"HMS Pinafore", first performed at the Opera Comique in London on 25 May 1878, was Gilbert & Sullivan's fourth collaboration and their first major success

PROGRAMME NOTE WRITTEN BY RACHEL KEEGAN FOR HATTON OPERATIC SOCIETY'S PRODUCTION OF "HMS PINAFORE" IN JANUARY 1994

"HMS Pinafore", first performed at the Opera Comique in London on 25 May 1878, was Gilbert & Sullivan's fourth collaboration and their first major success. It was also the British musical theatre's first international hit. At that time there were no international copyright agreements and an unauthorised version of "Pinafore" opened in Boston on 25 November 1878. This had a number of interpolated songs (such as "A Life on the Ocean Wave") and an additional principal character (Dick Truck). "Pinafore Mania" rapidly swept across the whole of the USA - at the height of the craze it was estimated that there were more than 150 companies performing versions of the show, some of which bore little resemblance to the original. In several of the American productions the role of Ralph Rackstraw was taken by a soprano (in keeping with the burlesque tradition of casting females in the romantic male leads) and at least one production had a female impersonator as Buttercup. Gilbert, Sullivan and the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte eventually took an English company to New York to stage a definitive version of the show, although the main purpose of this visit was to secure the US copyright for their next opera, "The Pirates of Penzance"

The "Pinafore" craze also spread to Australia and New Zealand. A sequel entitled "The Wreck of the Pinafore" (needless to say, not by Gilbert & Sullivan) was produced in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1880. In this, Josephine soon tires of Ralph (who turns out to be a hopeless captain) and marries Sir Joseph as originally intended, while Buttercup is finally forced to admit that she lied about mixing up the babies (a story which has always seemed implausible in view of the difference in their ages). This show came to London in 1882 but was withdrawn after four disastrous performances. Productions of "Pinafore" appeared as far afield as India and Cuba in 1879 and a German-language version "Amor am Bord" was produced in Berlin in 1881

The song "When I was a Lad" sung by Sir Joseph Porter is one of Gilbert's most brilliant satires. In the original production, Sir Joseph was made up to look like Lord Nelson but it has generally been assumed that the character was modelled on W H Smith, the founder of the well-known newsagents' business, who had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty the previous year. Smith had never been to sea and had risen to this exalted rank from the humble origins of selling newspapers at railway station bookstalls.

"Pinafore" has fewer female principal characters than any other full-length Savoy Opera. Hebe was originally intended to be a much more substantial role but most of her dialogue was cut before the opening night. It is believed that Mrs Howard Paul (who had created the role of Lady Sangazure in "The Sorcerer") had been earmarked for the role but she left the company shortly before the show opened. It is interesting to speculate on how the role might have turned out as Mrs Paul is said to have had a freak voice and could sing tenor or baritone as well as contralto (she had once played the role of Macheath in a production of "The Beggar's Opera"). The mind boggles at the thought of a production with a soprano Ralph, a male Buttercup and a baritone Hebe!

"Pinafore" was the first Gilbert & Sullivan opera to be performed by amateurs - it was produced by the Harmonists' Choral Society at the Kingston-upon-Thames Drill Hall on 30 April 1879. It has been a favourite with amateur operatic societies ever since and I am sure that we will still be "whistling all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore" well into the twenty-first century.