Suzanne's Mom's Blog

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This is a poster for a little known Gilbert and Sullivan musical called Utopia Limited, 1894.

Recently a long-lost George Gershwin musical came to light. Because my friend Lynn, a retired cabaret artist and songwriter, was a Gershwin fan from an early age and a friend of George’s brother Ira in later years, I sent her the link to the story. She was thrilled.

Finding new work by a hero would thrill anyone. That’s why the Englishman in today’s article is going all out to find a missing Gilbert and Sullivan, even making his email public.

David Sillito writes at the BBC, “A call has gone out for people to check shelves and lofts for a missing opera. The original score of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia Limited was sold in 1915, but its whereabouts are unknown. …

“Musical researcher Colin Jagger has been tracking down [Gilbert and Sullivan’s] original scores, saying current copies often have mistakes and omissions.

” ‘The [current] score [of Utopia Limited] is completely unreliable. The only way [to be sure] is to go to Sullivan’s autograph manuscript,’ he said.

“When the operas were first created, copyright law, as understood today, barely existed, and so the company that performed the works, D’Oyly Carte, kept tight control of the scores and any copies. The versions used today often reflect how D’Oyly Carte performed the works, rather than Gilbert and Sullivan’s original intentions. …

“The objective now is to return to the originals, and create complete and corrected scores. But the project cannot be finished until the lost opera is found.

” ‘All of these manuscripts … you can access mostly in the UK or one or two in the US. So I can go into the British Library and I can look at The Grand Duke in Sullivan’s own hand, and I can take photographs of it. I can study it away from the library as well. And I can go (online) to the Morgan Library in New York … and I can see a beautifully done copy of the manuscript of Trial by Jury. They’re all there except for one.’

“Utopia Limited is one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s less successful works. It’s a story based around the problems and consequences of the introduction of limited liability laws in the 19th Century. Essentially, it’s a satire about business people leaving their creditors in the lurch.

“The score was sold at auction in 1915 for 50 guineas to Sir Robert Hudson of Hill Hall in Essex. Sir Robert died in 1927 and Hill Hall went on to house prisoners-of-war, and later became a women’s prison. Where the score for Utopia Limited went is a mystery.

“Colin Jagger is convinced it has survived and is sitting on a shelf somewhere. … ‘It would be awful to think it had been thrown away. … Somebody maybe doesn’t know they’ve got it or they might not know who Gilbert and Sullivan are.’ “

More at the BBC, here.