Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London’s Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit. The success of Trial by Jury launched the famous series of 13 collaborative works between Gilbert and Sullivan that came to be known as the Savoy Operas.
About Trial by Jury in brief
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London’s Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit. The story concerns a \”breach of promise of marriage\” lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. The success of Trial by Jury launched the famous series of 13 collaborative works between Gilbert and Sullivan that came to be known as the Savoy Operas. After its original production in 1875 the opera toured widely in Britain and elsewhere and was frequently revived and recorded. It continues to be frequently played, especially as a companion piece to other short Gilbert andSullivan operas or other works. The opera premiered more than three years after Gilbert and. Sullivan’s only previous collaboration, Thespis, an 1871–72 Christmas season entertainment, and received critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach’s La Périchole. The plot of the opera is ludicrous, but the characters behave as if the events were perfectly reasonable. This narrative technique blunts some of the pointed barbs aimed at hypocrisy, especially of those in authority, and the sometimes base motives of supposedly respectable people and institutions. Gilbert wrote several short stories, edited the second volume of his comic Bab Ballads, and created a dozen theatrical works, including Happy Arcadia in 1872; The Wicked World, The Happy Land and The Realm of Joy in 1873; Charity, Topsyturveydom and Sweethearts in 1874.
He also wrote a suite of incidental music to The Merry Wives of Windsor and many parlour ballads and other songs, including three with words by Gilbert: The Distant Shore, The Love that Loves Me Not, and The Love That Loves me Not. In 1873, the opera was expanded into one-act by the composer and box manager and Carl Rosa, who asked Gilbert for a commission to write or commission the music. In the opera, the plaintiff stepped into the witness, the judge leapt into her arms and vowed to marry her, whereas in the case in the opera the case is allowed to proceed further before this conclusion is reached. The outline of the story was followed in the later form of its numbers in Fun in 1868, and two of its number appeared in their final form in the final form of The English Box. The genesis of Trial By Jury began in 18 68, when Gilbert wrote a single-page illustrated comic piece for the magazine Fun entitled Trial by jury: An Operetta. It detailed a trial going awry, lawyers, lawyers and the legal system in a spoof of a law system, and it detailed a case that ended abruptly, with the judge jumping into the arms of the attractive plaintiff. The music was written by Sullivan, who was pleased with the piece and promptly wrote the music for the opera.
You want to know more about Trial by Jury?
This page is based on the article Trial by Jury published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
