The Sapphire Necklace
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The Sapphire Necklace, or the False Heiress (completed by 1867, at least mostly completed by 1864), was the first opera composed by Arthur Sullivan. It was never performed, and most of the music and libretto are now lost.
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[edit] Background
After his incidental music to The Tempest raised Arthur Sullivan to fame, he began to experiment with a wide variety of musical compositions. By 1864, he wrote a ballet (L'Île Enchantée), several hymns, a few piano solos, and some parlour ballads. He had also set to work on an opera. As with some of his other compositions at this time, the libretto was provided by his friend Henry F. Chorley. However, this libretto proved particularly difficult to set: Sullivan, later in life, would say that no other libretto had given him more difficulty, and contemporary sources[1] suggest that he may have later decided to suppress the opera due to dislike of the libretto.
Despite these difficulties, the young Sullivan worked diligently at the piece between 1863 and 1864 and had a finished, four-act opera by 1867. However, he was unable to find anyone willing to produce it, aside from some selections performed at The Crystal Palace. Despite this, Sullivan would go on to write a cantata with Chorley (The Masque at Kenilworth), and a few stand-alone songs including "The Long Day Closes."
[edit] Surviving and Known Music
On 13 April 1867 a selection of songs from the opera were performed at The Crystal Palace, arranged for military band by Charles Godfrey Jr. The overture proved popular and went on to appear in numerous further concerts. The overture is in the style of Mendelssohn and suggests that The Sapphire Necklace would have been a more serious work than the comic operas for which Sullivan later became known.
The two other songs, "Over the Roof" and a now-lost recitative and prayer, "Then come not yet," were less successful. Only the former went as far as publication, and neither would appear again at a major concert in Sullivan's lifetime. The madrigal, "When Love and Beauty to be Married," would be saved by the Victorian love of parlour ballads, but the rest of the score, as well as the libretto, was lost. Sullivan sold the score to Metzler in 1878, but bought it back again in 1880, and would later mention (in a letter to his secretary, Wilfred Bendall) having part of the score in front of him when composing Victoria and Merrie England.
[edit] Surviving Lyrics
[edit] When Love and Beauty (Madrigal)
(With Sullivan's repeats eliminated)
- When Love and Beauty to be married go,
- Pheobus, without a cloud,
- Smiles on the pair.
- Though rose-buds pant and blow,
- The birds all sing aloud,
- Tumultuous Boreas, whom the cedars bowed,
- Tamed, like wane of gentle song doth flow,
- Saying, till Echo doth repeat the sound,
- "May all who wed in truth with happiness be crown'd."
- It is not wealth and state that smooth the way,
- Nor bid the desert bloom,
- The ploughman at his furrow can be gay,
- The weaver at his loom.
- Where Honour's Lord content his wife hath room,
- And hearts keep light if heads are gray,
- Singing, till Echo doth repeat the sound,
- "May all who wed in truth with happiness be crown'd."
[edit] Over the Roof
- Over the roof and over the wall,
- Grow, grow, the jessamine grow.
- For ever and ever more white and tall
- (No matter the dwelling be high or low!)
- For yet palace be lofty and moat be wide
- And mailed the bridge and lordly the towers,
- There love can prevail over pomp and pride
- Like the cherished beauty of those sweet flowers!
- Love, love, love.
- Love will not alter under the sun
- While the woods grow and the waters run!
- Down by the meadow, down to the sea
- (Flow, flow, the river will flow)
- The turf may be green, or wither'd the tree
- (But the heat is the same on the cobble below.)
- For whatever the season around that deep stream,
- Be it snow-white winter or summer hot,
- There is love, tho' a wand'rer as some might dream
- Who passes and passes, yet changes not.
- Ah! Love, love, love.
- Love will be master under the sun
- While the wood grows and the waters run!
[edit] The Royal English Opera production
On July 29, 2000, the only known performance of the opera was given with a new libretto by composer Scott Farrell in Rockford, Illinois by The Royal English Opera Company, an amateur ensemble formed in 1999 to perform rare English opera pieces. The plot of this libretto concerns a peasant girl who inherits a sapphire necklace and becomes queen for a day under the terms of a legend. The Chorley and Sullivan original pieces were incorporated into the text, and the rest of the score was filled out by Farrell using Sullivan music for some of the pieces (including "The Long Day Closes"), and his original music for others. The libretto attempts to simulate the style of W. S. Gilbert. The production was described as "not quite ready for prime time" [but]... "fun to watch nonetheless". The new libretto and score are currently available.from Chris Browne's catalogue
[edit] References
- The Sapphire Necklace at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive (includes Midi files and lyrics of surviving songs)
- The Sapphire Necklace at The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography
