ECHOES OF SULLIVAN

Evening Star, Issue 19792, 16 February 1928, Page 4

ECHOES OF SULLIVAN

TABLET UNVEILED WHERE ‘PIRATES OF PENZANCE' COMPOSED. A group of American music-lovers, theatrical people, ami musicians, headed by Walter Damrosch, have just honored the memory of Sir Arthur Sullivan, English composer, by unveiling a tablet to mark the site of the ’ild hous in East Twentieth street, mar Madison avenue, where he composed ‘The Pirates of Penzance.’ The unveiling occurred at midnight one night recently, when the playhouses and concert halls had closed after the night’s performances. Jn front of the building, which now occupies the site where Sir Arthur once Jived, there gathered a little group, at the head of which was Mr Damrosch Crossed on the outer wall of the building was an American and a British Hag, Alter appropriate ceremonies Mr Damrosch drew aside the emblems, and the bronze tablet was revealed with this inscription UN THIS SITE SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN COMPOSED ‘THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE’ J) BRING 1879. There have been many changes oi scene in East Twentieth street si net the time the composer occupied a room in the little hotel, long since gone un der the relentless march of commercial building in that neighborhood, and there is little left to remind presentday New York that the old Gramcrcy Park section produced much of the cultural and artistic values of which the ctiy boasts. The tablet was erected by ttie Winthrop Ames Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. Mr Damrosch, so intimately associated with the music history ol New York, was a young man when Sir Arthur was in America, but he met him at least once. In his brief speech Mr Damrosch referred to this meeting. Gilbert and Sullivan and D’Oyly Carte, their manager, came to Now York in November, 1879. They planned to produce here, tor the first time or: any stage, ‘The Pirates of Penzance. First they put on ‘Pinafore,’ but already this piece had been sung so much in New York—at one time eight companies were playing it—that the most they achieved was the artistic satisfaction of showing Americans how the work should be sung, and, even more important, just what ‘Pinafore’ was, since many of the versions presented were much garbled and hardly recognisable from the original score.

Sir Arthur then began work on ‘ The Pirates of Penzance.’ As he had left his original sketches for the first act in England he had to produce these again and score the entire opera. The overture was not finished until 6 o’clock in the morning of the day the piece was to have its premiere in the Fifth Avenue Theatre, December 31, 1879. The day previous a performance was given in the tiny village of Paignton, Devon, England, for copyright purposes by a provincial 1 Pinafore ’ company, which included Richard Mansfield. “ Gilbert and Sullivan,” said Mr Damrosch, “are the heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race, _ and, like Shakespeare, furnish a tie that binds England and the United States inseparably in an artistic as well as ia cultural sense.”