vocal Score

by W.S. Gilbert (Composer), Arthur Sullivan

The Grand Duke was the last of the Savoy operas by Gilbert and Sullivan. The plot hinges on the misinterpretation of a 100 year-old law regarding statutory duels, decided by drawing cards. The baffled central character, Ludwig, becomes engaged to four different women before the plot is resolved.

Titles: Won't It Be A Pretty Wedding?; By The Mystic Regulation; Were I A King In Very Truth; How Would I Play This Part; My Goodness Me! What Shall I Do?; Ten Minutes Since I Met A Chap; About A Century Since; Strange The Views Some People Hold; Now Take A Card And Gaily Sing; The Good Grand Duke; A Pattern To Professors; As O'er Our Penny Roll We Sing; When You Find You're A Broken-Down Critter; Come Hither, All You People; Oh, A Monarch Who Boasts Intellectual Graces; Ah, Pity Me, My Comrades True; Oh, Listen To Me, Dear; The Die Is Cast; For This Will Be A Jolly Court; As Before You We Defile; Your Loyalty Our Ducal Heart-String Touches; Yes, Ludwig And His Julia Are Mated; Take Care Of Him -- He's Much Too Good To Live; Now Julia, Come, Consider It From; Your Highness, There's A Party At The Door; Now Away To The Wedding We Go; So Ends My Dream; If The Light Of Love's Lingering Ember; Come, Bumpers--Aye, Ever-So-Many; Why, Who Is This Approaching?; The Prince Of Monte Carlo; His Highness We Know Not; We're Rigged Out In Magnificent Array; Take My Advice--When Deep In Debt; Hurrah! Now Away To The Wedding; Well, You're A Pretty Kind Of Fellow; Happy Couples, Lightly Treading.

Genres: Fiction, Plays, Humor, Theatre

999 pages, Paperback

First published March 7, 1896

About the author

British 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."

Reviews

[Elisabeth]

2.5 stars. Has a few good lines and moments, but overall just wasn't quite as funny or memorable as other Gilbert & Sullivan plays I've read, such as, say, The Pirates of Penzance.

[Greg Kerestan]

While not as bad as the previous "Utopia Limited," there's a feeling of creative schizophrenia here, as Gilbert and Sullivan try to write both their usual topsy-turvy farce full of grotesque characters and absurd plot contrivances, and a dignified European-style opera. Adding to the difficulty of analyzing the piece is that there are various extant versions of this piece, and the best song in the show lyrically and musically, "The Roulette Song (Take My Advice When Deep in Debt)" is commonly cut and does not even appear in the published version of the piece. There are a few clever ideas- an ongoing joke with sausage rolls being the most notable- but much of what's here feels like warmed-over Gilbert and Sullivan leftovers, including the odd preoccupation with dynamite from "Utopia Limited." Not an ignoble finish, but certainly not up to snuff compared to the classics.

[Jane]

This was the last G & S collaboration. It was, and remains, one of the least popular of the works, however I found the music really good and I think it should be produced more.

[Leslie]

3½ stars. I read this on my Kindle as part of The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan while watching the video on YouTube.

Another fun outing with Gilbert & Sullivan. The production of this operetta I watched unfortunately had been more modified from the original than any of the others I have seen so far, which made reading along difficult. Some numbers (including one I thought hilarious) were omitted entirely, one was moved from the first act to the second (!?!), and a few were abridged. Ah well, the perils of the public domain...