Gilbert and Sullivan ArchiveHis ExcellencyINTRODUCTIONby Clifton ColesHis Excellency, often subtitled "The Played-Out Humorist," was produced in 1894 between the last two Gilbert and Sullivan operas, Utopia Limited (1893) and The Grand Duke (1896). It is one of the best libretti of Gilbert's career, though it is quite uncharacteristic in that it eschews all satire - if one excepts the humorous invention of drilling cavalry officers as ballet girls. This curious lack of satire may be attributed to the fact that His Excellency was, as some writers have claimed, written years before and only revised for production at this time. Whatever the case, it is a great lark, coming closer to musical comedy than any other Gilbert opera. As such, choosing musical comedy composer Frank Osmond Carr to write the score was perhaps not a bad choice. However, it is Carr's score, generally condemned by modern as well as contemporary hearers, which has doomed His Excellency to undeserved obscurity. Gilbert apparently agreed that Carr had not been equal to the musical requirements of the libretto. He wrote to Helen D'Oyly Carte that His Excellency could have been another Mikado with the benefit of Sullivan's music. The opera opened on October 27, 1894, at London's Lyric Theatre and ran for little more than 120 performances despite an excellent libretto and a first-rate cast made up of what must have resembled a Savoy reunion. Featured in His Excellency were George Grossmith as Governor Griffenfeld, Rutland Barrington as the Prince Regent, Alice Barnett as Dame Cortlandt, Jessie Bond as Nanna, Nancy McIntosh as Christina, and Charles Kenningham as Erling. Grossmith had of course been associated with Gilbert and Sullivan since 1877 but had left the stage after playing Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard in 1888. His role as Governor Griffenfeld was probably intended as something of a come-back in the same way as his playing in His Majesty at the Savoy in 1897. Also making come-backs in their own ways were Barnett, the original Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, and Bond, Gilbert's favorite soubrette, both absent from the stage for a few years. McIntosh, Gilbert's latest protegee, was the American soprano who had made her debut in Utopia Limited and would be featured in his last libretto, Fallen Fairies (1909). Kenningham, the Savoy's principal tenor, had sung opposite her in Utopia.
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