W. S. Gilbert Books

This is a phenomenal resource for the Mikado. The piano reduction is imminently playable, and the libretto includes the spoken dialogue between each of the vocal selections. The chorus parts are included, so this little score is the whole show in a complete package, with the exception of not being scored for the orchestra. Unless a person would want to alter some script, or lyrics (such as is commonly done in certain songs, i.e. I've Got a Little List) This Dover Vocal Score ranks right up there with the Stratford Video Production from 1982 - which is one of the best productions of this Gilbert and Sullivan classic.

This well-priced score is a great edition for student productions because it's legible and affordable!

Well, I don't know if it is perfect or not. However, it does have bar numbers, which is more than can be said for most of the vocal editions out there. AND they match the published full scores.

When you are rehearsing or doing any type of serious work with the music, being able to reference bar numbers is invariable. "Second bar of third system on page #148", just doesn't cut it.

Great for learning both dialogue and vocal score for anyone who is taking part in this production or who is just considering auditioning.

Being a serious fan of Gilbert and Sullivan's work and a performer in several of their collaborations, this is a wonderful score. It has every piece of dialogue, every song, and a great cover. If you are ever going to be in a production of 'The Mikado', buy this score!

W.S. Gilbert was the master of the perfect phrase, the sly aside, the cutting quip. Jim Broadbent is the actor who portrayed Gilbert to perfection in the film "Topsy-Turvy." Now Broadbent brings his smooth delivery to these colorful ballads, some of which can be recognized as the inspiration for Gilbert & Sullivan's most popular operas. If you have even the slightest appreciation for G&S, buy this and learn why so many of us love them so. If you're as much of a fan as I am already, you *OWE* it to yourself to get the Broadbent Bab Ballads. Click on BUY NOW and run, don't walk, to the checkout. And be prepared for ecstatic rapture and unmingled joy.

Bab Ballads contains many of the poems that William Scwenck Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan) wrote for the magazine "Fun." They are very funny and I suggest you buy this book

William S. Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan fame) was a master craftsman of the English language. He was renowned as a poet, playwrite and author long before his association with Sir Arthur Sullivan of musical renown. The "Babb Ballads" show the crafstman at his best with sparkling rhymes and funny stories. If you truly love the English language and the skill with which it can be used to amuse and entertain, this book is one that you should not be without.

Actually, they practically are read by Gilbert himself, since actor Jim Broadbent will for a long time be associated with that role. His readings are marvelous, especially because he manages to use a different voice for each new character--and there are many, many of them. It is fascinating to catch so many of the concepts Gilbert was to recycle in the later Savoy works. "The Bumboat Woman's Story" is rich in pre-hints of "HMS Pinafore" and was indeed the inspiration for the ballet "Pineapple Poll," which uses only Sullivan's music for the operettas (with a snatch of his Da Ballo Overture thrown in). Doubtless the funniest of the lot is "Etiquette" on the last side of the second tape in which two men thrown up on a dessert island cannot converse because they had not been properly introduced aboard the ill-fated vessel. Not all the poems are comical-- some are darkly pessimistic--but there is many a laugh that will educed by Broadbent's delivery.

"Bab," by the way, was Gilbert's baby nickname; and his use of it tells us a lot about his personality.

Dove Audio, however, has packaged these two cassettes with no table of contents at all; and so there is no way to tell ahead of time exactly what Bab Ballads are recorded, which is really an intolerable situation for an item like this. Also the use of "unabridged" at the top of this Amazon.com page is misleading. While each poem is in fact complete, there are represented here only a very small portion of Gilbert's BB output. What we do have is excellently done, but the 3 hours on these tapes do not hold an "unabridged" collection by any means.

Writer Martin Gardner once told Isaac Asimov that if he really wanted to have fun, he should find a book he liked very much and annotate it. "Asimov's Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan" is one of the results of that suggestion. This enormous volume contains the words to all the G&S operas, plus extensive notes explaining allusions and words that might be unfamiliar to today's listener. Asimov assumes minimal knowledge on the part of the reader, so this book is useful and entertaining not only for the veteran G&S aficionado but also for the neophyte.

Isaac Asimov has such a delightful wit that even his explanations of archaic terms are fun to read. When combined with W.S. Gilbert's hilarious librettos, it makes one entertaining read. Actually, it makes more than one entertaining read. i have read it several times and still enjoy it.

The Benford Lexicon, now in a new edition, is simply put, an absolutely essential work for anyone who wishes to understand Gilbert and Sullivan. By using this book, the shellac of years of tradition can be stripped off of performances, and the true wit and beauty of Gilbert, as reflected in the Music of Sulivan, can shine through. It also is quite helpful to the audience member in understanding some of the clever, although now not fully topical, references in these works. (Capt. Shaw, Army-Navy Stores, Knightsbridge, Camberwell a Bower, Peckham an Arcadian Vale... and so forth..)

This book is the first place I turn to with any language question in the wonderful world of Gilbert & Sullivan. Mr. Benford writes clearly and consisely, with a delightful (and occasionally wince-inducing) wit. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent score, showing the orchestration. It is a bit small to read, but good reference.

Any lover of this Gilbert & Sullivan masterpiece will gain a fuller appreciation of it by being able to follow the lyrics and dialog while listening to the operetta. The score also has a nicely written preface and synopsis of the story. Although knowing how to read music is not essential to the enjoyment of this Mikado full score, buyers that do read music will gain an even greater appreciation of it by being able to follow each instrumental line along with the lyrics of the songs. The Dover score is beautifully printed at a very bargain price to boot. Everyone can derive a great deal of pleasure from this score, no matter what level of musical training they possess. Highly Recommended! (P.S. I understand that the full score of The Pirates of Penzance is due for release this fall)

Neener-neener-neener, set your pants on fire!

Gilbert & Sullivan's "Ruddigore" has the unfortunate distinction of being the opera written right after perhaps their greatest work, The Mikado. As such, it is sadly overlooked, but unjustly so, in my opinion.

I am currently in a production of Ruddigore, with performances set to begin in June 2007, and I can tell you that this is a fun show. The music is as fun as anything in Pirates or Mikado, and it has the "topsy turvy" feel that all G&S shows do.

Here is a summary from the online Gilbert & Sullivan Archive (do a Google search and you'll find it):

"'Ruddigore, or The Witch's Curse' was the 10th collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan. The 'supernatural opera' opened on January 21, 1887 at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 288 performances. [A very small number, compared to Mikado, which ran for nearly 600 performances.] It was not revived until 1920 when it was substantially cut an provided with a new overture arranged by Geoffrey Toye. [Lots of dialogue was rightly cut. Gilbert's widow said that the revised version was better than her late husband's original.]

"The opera is a parody of the stock melodrama -- the villain who carries off the maiden; the priggishly good-mannered poor-but-virtuous-heroine; the hero in disguise, and his faithful old retainer who dreams of their former glory days; the snake in the grass who claims to be following his heart; the wild, mad girl; the swagger of fire-eating patriotism; ghosts coming to life to enforce a curse; and so forth. But as one critic noted, Gilbert turns the moral absolutes of melodrama upside down: Good becomes bad, bad becomes good, and heroes take the easy way out.

"The Baronets of Ruddigore are cursed. Anyone who succeeds to the title has to commit a crime every day -- or perish in inconceivable agony.

"Robin Oakapple, a young farmer loves Rose Maybud, but both are too shy to tell the other. But Robin has a secret. He is really Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, the rightful Baronet of Ruddigore, in disguise. His younger brother, Despard, believing Ruthven to be dead, has assumed the title. Robin's foster brother, Richard, seeking Rose for himself, tells Despard of Robin's deception, and Robin is forced to accept his true position, losing Rose to Richard in the process.

"Now the Baronet of Ruddigore, Robin is confronted by the he ghosts of his ancestors who step from their picture frames in the gallery of Ruddigore Castle to confront him for failing to conscientiously commit his daily crime. Robin eventually finds a way of satisfying his ancestors demands whilst continuing to live a blameless life."

I enjoy all of the music in Ruddigore, but some pieces that I especially enjoy singing as a member of the chorus include, "Welcome, Gentry," the Act I Finale, "Painted Emblems of a Race," "When the Night Wind Howls," "He Yields," and the Act II Finale. The opening chorus of women singing "Fair is Rose as bright May-Day" is beautiful, and one of the few instances where the women's chorus opens a G&S show. "My eyes are fully open to my awful situation" is one of the best patter songs in all the G&S repertoire.

If you like Gilbert & Sullivan and enjoy collecting vocal scores of their shows, then this is definitely a must-have. Read through it with a recording, and sing along if you're able. You won't be disappointed!

Have you ever had trouble with the lyrics on a videotape or DVD recording of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera?

Or have you ever wanted to quote a line from one of those operas, and needed an authoritative citation?

Well, your search is over. For here is the complete text of every one of Gilbert and Sullivan's operas.

You can read along as you listen to your favorite recording of "The Mikado" clarifying any muffled lines - and noting where the modern production's lyrics deliberately deviate from the original (portions of which either are no longer socially acceptable, thank goodness, or else have lost their comedic relevance for to a post-Victorian audience).

And, at long last, you can provide that authoritative citation for any quotation you take from Gilbert and Sullivan's original text.

This truly is an indispensable reference for fans of Gilbert and Sullivan's satirical social commentary.

Eric Alan Isaacson

P.S. I note that a new annotated edition is available, with scholarly commentary by Ian Bradley: The Complete Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan. Bradley's may prove to be the definitive edition.

I have enjoyed Gilbert & Sullivan's plays since I was a little girl. I watched performances of their comic operas that my family taped off of public television, but I never knew much about the men who wrote these wonderfully entertaining operas. Just recently I had an opportunity to give a presentation on Gilbert and Sullivan's operas for a college course. This book was the first one I picked up and it turned out to be the only one I needed. This well-written book gives an entertaining account of the lives of these great men. The book also paints a vivid picture of what life and, more importantly, the theater were like when Gilbert & Sullivan began their collaboration. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn more about Gilbert & Sullivan, Victorian life, or English theater.

this is a wonderful score, one ranking atop the mikado in my mind.(...)

I liked this book, because it is such a great play!