Summary: USA-UK Interactions
Assignment 2, Article Summary by Jimmy Stevens
- Lamb, Andrew. “From Pinafore to Porter: United States-United Kingdom Interactions in Musical Theater, 1879-1929.” American Music 4, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 34-49
In this article, Lamb traces the connection between British and American musical comedy entertainment. In the 1870s and 1880s, much of American musical theatre was dominated by European and British operetta imports. This was acutely felt in 1879, as H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan was heard throughout the United States to great success. These British imports, as well as French and Viennese works, continued to be standard fare for theatregoers, but as the end of the century approached, new American works began to be heard in both the United States and abroad. The first major success was the comic opera The Doctor of Alcantara by Julius Eichberg (Boston, 1862, London 1879). This was a particularly noteworthy moment, as it was the first American musical theater piece to be produced in London. However, it wasn’t until 1891 with Reginald DeKoven’s Robin Hood (premiered in 1890 in Chicago and retitled Maid Marion for the London performance) that an American stage musical won high acclaim in London.
While American works written in the European style, such as the ones listed above, had difficulty being accepted away from home, other distinctly American styles of musical comedy were wildly popular. Perhaps the most popular American musical show was the minstrel show, with Jarrett and Rice’s Fun on the Bristol (1882) running in London for three months and attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales. While Fun on the Bristol did not enjoy great successes in New York, and appeared to be nothing more than the typical burlesques on well-known operatic airs, it enjoyed much acclaim in England.
An important distinction that began to appear in the last decade of the nineteenth century was the name “musical comedy.” In the 1890s, George Edwardes, manager of the popular Gaiety Theatre in London, began attaching this name to these new styled works. While the “musical play”, which retained elements of operettas and comic operas with quasi-operatic elements, remained in production, the “musical comedy” contained a stronger emphasis on vaudeville and variety show elements. The musical comedy also began to break away from the operatic style, with a stronger focus placed on dance rhythms and direct melodies, rather than the high flying vocal showmanship in the operatic style.
Sources
Sources appear to be taken from records of performances and where/how long the shows ran. Some small instances occur when the author includes a portion from a newspaper review, but does not cite.
Significance:
This article traces the symbiotic relationship between British/Continental musical theatre and the development of American musical theatre. As the American musical theatre genre began, it heavily drew upon European elements, but as time progressed, the new, unique American theatrical elements began to work their way into the European models.