SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN’S NEW OPERA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 475, 28 May 1890, Page 4

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN’S NEW OPERA.

EUGENE FIELD WRITING THE LIBRETTO. Sir Arthur Sullivan, the eminent composer, is at present hard at work upon the score of a grand opera which is to be produced in London next November. Sir Arthur has for a long time had under consideration the project of composing a grand opera that would be in every sense an English production, as the popular taste everywhere indicated a desire for something different from the German and Italian schools, in which all the present grand operatic productions are written ; bub for several years he had been so occupied with the scores of comic operas that po opportunity for his scheme had presented itself. When “ The Gondoliers ” was completed and presented at the Savoy Theatre, last December, the time seemed ripe, and he at once set about his great task. Sir Arthur, for the first time in the his? tory of his operatic compositions, will not have Gilbert as his librettist. These two gentlemen have successfully worked together for nearly two decades, and while Sullivan has had no differences with his collaborator, it is probable that they will never jointly produce another comic opera. Gilbert is now in India, where he went immediately after the first performance of “ The Gondoliers,” while Sullivan remained in London, and is now working with his librettist Eugene Field, of Chicago, is to undertake the task of furnishing the text for the new production, and as has been the case with Mr Gilbert, both words and music are being written together. The title and plot are religiously guarded, but the story, it is said, is to deal with modern times, and promises to be full of interest.