La Vivandière (Gilbert)
Encyclopedia
La Vivandière; or, True to the Corps! is a burlesque by W. S. Gilbert
, described by the author as "An Operatic Extravaganza Founded on Donizetti
's Opera, La figlia del regimento
." In the French or other continental armies a vivandière
was a woman who supplied food and drink to troops in the field.
The piece was first produced at St. James's Hall, Liverpool
, on 15 June 1867. It was then presented in London, with a mostly new cast, at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
, opening on 22 January 1868. It was part of a series of operatic burlesques and other broad comic pieces that Gilbert wrote in the late 1860s near the beginning of his playwriting career. It was modestly successful and introduced some themes and satiric techniques that Gilbert would later employ in his famous Savoy opera
s.
, had been successful enough to encourage him to write another. It had run for 120 nights, from Christmas 1866 to Easter 1867, a good run for the London theatre of that time. As with Dulcamara, Gilbert based La Vivandière on a comic opera by Donizetti
, using the composer's tunes, and those of other composers, and fitting new words to them.
The work was premiered in Liverpool, by Maria Simpson's Opera Company, billed as "The new, original, and brilliant Operatic Extravaganza ... from the pen of W. S. Gilbert, Esq." The Gilbert scholar Jane Stedman writes that the subtitle was a topical allusion to a popular melodrama, True to the Core; A Story of the Armada. In the Victorian era
theatre managers normally bought or licensed plays from authors, and the authors had nothing to do with the staging of the works. Like his mentor Tom Robertson
, however, Gilbert was not content to be merely the author, but sought to influence the staging of his works as much as a playwright was allowed to do. The press announcements for the Liverpool production stated that the piece was being staged under the author's "immediate superintendence". Once established, Gilbert would stage direct nearly all of his own shows. It is not clear how much the Liverpool and London productions differed. Stedman notes that Gilbert made a number of changes to the libretto for the London production. The staging of the two productions was in wholly different hands: W. H. Montgomery and George Vinning, respectively musical director and scene painter in Liverpool, were replaced by Mr. Wallerstein and T. Grieve in London, and an almost completely new cast was selected.
Gilbert generally followed the plot originally written for Donizetti by his librettists, Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard
, but allowed himself some variations. In the opera, the Marchioness's husband does not appear, but Gilbert presented him as a glum figure played by Charles Wyndham in Liverpool and Lionel Brough
in London. The hero, Tonio, is not an Alpine guide in the original, and, as Gilbert made plain in the libretto, Lord Margate, the noisome English tourist, was a character "unknown to Donizetti, one of the many liberties taken by the Author with the original story." One reviewer noted that "the story ... acquires a new aspect from the circumstance that all the soldiers are converted into gorgeously attired Zouaves, and all the peasants into picturesque mountaineers.
Among the stock devices of Victorian burlesque, such as rhymed couplets, contrived puns and other word-play, mistaken identities, and women playing male roles en travesti
, La Vivandière contains the first example of what was to become one of Gilbert's trademarks: the ageing woman whose looks, if any, are fading. Gilbert later renounced breeches role
s and revealing dresses on his actresses, and made publicly known his disapproval of them. In his choice of music, Gilbert ranged less widely than he had done with Dulcamara, which drew not only on music by operatic composers including Bellini
, Flotow
and Offenbach
, but also on a great number of music hall
and other popular songs, such as "Champagne Charlie
" and "The Frog in Yellow." For La Vivandière, he drew almost entirely on the music of Donizetti's original or Offenbach's similarly military operetta, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
.
Gilbert married in 1867 amid one of his most productive periods. In addition to his other writing activities during the late 1860s, Dulcamara and La Vivandière were part of a series of about a dozen early comic stage works, including opera burlesques, pantomime
s and farce
s. These were full of awful pun
s and jokes as was traditional in similar pieces of the period. For instance, in La Vivandière Gilbert included this joke on a Darwinian theme:
Nevertheless, Gilbert's burlesques were considered unusually tasteful compared to the others on the London stage. The Times
wrote: "The chief care of Mr. Gilbert has been to make his dialogue as perfect a specimen as possible of smooth verse, and to stud it profusely with elaborate puns of unquestionable originality. ... Mr. Gilbert shows a power of detecting phonetic affinities ... in which perhaps he excels all his contemporaries. ... [S]eldom have mere verbal pleasantries provoked such frequent laughter and applause as those in La Vivandière ... an extravaganza more elegant in its tone than the generality of burlesques" The new piece ran for a total of 120 performances.
Gilbert's early pokes at grand opera
show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. He would depart even further from the burlesque style from about 1869 with plays containing original plots and fewer puns. The most successful of Gilbert's opera parodies, Robert the Devil
, opened in December 1868. These 1860s pieces led to Gilbert's more mature "fairy comedies", such as The Palace of Truth
(1870) and Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and to his German Reed Entertainments, which in turn led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan
operas.
. Sunset.
Lord Margate and his five companions are discovered at luncheon. They compliment themselves on their rudeness to foreigners and their contempt for any but English culture. Intrigued by a stranger, Roberto, and his unkempt appearance, they demand to know his name and history. He tells them that he has become a hermit to escape his domineering wife. He was mistakenly reported killed in battle and has remained officially dead ever since. Margate correctly deduces that Roberto must be the husband of the Marchioness of Birkenfelt; he maliciously plans to reunite the couple. He and his friends invite Roberto to abandon the hermitage and join their party. Roberto, tired of his austere existence, accepts. They meet Maria and demand a kiss. She fends them off and calls for help from Tonio, who rushes in to rescue her. The English party, unabashed, sing a snobbish song in their own praise.
Scene II – Interior of Guardroom.
The soldiers Cospetto and Ortensio discuss their sergeant's concern about Maria. She is the adopted daughter of the whole regiment, and all the soldiers care about her. The sergeant, Sulpizio, joins them and frets about Maria's absence on the mountains. She enters and reassures him that she is safe and well. He reveals to her that although she is adopted by the regiment, she is the daughter of its former captain, who, mortally wounded, gave her as a baby, wrapped in his favourite handkerchief, to Sulpizio to look after. They leave her alone, and Tonio comes in. Maria tells him that he will need the regiment's consent before he can marry her. Sulpizio, entering suddenly, finds them embracing and tells them that the regiment will consent to their marriage only if Tonio becomes a soldier. He agrees to do so.
Scene III – Exterior of Marchioness of Birkenfelt's Chateau, in Chamouni.
Festivities are under way for the Marchioness's twenty-first birthday. Margate scoffingly tells his cronies that she is at least 47. When the Marchioness appears, Margate indulges in cryptic insults about her age and appearance, which she does not seem to notice. She goes into the house, and Roberto joins Margate and the rest. He expresses his dislike of parties and socialising. They leave. The soldiers come in, lamenting their forthcoming loss of their beloved Maria. The Marchioness re-enters to reproach them for being sorrowful on her birthday, and they dry their tears. The Marchioness recognises Sulpizio's handkerchief as one belonging to her late husband. She recalls how he refused to be parted from their daughter and took her into battle with him, where they were both killed. Sulpizio tells her that though the father was killed, the baby was not, and introduces her to Maria. Margate acidly observes that the supposedly 21-year-old Marchioness must have become a mother at the age of two. The Marchioness reclaims Maria as her daughter, to the desolation of the soldiers.
Scene IV – Interior of Guard Room
Tonio, now a soldier, learns from Maria of her changed status in life, and that she cannot marry him. Sulpizio joins them in a song about her grand new lifestyle. The Marchioness arrives and takes Maria away, to the despair of Tonio and his comrades.
Scene V. – Gardens attached to the Marchioness's house
Cocott tells Pumpernickel that Maria is to marry Lord Margate. He is distressed, as he too, loves her, though he admits that he also loves the Marchioness and Cocott. At the betrothal ceremony the Marchioness and Roberto come face to face and recognise each other. She reclaims him as her husband, to his dismay. Maria refuses to enter into the engagement with Margate without her father's consent. Tonio demands entry and claims her. Sulpizio disproves Margate's title to the earldom because he has several "strawberry" birthmarks, and "no peer of Margate, young, old, short, or tall, / Had ever any strawberry marks at all." Tonio exclaims, "I have no strawberry marks," and is hailed as the true Earl of Margate. He is, in addition, instantly appointed to a large number of important local posts and titles. The Marchioness consents to his marriage to Maria.
agreed, praising Gilbert's verbal dexterity: "Up to the present, Mr. H. J. Byron has been unsurpassed in the humorous extravagance of his verbal jokes, but in True to the Corps Mr. Gilbert fairly out-Byrons Byron." The reviewer wondered if some of Gilbert's plays on words were too clever for the audience. The Morning Post began a long review thus:
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, described by the author as "An Operatic Extravaganza Founded on Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Opera, La figlia del regimento
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
." In the French or other continental armies a vivandière
Vivandière
Vivandière may refer to:*Vivandière a generic name for women attached to military regiments*La Vivandière, a ballet choreographed by Arthur Saint-Léon.*La Vivandière , an 1867 musical play by W. S. Gilbert...
was a woman who supplied food and drink to troops in the field.
The piece was first produced at St. James's Hall, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, on 15 June 1867. It was then presented in London, with a mostly new cast, at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...
, opening on 22 January 1868. It was part of a series of operatic burlesques and other broad comic pieces that Gilbert wrote in the late 1860s near the beginning of his playwriting career. It was modestly successful and introduced some themes and satiric techniques that Gilbert would later employ in his famous Savoy opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s.
Background and analysis
Gilbert's first operatic burlesque, Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great QuackDulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, is one of the earliest plays written by W.S. Gilbert, his first solo stage success. The work is a musical burlesque of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, and the music was arranged by Mr. Van Hamme...
, had been successful enough to encourage him to write another. It had run for 120 nights, from Christmas 1866 to Easter 1867, a good run for the London theatre of that time. As with Dulcamara, Gilbert based La Vivandière on a comic opera by Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, using the composer's tunes, and those of other composers, and fitting new words to them.
The work was premiered in Liverpool, by Maria Simpson's Opera Company, billed as "The new, original, and brilliant Operatic Extravaganza ... from the pen of W. S. Gilbert, Esq." The Gilbert scholar Jane Stedman writes that the subtitle was a topical allusion to a popular melodrama, True to the Core; A Story of the Armada. In the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
theatre managers normally bought or licensed plays from authors, and the authors had nothing to do with the staging of the works. Like his mentor Tom Robertson
Thomas William Robertson
Thomas William Robertson , usually known professionally as T. W. Robertson, was an Anglo-Irish dramatist and innovative stage director best known for a series of realistic or naturalistic plays produced in London in the 1860s that broke new ground and inspired playwrights such as W.S...
, however, Gilbert was not content to be merely the author, but sought to influence the staging of his works as much as a playwright was allowed to do. The press announcements for the Liverpool production stated that the piece was being staged under the author's "immediate superintendence". Once established, Gilbert would stage direct nearly all of his own shows. It is not clear how much the Liverpool and London productions differed. Stedman notes that Gilbert made a number of changes to the libretto for the London production. The staging of the two productions was in wholly different hands: W. H. Montgomery and George Vinning, respectively musical director and scene painter in Liverpool, were replaced by Mr. Wallerstein and T. Grieve in London, and an almost completely new cast was selected.
Gilbert generally followed the plot originally written for Donizetti by his librettists, Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard
Jean-François Bayard
Jean-François Alfred Bayard was a French playwright.-Life:As a law student and a lawyer's clerk, Bayard wrote with passion for the theatre and, after several attempts, had a great success at the Gymnase theatre, with la Reine de seize ans...
, but allowed himself some variations. In the opera, the Marchioness's husband does not appear, but Gilbert presented him as a glum figure played by Charles Wyndham in Liverpool and Lionel Brough
Lionel Brough
Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool during the mid-1860s...
in London. The hero, Tonio, is not an Alpine guide in the original, and, as Gilbert made plain in the libretto, Lord Margate, the noisome English tourist, was a character "unknown to Donizetti, one of the many liberties taken by the Author with the original story." One reviewer noted that "the story ... acquires a new aspect from the circumstance that all the soldiers are converted into gorgeously attired Zouaves, and all the peasants into picturesque mountaineers.
Among the stock devices of Victorian burlesque, such as rhymed couplets, contrived puns and other word-play, mistaken identities, and women playing male roles en travesti
En travesti
Travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. Some sources regard 'travesti' as an Italian term, some as French. Depending on sources, the term may be given as travesty, travesti, or en travesti...
, La Vivandière contains the first example of what was to become one of Gilbert's trademarks: the ageing woman whose looks, if any, are fading. Gilbert later renounced breeches role
Breeches role
A breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing .In opera it also refers to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer...
s and revealing dresses on his actresses, and made publicly known his disapproval of them. In his choice of music, Gilbert ranged less widely than he had done with Dulcamara, which drew not only on music by operatic composers including Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
, Flotow
Friedrich von Flotow
Friedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera Martha, which was popular in the 19th century....
and Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, but also on a great number of music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
and other popular songs, such as "Champagne Charlie
Champagne Charlie (song)
Champagne Charlie is a music hall song from the 19th century composed by Alfred Lee with lyrics by George Leybourne. It was popularised by performer George Leybourne. The song was first performed at the Sun Music Hall, Knightsbridge in 1867...
" and "The Frog in Yellow." For La Vivandière, he drew almost entirely on the music of Donizetti's original or Offenbach's similarly military operetta, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is an opéra bouffe , in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
.
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
s and farce
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
s. These were full of awful pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s and jokes as was traditional in similar pieces of the period. For instance, in La Vivandière Gilbert included this joke on a Darwinian theme:
Nevertheless, Gilbert's burlesques were considered unusually tasteful compared to the others on the London stage. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote: "The chief care of Mr. Gilbert has been to make his dialogue as perfect a specimen as possible of smooth verse, and to stud it profusely with elaborate puns of unquestionable originality. ... Mr. Gilbert shows a power of detecting phonetic affinities ... in which perhaps he excels all his contemporaries. ... [S]eldom have mere verbal pleasantries provoked such frequent laughter and applause as those in La Vivandière ... an extravaganza more elegant in its tone than the generality of burlesques" The new piece ran for a total of 120 performances.
Gilbert's early pokes at grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. He would depart even further from the burlesque style from about 1869 with plays containing original plots and fewer puns. The most successful of Gilbert's opera parodies, Robert the Devil
Robert the Devil (Gilbert)
Robert the Devil, or The Nun, the Dun, and the Son of a Gun is an operatic parody by W. S. Gilbert of Giacomo Meyerbeer's romantic opera Robert le diable, which was named after, but bears little resemblance to, the medieval French legend of the same name. Gilbert set new lyrics to tunes by...
, opened in December 1868. These 1860s pieces led to Gilbert's more mature "fairy comedies", such as The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth
The Palace of Truth is a three-act blank verse "Fairy Comedy" by W. S. Gilbert first produced at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 19 November 1870, partly adapted from Madame de Genlis's fairy story, Le Palais de Vérite. The play ran for approximately 140 performances and then toured the British...
(1870) and Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and to his German Reed Entertainments, which in turn led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operas.
Casts
The original Liverpool and London casts were as follows:| Role | Description | Liverpool | London |
|---|---|---|---|
| Count Roberto | Husband of the Marchioness of Birkenfelt, disguised as Manfred Manfred Manfred is a dramatic poem written in 1816–1817 by Lord Byron. It contains supernatural elements, in keeping with the popularity of the ghost story in England at the time. It is a typical example of a Romantic closet drama... , and living on Mont Blanc. |
Charles Wyndham | Lionel Brough Lionel Brough Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool during the mid-1860s... |
| Tonio | An Alpine guide, sprung from a well-known Alpen-stock | Miss M. Brennan | Miss P. Markham |
| The Earl of Margate | A British tourist unknown to Donizetti | Bella Goodall Bella Goodall Isabella Goodall was an English soubrette of the Victorian theatre. She made her name on the stage in her native city, Liverpool, and later became a star of the London theatre, both in burlesque and comic plays.-Biography:... |
Fanny Addison Fanny Addison Fanny Addison , also known as Mrs. Henry Mader Pitt, was and English actress.She appeared in 1867 in the Adelphi Theatre London. The next year, she was at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre in La Vivandière by W. S. Gilbert. In 1881, she played in New York.-References:* "," PictureHistory PrintShop... |
| Lord Pentonville | His companion, man of small Parts. | Miss Deane | Miss Jordan |
| Sir Peckham Rye | His companion, man of small Parts. | Miss Armstrong | Miss Montgomery |
| The Marquis of Cranbourne Alley | His companion, man of small Parts. | Miss Vining | Miss Sylvia |
| Pumpernickel | Steward to the Marchioness, in love with everybody. | E. Newbound | Mr. Sanger |
| Sergeant Sulpizio | Paymaster sergeant, risen from the ranks to the ranks | J. D. Stoyle | J. L. Toole |
| Cospetto | Soldier | Miss Chester | Miss F. Heath |
| Ortensio | Soldier | Miss J. Gunniss | Miss Maxse |
| Notary | His motto is deeds, not words | A. Brown | Mr. Fotheringham |
| Maria | Supposedly the child of the Regiment; in reality, Roberto's daughter | Maria Simpson | Henrietta Hodson Henrietta Hodson Henrietta Hodson was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era. She had a long affair with the journalist-turned-politician Henry Labouchère, later marrying him.... |
| Marchioness of Birkenfelt | Her Mother | Harriet Everard | Harriet Everard |
| Cocotte | Her Maid | Miss E. Seymour | Miss Turner |
| Guests, Happy Peasants, Soldiers, and others, by a host of unrecognized Siddonses and Kembles | |||
Synopsis
Scene I – Grands Mulets on Mont BlancMont Blanc
Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco , meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence...
. Sunset.
Lord Margate and his five companions are discovered at luncheon. They compliment themselves on their rudeness to foreigners and their contempt for any but English culture. Intrigued by a stranger, Roberto, and his unkempt appearance, they demand to know his name and history. He tells them that he has become a hermit to escape his domineering wife. He was mistakenly reported killed in battle and has remained officially dead ever since. Margate correctly deduces that Roberto must be the husband of the Marchioness of Birkenfelt; he maliciously plans to reunite the couple. He and his friends invite Roberto to abandon the hermitage and join their party. Roberto, tired of his austere existence, accepts. They meet Maria and demand a kiss. She fends them off and calls for help from Tonio, who rushes in to rescue her. The English party, unabashed, sing a snobbish song in their own praise.
Scene II – Interior of Guardroom.
The soldiers Cospetto and Ortensio discuss their sergeant's concern about Maria. She is the adopted daughter of the whole regiment, and all the soldiers care about her. The sergeant, Sulpizio, joins them and frets about Maria's absence on the mountains. She enters and reassures him that she is safe and well. He reveals to her that although she is adopted by the regiment, she is the daughter of its former captain, who, mortally wounded, gave her as a baby, wrapped in his favourite handkerchief, to Sulpizio to look after. They leave her alone, and Tonio comes in. Maria tells him that he will need the regiment's consent before he can marry her. Sulpizio, entering suddenly, finds them embracing and tells them that the regiment will consent to their marriage only if Tonio becomes a soldier. He agrees to do so.
Scene III – Exterior of Marchioness of Birkenfelt's Chateau, in Chamouni.
Festivities are under way for the Marchioness's twenty-first birthday. Margate scoffingly tells his cronies that she is at least 47. When the Marchioness appears, Margate indulges in cryptic insults about her age and appearance, which she does not seem to notice. She goes into the house, and Roberto joins Margate and the rest. He expresses his dislike of parties and socialising. They leave. The soldiers come in, lamenting their forthcoming loss of their beloved Maria. The Marchioness re-enters to reproach them for being sorrowful on her birthday, and they dry their tears. The Marchioness recognises Sulpizio's handkerchief as one belonging to her late husband. She recalls how he refused to be parted from their daughter and took her into battle with him, where they were both killed. Sulpizio tells her that though the father was killed, the baby was not, and introduces her to Maria. Margate acidly observes that the supposedly 21-year-old Marchioness must have become a mother at the age of two. The Marchioness reclaims Maria as her daughter, to the desolation of the soldiers.
Scene IV – Interior of Guard Room
Tonio, now a soldier, learns from Maria of her changed status in life, and that she cannot marry him. Sulpizio joins them in a song about her grand new lifestyle. The Marchioness arrives and takes Maria away, to the despair of Tonio and his comrades.
Scene V. – Gardens attached to the Marchioness's house
Cocott tells Pumpernickel that Maria is to marry Lord Margate. He is distressed, as he too, loves her, though he admits that he also loves the Marchioness and Cocott. At the betrothal ceremony the Marchioness and Roberto come face to face and recognise each other. She reclaims him as her husband, to his dismay. Maria refuses to enter into the engagement with Margate without her father's consent. Tonio demands entry and claims her. Sulpizio disproves Margate's title to the earldom because he has several "strawberry" birthmarks, and "no peer of Margate, young, old, short, or tall, / Had ever any strawberry marks at all." Tonio exclaims, "I have no strawberry marks," and is hailed as the true Earl of Margate. He is, in addition, instantly appointed to a large number of important local posts and titles. The Marchioness consents to his marriage to Maria.
Musical numbers
The following is the list of musical numbers printed in the Liverpool libretto, followed by the name of the original number pastiched. The lyrics were evidently revised for the London libretto. As none of the music was original, no vocal score was published.- "Thoughts of care away we fling" – Chorus (GalopGalopIn dance, the galop, named after the fastest running gait of a horse , a shortened version of the original term galoppade, is a lively country dance, introduced in the late 1820s to Parisian society by the Duchesse de Berry and popular in Vienna, Berlin and London...
from Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers) - "The fumes of wine obstruct my view" – Chorus, Roberto and Margate ("For a few days")
- "Whoever can you be, not to know" – Lord Margate, Tonio, Maria, and Companions ("The Galloping Snob of Rotten Row")
- "The playthings that you bought me, always cost a sum immense" – Sulpizio and Maria ("Mazeppa's History")
- "Sweeter lollipop" – Tonio and Maria (Offenbach, "Dites, la jeune belle", from Les voix mystérieuses)
- "Tonio devoted ne'er will we part" – Sulpizio, Maria, and Tonio (Donizetti, "Ciascun lo dice" from La fille du régiment)
- [Lyric lost] – Lord Margate ("Oh, how delightful")
- "Oh, of all men I have been the most unfortunate" – Roberto, Lord Margate and Sulpizio (Payne's Cap Dance in Cinderella)
- "Most unhappy we are, losing our Maria" – Chorus ("Oh Mary, oh Mary")
- "Your thoughts when you have left our band" – Tonio, Maria and Sulpizio ("Tootle on the Cornet")
- "Din, din, din, din, There's the hour" – Marchioness, Maria, Tonio, Sulpizio, and Pumpernickel ("Din, din, din, din, minuit sonne")
- "Oh, upon my word and honour" – Marchioness, Roberto, Lord Margate and Sulpizio ("Market Gardener")
- Finale – "And now our fun to earth is run" – Company ("Eclipse Galop")
Critical reception
The Liverpool press was no more than moderately impressed by the piece, judging it "no better and no worse" than other burlesques staged locally. The London critics were much more favourable. The consensus was that Gilbert had avoided the vulgarity of most burlesques, choosing good music and writing ingenious and literate words. The Pall Mall Gazette complimented Gilbert on his good taste which was "deserving of compliment and imitation." The StandardEvening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
agreed, praising Gilbert's verbal dexterity: "Up to the present, Mr. H. J. Byron has been unsurpassed in the humorous extravagance of his verbal jokes, but in True to the Corps Mr. Gilbert fairly out-Byrons Byron." The reviewer wondered if some of Gilbert's plays on words were too clever for the audience. The Morning Post began a long review thus:
The so-called "operatic extravaganza" produced last night under the title "La Vivandière; or, True to the Corps," does not, as one might at first suppose, belong to the same class of works as Mr. SullivanArthur SullivanSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's burlesque operas "Cox and BoxCox and BoxCox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
" and the "ContrabandistaThe ContrabandistaThe Contrabandista, or The Law of the Ladrones, is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874...
." In "La Vivandière", the descriptive title, "operatic extravaganza," is justified only by the fact that the work is based on the libretto of an opera. It was a daring thing to attempt to make fun of "La Fille du Régiment," for the simple reason that the piece is of a serio-comic nature in its original form ... we should have thought it about as hopeful an enterprise as to parody a comic song. However, we must judge by results. Mr. W. S. Gilbert has already shown, in "Dulcamara," that he could produce an effective travesty of a comic opera, and he has given us a fresh and still more brilliant proof of that power in his happily named "True to the Corps."