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| Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:04 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
| In reply to: Gilbert & Sullivan - SUBRCCS 10:57 pm EDT 08/29/20 | |
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| Pinafore and Mikado were tremendously, massively successful here when first produced. Pinfaore was a sensation. In the 1870s, a five-month run was enormous. I'm not an expert on the history of G and S here. In fact, I'm not really a fan. But when you look at ibdb without historical context, what you see there can be misleading, especially without background info. For instance, Pirates played around three months in its first production here, but it was here as a limited engagement of the D'Oyley Carte. It was such a sensation that ads warned buyers against ticket speculators. Then it toured, but the company also had to get back to London. Pirates was in demand everywhere, but there were copyright issues. I think perhaps D'Oyley Carte did not want to allow American productions. Perhaps someone who knows more can chime in. Later G and S was generally seen here in repertory for limited runs from companies, including D'Oyley Carte, that specialized in or were even exclusively devoted to G and S. Often, the limited New York seasons, whether D'Oyley Carte or home-grown, were packed, and these companies also toured. |
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| re: Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 12:09 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
| In reply to: Their operettas were hugely popular - AlanScott 12:04 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
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| For instance, Pirates played around three months in its first production here, but it was here as a limited engagement of the D'Oyley Carte. It was such a sensation that ads warned buyers against ticket speculators. Then it toured, but the company also had to get back to London. Pirates was in demand everywhere, but there were copyright issues. I think perhaps D'Oyley Carte did not want to allow American productions. Perhaps someone who knows more can chime in. Pinafore was so incredibly popular that the first productions in the U.S. were being pirated (pun intended) without permission from D'Oyly Carte - so they tried to make sure that wouldn't happen with Pirates - they got here first, did the first authorized U.S. production and controlled the rights. (Now, of course, it's all public domain, so we don't have to worry about that.) |
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| re: Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 10:34 am EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Their operettas were hugely popular - Chromolume 12:09 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
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| Just to further elaborate on the copyright situation... HMS PINAFORE had been such a smash hit in the UK that unauthorized productions started popping up in the US and, by the time that an officially sanctioned production arrived in the US, the show had already widely played in this country, which, of course, lessened the money that Gilbert and Sullivan were able to make on the show here. To do an end run around this situation for their next production, THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, Gilbert and Sullivan opened it first in the US to establish copyright here. To establish copyright in the UK and avoid the reverse situation, they had an HMS PINAFORE touring company do a single performance of PIRATES in whatever small UK town they were in at the time. This was a great work-around to complicated copyright laws of the time. |
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| re: Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:31 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Their operettas were hugely popular - Chromolume 12:09 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
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| Thanks. That is discussed in a book I have, but I didn't feel like re-reading about it. I wish I were finding a site that I would trust with info about the history of their work as produced in America, but I'm not. But although I'm sure that, as in England, some works were less successful than others, in general their popularity in the U.S. can hardly be overstated. And people everywhere particularly wanted to see the three most popular ones. |
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| re: Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: StageDoorJohnny 09:28 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Their operettas were hugely popular - AlanScott 12:31 am EDT 08/30/20 | |
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| they were so popular that towns in Michigan and Saskatchewan were named Mikado ( the one in Mich. is now apparently pronounced mick-a-doo. Wyatt Earp met his second or third wife when she was touring HMS Pinafore in Tombstone, Arizona! |
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| re: Their operettas were hugely popular | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 09:38 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
| In reply to: re: Their operettas were hugely popular - StageDoorJohnny 09:28 pm EDT 08/31/20 | |
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| Wyatt Earp met his second or third wife when she was touring HMS Pinafore in Tombstone, Arizona! But, they should have been doing Ruddigore in Tombstone. |
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