Arthur Sullivan, Haddon Hall, and the Iconic Mode

1 COMPAKATIVE i ama Volume 22Spring 1988Number 1 Arthur Sullivan, Haddon HaIl9 and the Iconic Mode t Michael Beckerman In 1892 Arthur Sullivan without Gilbert, and with Sydney Grundy, offered the English public an "Original Light English Opera," entitled Haddon Hall,I in what had become the Savoy tradition. Although its eventual run of 214 performances was far less spectacular than that of Pinafore, Patience, or The Mikado, the work must be counted a popular and critical success.2 The reviewer for The Daily Telegraph on 26 September 1892 said that "the music of Haddon Hall remains among the best that bears Sir Arthur's name," while the usually acerbic Shaw later waxed almost ecstatic: "I contend that Savoy opera is a genre in itself; and that Haddon Hall is the highest and most consistent expression it has yet attained."3 This verdict has been sustained by numerous subsequent critics, who have especially noted that the musical score often rivals, and even surpasses, the ever-popular Gilbert and Sullivan canon.4 t My father, Bernard Beckerman, died in October 1985. This study is dedicated to his memory. MICHAEL BECKERMAN, Assistant Professor of Music at Washington University , is co-founder and president of the Czechoslovak Music Society. He has recently completed a book on Janácek's theoretical works and is editing a collection of essays on Amadeus. 2 Comparative Drama Despite such critical acclaim, however, Haddon Hall has failed to recapture the stage in spite of several revivals. Most simply blame Grundy's libretto. Jane Stedman has recently criticized Grundy's style in comparison with Gilbert's and has claimed that, although some of Sullivan's librettists were "markedly successful in writing non-musical plays, none gave Sullivan what Gilbert's libretti gave him."5 From the very beginning The Daily Telegraph, which had praised Sullivan's music so highly, took Grundy to task: "The great weakness of the libretto ... is the dramatic insignificance of the main characters" (26 September 1892), while the Pall Mall Budget on 29 September insisted that the work had "a want of balance in the idea—a structural deficiency which it is very hard to forgive." Shaw made his Haddon Hall review a vehicle to derogate the absent Gilbert, "whose great fault was that he began and ended with himself; however, though he attributed the work's success to "the critical insight of Mr. Grundy," even he found segments of the libretto quite clumsy. For example, Shaw asserted that "Mr. Grundy's treatment of the tempting theme of Social Purityism is cheap and witless."6 Perhaps Nigel Burton reflects the prevailing modern view when he says that Haddon Hall "is saddled with an impossible libretto by Sydney Grundy, but merits a full recording on account of its considerable quantity of good music."7 While it is not my intention to dispute previous critical evaluations of Grundy's libretto, it is not clear that they illuminate the central questions relating to the work. Though much of the attack on Grundy is based on an actual or implied comparison with Gilbert, critics seem universally to be unaware that, questions of quality aside, the two are utterly dissimilar dramatists working in radically different dramatic modes. Indeed , I hope to show that Haddon HaIFs success is a direct result of the fact that Sydney Grundy, certain flaws in his libretto notwithstanding, gave Arthur Sullivan precisely what he wanted. We often use the term 'drama' as if it were synonymous with conflict. Thus what we may identify as the dialectic mode of dramatic presentation is so commonplace that we might mistakenly assume it to be the central ingredient of all types of theatrical performance.8 In its purest state the dialectic mode presents eternal conflicts of the human condition covered by the skin of conventional plot and design. Hamlet is a useful Michael Beckerman3 example of this mode since it stages not only the rivalry between the guilt-ridden schemer and the tormented prince—evenly matched rivals—but Hamlet's internal struggle as well. In this dialectic mode, the future is uncertain: the audience thus becomes conscious of movement towards a goal, of passage through time. Yet not all types...