From The American Review of Reviews, July 1911

AN entire generation of theater and opera goers has enjoyed the clean and captivating operas or operettas, which were the joint production of Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir William Gilbert, the two men who worked together with rare harmony of purpose and method. On May 29 Gilbert died at his country home in England. He was in his seventy-fifth year. He lost his life while attempting to save a lady visitor from drowning in a swimming pool. It was by an impressive coincidence that his death occurred on the very day that "Pinafore" was revived, with an all-star cast, at one of the New York theatres.

The operas which he wrote with Sullivan have most of them stood the test of years, and have been successfully revived over and over again in London and by touring companies in the provinces [and abroad]. His libretti are as familiar to the drawing-room as to the theater, and as the author of the "Bab Ballads" he has taken a definite place of his own in the literature of the country.

Gilbert's place, continues the Spectator, is secure, even when we accord to Sullivan all the credit due to him for the melodies of the work they did in common.

There is always a certain danger of the work of a librettist being bound up or confused with the music of his collaborator, and Gilbert before now has received praise which he himself would doubtless have considered unbalanced, as, for instance, when he has been compared as a writer of lyrics with Shelley, or when he has been assured that no writer of patter-songs has been his equal since Aristophanes. Something of the lilt and melody of Sullivan's music has infected that kind of criticism. But fortunately Gilbert has left other writings behind him besides those which Sullivan set to music. His work seems to separate itself into three periods. You get, first, the period of the "Bab Ballads" — an era of periodical publication which found him an audience of his own. Few stories are more familiar to budding authors and beginners in journalism than the rejection of the "Bab Ballads" by Punch, and their triumphant progress in Fun. After the "Bab Ballads" — of course the periods are never wholly distinct or separate — comes a time of serious play writing when the Gilbertian genius for topsy-turvydom on the stage seems to develop an almost permanent point of vies. To these years of play writing belong "The Palace of Truth," "Pymalion and Galatea," "The Wicked World," "Sweethearts," "Engaged," and others: some like "The Wicked World," dealing satirically with topics of the day, while others are still popular favorites. And then begins the third period, dating from 1877, (sic) when Gilbert, with Sullivan, produced "Trail by Jury," and followed it with "The Sorcerer" and "H.M.S. Pinafore." With the world-wide success of "Pinafore," which, we may reflect with amazement, was by no means assured at first, the Gilbert-and-Sullivan era had established itself. For Gilbert it was at once a beginning and a return. In the plays there had already been a promise of the quality of the books of the operas. In "Engaged," indeed, there is a sentence which might stand almost as the keynote of all Gilbert's writing: the delightful reply to a proposal of marriage — "I love you with a love unparalleled in the annals of the heart, but — business is business." That might be taken from any of the operas: but it belongs equally to his earliest work.

SIR WILLIAM GILBERT READING A PLAY TO TWO OF HIS ASSOCIATES, C. H. WORKMAN & EDWARD GERMAN.

An estimate of Gilbert's work which is representative of the general American comment, appears in the Nation, New York. From this estimate we quote the following:

He was not a great dramatist, but he possessed many of the essential qualifications of one. No man had a quicker sense of theatrical situation either comic or serious. He had the constructive faculty, plenty of imagination and invention, experience of life and knowledge of human nature, both kindly and caustic wit, quick and humorous perception, and a mastery of language which manifested itself in sound and pregnant prose and fluent, musical verse. There are in his writings many pretty strokes of poetic fancy and bits of genuine pathos and passion, while some of his lightest productions are freighted with a pointed moral and philosophic observation. ... And although in one form or another he dealt with life in many phases, and often in robust fashion, he never condescended to pander to low tastes by the use of vulgar or demoralizing methods. There is not an objectionable line to be found in all his publications. Beginning to write at a time when the British stage was largely abandoned to crude sensation or the veiled improprieties of adaptations from the French, he set himself to prove that audiences could be attracted without any sacrifice of decency, and that it was possible even to handle pitch without defilement. When he entered into partnership with Sullivan — to quote his own words — "we resolved that our plots, however ridiculous, should be coherent, that our dialogue should be void of offense, that, on artistic grounds, no man should play a woman's part, and no woman a man's. Finally, we agreed that no lady in the company should be required to wear a dress that she could not wear with absolute propriety at a private fancy ball." To this agreement they faithfully adhered, with results that are known to the whole civilized world. What becomes of our modern "musical comedy" when judged by this standard? Of course, Gilbert, who was the more potent spirit in the illustrious firm, did not win the public and fortune by the mere exclusion of vulgarity and nudity from his stage. He furnished better and more certain attractions instead of them. He took care that every performer in his company should be able not only to sing, but to act. ... Neither Sullivans nor Gilberts, unfortunately, are to be found every day. But the lesson which they taught is plain enough for such of their successors as choose to profit by it. Empty, vulgar, glittering frivolity may draw the crowd for a brief season, but only the entertainment that appeals to intelligence and good taste is sure of lasting public support. Gilbert and Sullivan died full of riches and honor.

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