Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1915-02-02
OLDLIGHT OPERAS
VOGUE CONTINUES
THIRTY YEARS SINCE FIRST PRO
DUCTlON OF GILBERT & SUI
LIVAN'S "MIKAOO"
Popular Musical Comedies Now Being
Revived by DeWoIf Hopper and
His Associates.

Frederick L. Hatton has an inter
esting story on the Gilbert & Sullivan
operas in the sunday Chicago Herald
as follows:
1t is now practically 30 years since
the first production in America of Gil
bert & Sullivans -Mikado. That first
staging occurred in this city at the
Grand opera house on Clark street.
where George N. Conan now has Cook
county by the coat lapel
Yes, Chicago was a producing center
80 years ago. a more important one.
comparatively, than it is now. What.
YOU may ask. availeth it q city TO gain
y 100000 Inhabitants and lose its the
atrical soul? You and the other play
goers of this urban interlude in the
middle west have the answer. You
make or break the existing theatrical
scheme Of things.
But, TO return TO Gilbert & Sullivan.
That first performance in Chicago was
without the benefit OF clergy. The
play had been ''pirated" and rushed
into performance by an organization
ambiUiously and realistically called
Sydney Rosenfeld's own Opera com
pany, anticipating by a very short
time another production Of The Mi
kado" in New York.
The Mikado" was the FIRST of the
Gilbert * Sullivan pieces TO gain cur
rency in America General Grants
triumphal world tour, a little earlier,
with It's practical discovery of Japan,
had stirred these United States 70
their first interest in the orient Jap
anese napkins, fans, wall paper, parior /
table junk and JOSS punk bring us back
TO the funny late 'S0s-those /
days Of high bicycles, phaetons, Gro /
yer Cleveland's growing interest in (
Fanny Folsom. the achievements of /
NIaude s and the municipal activities !
OF the elder Carter Harrison. 4
The Hale "Mikado."
The opera had a revival at the Audi 4
forum theatre Thursday evening. 1t /
is likely TO live another 80 years. No /
other operas or musical comedies in
English of this day are likely to last
even a third of that time.
Why this remarkable longevity of
the Gilbert & Sullivan works?
With DR.. Munyon we insist that
There is q reason.
1
we know. were the only English au
thor and composer who thoroughly
and Systematically went about the mat
Ter of building operas. They were no
better equipped than many other gift
I'd Angio-Saxons. Gilbert could write
verse and Sullivan could compose
music Good lyricists are not rare in
, race which has produced the great
,st body OF poetry in the world. /,
But Gilbert made as serious an eff /
ort to adapt language to musical I
.etting as the French, German and ,
Italian librettists who wrote the best ]
# the operas in those languages. He :
vas as painstaking a craftsman as the
rtists OF the middle ages who wrought 3
MT appropriate things with a zeal and r
,ve which recognized no such fact as e
ime. i
Mr.. Gilbert also had sense of hui
nor. He knew just how funny Eng a
md and the SOS were He probably n
.ouId have written even more anus :
10 operas if he had lived in the then "
.ill verdaut United States. !,
The Amateurs Onslaught. a
II was not our fortune To see the is
rSt performance OF the hAh&No IL
hicago. We, however, shall never
,rget our first view OF that immortal 81
f(
IL was an amateur performance for a
veet charity's sake and all the bloods al
nd bellies OF a certain fresh water Z
llage we're therein employed The al
aiding man in the case. newly re- 10
rned from an eastern college. was al
e FIRST male being IL that region who N