This, the first collaboration of Gilbert and Sullivan, was conceived as a Christmas entertainment for the Gaiety Theatre where it received its first performance on 26 December 1871 and ran for 63 performances.
The Gods on Mount Olympus are old and tired, so decide to leave Mount Olympus and take a holiday. Meanwhile a troupe of travelling actors take their place. Most of the original music for this opera has been lost, so performances today either adapt music from other Sullivan scores, or use a score by a composer who has written a replacement for the lost music.
- The Libretto
- Text version (G&S Archive Edition)
- The libretto sold at the Gaiety Theatre during the run of Thespis was, at several points, at variance with what was actually performed on stage according to contemporary press reviews. Dr. Terence Rees has researched this, and this libretto attempts to restore the missing lines. It is available as a zipped Word Document [104KB] or as a PDF File [275KB].
- The Music
- No vocal score for Thespis was published during Sullivan's lifetime and only two numbers from the original score survive. The chorus Climbing over rocky mountain was adapted and re-used in The Pirates of Penzance. Another song, Little Maid of Arcadee was published (with slightly altered words) as a ballad.
- In Forty Years of Thespis Scholarship by Selwyn Tillett and Roderic Spencer, the authors put forward the theory that much more of the music of Thespis than Climbing over rocky mountain was adapted and re-used in The Pirates of Penzance. An abridged and amended text of their talk, delivered at the Sullivan Society Festival weekend, Cirencester, Saturday 21 September 2002, can be found on The Chimes Musical Theatre website.
- At least one early reviewer remarked that the theme used in the overture bore a resemblance to a song by James Molloy, with words by Gilbert, entitled Thady O'Flynn.
Modern Productions
- The Music
- MIDI files, including complete sets of MIDI and MIDI Karaoke files of music for Thespis composed by Colin Johnson.
- A new full score (except for the two surviving Sullivan numbers) has been composed by Quade Winter. This version was enthusiastically received at its world premier by the Ohio Light Opera in 1996.
- Production. A description of a Thespis production staged by the St. Pats Players of Toronto, Canada, in 1993. Very helpful information for groups considering staging Thespis.
Comment
- There is some controversy about how to pronounce the names of the characters in this opera. Should they be pronounced to make the puns obvious, or should they be pronounced according to the rules of pronunciation of ancient Greek? In this article, Arthur Robinson makes the case for the latter.
- Transcript of a discussion of Thespis by members of the SavoyNet distribution list during September 1997. This extensive discussion provides substantial background information on this opera, and is a must for anyone wanting to understand it better, produce it, or perform in it. Compiled by Paul McShane.
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