The irrepressible tune, “Now to the banquet we press” also made a second appearance at the end of the show. In The Sorcerer, Sullivan had experimented with two different tunes for a single lyric, “with heart and with voice”, which were later unexpectedly combined. Their progress in these areas make HMS Pinaforea more successful operetta than its predecessors, paving the way for even more spectacular writing in the future. With their 4th collaboration, HMS Pinafore, the writers began to tackle larger scale problems, particularly musical unity and pacing, and they began to find their stride in one of the most difficult areas of writing for the lyric stage the finale.
PINAFORE BUTTERCUP LYRICS FULL
The Sorcerer had established the familiar patter baritone, a particular style of writing for the primary couple, ensemble work full of character and humor, and the broad satire of British cultural mores for which Gilbert and Sullivan are so famous. The Sorcerer, their third piece for the stage, had thus given them their first chance to present a full length piece with real character development.
PINAFORE BUTTERCUP LYRICS TRIAL
Their first collaboration, Thespis (the music sadly now lost) was an extravaganza, not a standard opera, and Trial By Jury is quite short. Writing Operetta is a tricky business, but Gilbert and Sullivan found the elements of their success remarkably quickly. (when I had a kidney stone, I sincerely wanted the doctors to have me put down) So while I may quibble with some choices here and there, I may beg the indulgence of the Gilbert and Sullivan community by reiterating that we composers can only hope to achieve what these two men did while ill, distracted, or otherwise indisposed. The fact that Sullivan was in excruciating pain while writing this operetta due to a kidney stone makes his achievement almost superhuman.
They did not spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. It is no mark of shame to say that Gilbert and Sullivan were learning as they wrote. In this post, I hope to demonstrate Pinafore as a musical step forward for Sullivan as well, one in which he started to draw thematic connections across the entirety of the piece, and in which he began to really come to terms with the way an effective finale is constructed. While Sullivan may have taken part in those developments, the characters and construction of the plot are clearly Gilbert’s domain. But as time has passed, and Gilbert and Sullivan continued to hone their craft, audiences can see Pinafore as a brilliant step in a journey not quite completed. Commentators have sometimes noted that HMS Pinafore seems like a rough draft of The Pirates of Penzance. Arguments to that effect tend to cluster around the way Pirates is constructed, the way it reuses the most interesting character devices and plot contrivances of Pinafore, but in a smarter and more intentional way. Cutting social commentary, far more incisive than we had seen in The Sorcerer, memorable tunes worthy of comparison to Rossini and Offenbach, and a host of other details combine to make this operetta a truly English confection, not merely a parody of more respectable shows from the continent. When the operetta first hit the boards, audiences must have felt the shock of discovery as they saw the first version of the G&S formula operating on all cylinders. The tunes and catch phrases from the operetta have become part of the lexicon, and as such, the operetta is among Gilbert and Sullivan’s crowning achievements. It is the piece which transported Gilbert and Sullivan from being an interesting potentiality to being a global phenomenon.
Along with The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance, it sits at the very top of the Gilbert and Sullivan pantheon, beloved almost since the first performance. The internet does not need me to provide a comprehensive history of HMS Pinafore. Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore: A Rough Guide for the M.D.
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