Summary: English Magic [Sorcerer]
Assignment 1: Chapter Summary by Beth Atkins
- Williams, Carolyn. “English Magic, English Intoxication: The Sorcerer.” Chapter 3 (pp. 75-96) in Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2008.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer marks the origination of the “formula” the Savoy Opera would be known for including: an ensemble cast of “typed” characters (such as the elderly lady, the elderly admirer, the young lovers, the Vicar/Major General/Captain, and male and female responsive chorus); high production values and performance standards; satire of gender, class, and national identities; and parody of past literary, theatrical, and performance genres. The Sorcerer specifically parodies opera bouffe; French, Italian, and German grand opera; extravaganza; supernatural melodrama; the minstrel show; and the clichéd lozenge plot.
The story is a spin-off of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love and borrows heavily from a story written by Gilbert in 1869. Constance Partlet, a young village maiden, is in love with the Vicar, Dr. Daly. She is miserable because she doesn’t believe he could ever love her. Dr. Daly imagines himself to be unloved. The betrothed couple Aline and Alexis are wildly and expressively in love in contrast to Alexis’ father, Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre and Aline’s mother, Lady Sangazure who have loved one another for over 50 years, but who have concealed their feelings for the sake of propriety. Alexis hires a Sorcerer to distribute his “Patent Oxy-Hydrogen Love-at-first-sight Philtre” so that all the villagers can experience love. Jesting at English propriety and sobriety as well as parodying the supernatural melodrama, Act One concludes with the Sorcerer conjuring spirits to appear as he pours the love potion into the vessel of the English national beverage, a teapot. Upon drinking the potion, the villagers fall into a deep
sleep and fall in love with the first person they see upon awakening, regardless of difference in age, rank, or class.
As a professional sorcerer from a firm of “old-established Family Sorcerers,” the character John Wellington Wells draws attention to the middle class and its divisions by contrast with the lower class and the Aristocracy. He introduces himself in the patter "My Name is John Wellington Wells.” During the nineteenth century, street vendors were known as “patterers” for their unique sales pitches. This song is significant because it is the first of the “list” songs for which the Savoy operas are known. In this instance, John Wellington Wells lists the goods and services he provides as well as the “ologies” he is well versed.
The operetta concludes with the couples are reunited with their appropriate partners while, in a parody of supernatural melodrama, extravaganza, and grand opera, the Sorcerer sinks through a trap door amid red fire as he sacrifices himself to Ahrimanes to reverse his magic spell.
Sources.
Williams’ sources include primary materials such as versions of the scripts with design notes, vintage newspaper stories, and first person anecdotes as well as secondary commentary and interpretation from scholars in theater, opera, Victorian literature, and even ventriloquism.