 "Cox and Box" (video tape cover) Cox and Box is a comic opera with a libretto by by Francis Cowley Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the farce Box and Cox, by John Maddison Morton. Image File history File links Cox-and-Box. ...
Image File history File links Cox-and-Box. ...
Comic opera is a subcategory of opera, and denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature. ...
From The History of Punch Sir Francis Cowley Burnand (November 29, 1836 - April 21, 1917) was an editor of Punch, taking over from Tom Taylor in 1880, until 1906, when he was succeeded by Sir Owen Seaman. ...
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (May 13, 1842 – November 22, 1900) was an English composer best known for his operatic collaborations with librettist W. S. Gilbert. ...
A farce is a comedy written for the stage, or a film, which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely and extravagant - yet often possible - situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include puns and sexual innuendo, and a fast-paced...
John Maddison Morton (January 3, 1811 - December 19, 1891), English playwright, was born at Pangbourne. ...
History The libretto for this 'triumviretta' was adapted from Morton's famous farce, by librettist and sometime editor of Punch, F. C. Burnand. Look up Punch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Punch can refer to: Punch from Punch and Judy Punch (magazine) Punch (drink), various mixed drinks often containing fruit or fruit juice, sometimes alcoholic Punch (strike), blow made with a fist. ...
It was first performed not in a theatre but in a private house. It is generally believed that it was in May 1866 at Moray Lodge, Kensington, the home of Arthur Lewis. It should, however, be recorded that the authoritative Rollins and Witts state that the first performance was on 27 April 1867 at Burnand's house. Other dates are posited by different authorities, but it is not in doubt that the opera's first performance was private and domestic. Kensington is an area to the west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. ...
The piece was premièred in public at the Adelphi Theatre on 11 May, 1867 and was presented more than 300 times in the months following, but was not part of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company’s repertoire until 1894, when a cut version was played as a curtain raiser to another Sullivan–Burnand opera, The Chieftain. The DOyly Carte Opera Company staged performances of Gilbert and Sullivans Savoy operas in the UK, Europe, America, South Africa and elsewhere from the nineteenth century to the twenty first. ...
The Chieftain is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand based on their 1867 opera, The Contrabandista. ...
Abridged still further, Cox and Box was restaged by D’Oyly Carte in the 1920s, and in the slimmed down ‘Savoy Version’, remained in the company’s repertory as curtain raiser for The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance until the 1970s. (By the 1960s Cox and Box always preceded The Pirates just as Trial by Jury invariably preceded Pinafore.) Many amateur theatre companies have also staged Cox and Box, either alone or together with Pirates, Pinafore or The Sorcerer. In recent years, after the rediscovery of the one-act Sullivan and Rowe opera, The Zoo, C&B has been sometimes presented as part of an evening of the three one-act Sullivan operas, sharing a bill with The Zoo and Trial by Jury. Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Sorcerer The Sorcerer is the earliest surviving two-act Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. ...
H.M.S. Pinafore, or The Lass that Loved a Sailor, is a comic Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in two acts, with music by composer Arthur S. Sullivan and libretto by William S. Gilbert. ...
The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Duty, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. ...
Trial by Jury is a comic Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in one act (the only single-act Savoy Opera). ...
Benjamin Charles Stephenson, or B. C. Stephenson, (1838 – 1906) was a dramatist and librettist in Victorian England. ...
The Zoo is a Hard Rock band formed in 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky. ...
Roles - James John Cox, A Journeyman Hatter (baritone)
- John James Box, A Journeyman Printer (tenor)
- Sergeant Bouncer, Late of the Dampshire Yeomanry, with military reminiscences (bass-baritone) [Note--See versions below]
In music, a baritone (from Greek βαÏυτονος deeply, heavily sounding) is a male voice of intermediate pitch, between bass and tenor. ...
In music, a tenor is a male singer with a high voice (although not as high as the modern countertenor). ...
A bass-baritone is a singing voice that shares certain qualities of both the baritone and the bass. ...
Synopsis Cox is a hatter (who works during the day), and Box is a printer (who works during the night).
Their landlord, Bouncer, has sneakily rented the same room to Cox and to Box concurrently, without the two men's knowledge, on the assumption that they would never meet because they would never be at home at the same time. Bouncer's scheme goes wrong when Cox returns home, having been given the day off work. He finds Box in residence and there is an exchange of hostile remarks, both men claiming to be the sole tenant. Things get worse when they discover they are both (very reluctantly) engaged to the same woman, Penelope Anne Wiggins. The men eventually come to the conclusion that they are long-lost brothers because they are completely unalike; their fiancée writes to say she is now engaged to a Mr Knox, and the curtain falls on general rejoicing.
Burnand's text follows Morton's original play closely, differing in only two notable respects. In the play it is Mrs - rather than Sergeant - Bouncer who lets the rooms; and before the receipt of Penelope Anne's letter announcing her engagement to Knox, Burnand omits the receipt of two other letters, the first reporting that Penelope Anne is presumed drowned, and the second that she has been rescued and is on her way to meet her fiancé.
Versions The original domestic version is scored for the three voices (Box, tenor; Cox, baritone; and Bouncer, bass) and piano. For the theatre Sullivan rescored the piece for his usual small orchestra of 35 or so players. He added a short overture and some additional music in the main piece, including the extended duet, ‘Stay, Bouncer, Stay!’. This version plays for just under an hour.
The ‘Savoy Version’ of 1921 cuts two complete numbers – a gambling duet in which Box and Cox each try to lose (the stake being the unwanted Penelope Ann) and the sung finale. In addition songs with two verses are reduced to a single verse, and many smaller cuts are made almost bar by bar. Perhaps the major casualty of the lopping off of verses is Bouncer’s first song, in which the lyric as sung lacks context. In Box’s lullaby to his rasher of bacon, and the duet, ‘The Buttercup’ a single verse suffices and is unlikely to trouble the listener who is unaware that another verse has been cut. Note also that the keys of some of the numbers are lower in the Savoy Version, so that Bouncer is probably best sung by a bass-baritone. There is some strange voicing in the vocal lines, however, and where Bouncer is voiced above Cox, most companies switch the lines so that Bouncer is always lowest.
Admirers of Sullivan may think it presumptious to aver that some of the cuts are to the piece’s advantage, but they undeniably help keep the action moving. The D'Oyly Carte musical director at the time of this revision of the score was Harry Norris who was willing to modify Sullivan's scores, adding, for instance, effective but inauthentic horn decorations to 'A Lady Fair' in Princess Ida. This 1921 version plays for a little over half an hour. Wikisource has original text related to this article: Princess Ida Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Princess (Tennyson) Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant, is the eighth operetta written by Gilbert and Sullivan. ...
Discography Cox & Box has been recorded reasonably often, but the first commercial recording was not until 1961. Both D’Oyly Carte recordings use the heavily cut ‘Savoy Version' of the score; the three most recent recordings use a less heavily pruned one. All the recordings include dialogue, except for the 2004 recording, which cuts all the dialogue in favour of a linking narration by Bouncer. - 1961 (D’Oyly Carte, cond. Isidore Godfrey). Originally issued as an LP coupling for The Gondoliers which took 5 LP sides. Joseph Riordan] (Box), Alan Styler (Cox) and Donald Adams (Bouncer)
- 1972 (Gilbert and Sullivan For All, with piano accompaniment by John Burrows). Thomas Round (Box), Thomas Lawlor (Cox) and Donald Adams (Bouncer)
- 1978 (D’Oyly Carte, cond. Royston Nash). Geoffrey Shovelton (Box), Gareth Jones (Cox) and Michael Rayner (Bouncer). This includes a short section of the original finale not hitherto recorded.
- 1984 (Sir Arthur Sullivan Society, with piano accompaniment by Kenneth Barclay). Ian Kennedy (Box), Leon Berger (Cox) and Donald Francke (Bouncer). This version is complete.
- 2004 (BBC National Orchestra of Wales, cond. Richard Hickox). James Gilchrist (Box), Neal Davies (Cox ) and Donald Maxwell (Bouncer). This version is complete except for the omission of the Gambling Duet and the spoken dialogue.
For a complete orchestral version with all the numbers that Sullivan composed, there is a video recording. This makes some of the minor cuts applied in the Savoy Version, but restores the cut verses, the Gambling Duet and the Finale (slightly trimmed). (Brent Walker, 1982, cond. Alexander Faris), John Fryatt (Box), Russell Smythe (Cox) Thomas Lawlor (Bouncer). Isidore Godfrey (born London 27 Sep 1900, died London 12 Sep 1977) was musical director of the DOyly Carte Opera Company from 1929 to 1968. ...
The Gondoliers is a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta written by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. ...
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is the main full scale professional orchestra in Wales. ...
Sir Richard Hickox, CBE (born March 5, 1948) is a English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. ...
References - Rollins, Cyril; R. John Witts (1961). The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. London: Michael Joseph.
- Jacobs, Arthur (1984). Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
|
Feeds |
Contact