SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 December 1940, Page 9

SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN

LILTING MELODIES TO BE HEARD AGAIN. Sir Arthur Sullivan, whose lilting melodies we are shortly to hear in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, which are to be staged by J. C. Williamson's comic opera company during a brief tour of New Zealand beginning at His Majesty’s Theatre, Auckland, on Monday, December 30. was born at 3 Boswell Terrace. Lambeth Walk. London, on May. 13. 1842. being the son of an Irish orchestral player and an Italian lady. From a choir boy at the Chapel Royal, he entered the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship; the second on the list being (Sir) Joseph Barnby, later music master at Eton College, and first conductor of the Royal Choral Society. Sir Arthur completed his music education at Leipzig, and. on his return, conducted in 1801, his first important work, the incidental music to “The Tempest." His first light opera was “Contraba.ndisla,” written to the libretto of Sir Francis Burnand, later the editor of “Punch.” which was produced at the Savoy Theatre under the name of “The Chieftain.” He was knighted on the occasion of the opening of the Royal College of Music in 1883, where he was a professor. He died on November 22, 1900.