"FIRST-NIGHT PHOBIA" ATTACKS W. S. GILBERT

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 34, 1 March 1935, Page 14

"FIRST-NIGHT PHOBIA" ATTACKS W. S. GILBERT

"QWEELT are the uses of advertisement." The immediate origin of the story of Gilbert and Sullivan’s vpera, "The Yeomen of the Guard" is vredited to’ a poster that caught the eye of Gilbert one day as he stood waiting in the Uxbridge Railway Station. The advertisements of the Tower Furnishing Company pictures a_ bee!eater; the beefeater it was that acted for "The Yeomen" as the Japanese sword had acted for "The Mikado." Here was the scene, perhaps a touch of the plot, for his next piece. The choice of the .opera’s name, in fact, had . ;

jong hovered between "Lhe Tower" aud "The Beeféaters." Better counsels prevailed, aud within three weeks of its production (October 8, 1888), the dignified title, which for forty-six years has: graced this lovely opera, was finally decided upon. Everyone knows the anecdote anent the old lady, who, after being taken to see "Hamlet," complained that 1t was not up to much because it was made up out of quotations. Surely it must have been the same old lady who, whilst being shown over the Tower of London paid an unconscious compliment to Gilbert and Sullivan by exclaiming, "How beautiful it all is -it’s just like the opera." Jessie Bond has left us an unforgettable picture of that memorable

first night-a behind-the-curtain picture not often revealed to the public: Gilbert was unusually nervous: © his first-night phobia took a most uncommon osculatory form. A comic opera opening with a lone person on the stage! Miss Bond (as Phoebe Meryl) was already at her spinning wheel. ready for tbe first song. "When Maiden Loves." Enter Gilbert, a moment before the curtain is to rise. "Is everything right, Jessie?’ Kiverything is right. Exit Gilbert. In a2 moment he is back. "Are you sure you’re all right, Jessie?" "Yes, yes!" stammers Jessie. "I’m quite all right." Gilbert kisses her and indulges. in i dance which the king of his later "Utopia" would not characterise as being quite expressive of ‘unruffled cheerfulness." He vanishes. He reappears. He inquires anew. He executed yet another dance-perhaps a Ruddigorean one this time, of his own invention. Again he kisses his Phoebe, until she demands that he go. At first, like his Pirates, he "don’t go." But at last he goes-be goes-off to the Embankment, no doubt, there to pace the promenade until the ordeal of the premiere is over; he returns for the final curtain eall, when, with his illustrious partner, Sullivan, who has conducted, he will face a rapturously happy audience.