La Vivandière; or, True to the Corps! is a burlesque by W. S. Gilbert, described by the author as "An Operatic Extravaganza Founded on Donizetti's opera, La figlia del regimento."It was the fashion in the mid-19th century to give Italian titles to operas not written in Italian: the opera burlesqued by Gilbert was written in French as La fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment). In the same month that Gilbert's burlesque opened, another adaptation closer to the original was playing in London, described as "founded, of course, on Donizetti's opera La figlia del regimento." In the French or other continental armies a vivandière was a woman who supplied food and drink to troops in the field.Oxford English Dictionary, "vivandière".
The piece was first produced at St. James's Hall, Liverpool, on 15 June 1867."Dramatic and Musical Chronology", The Era, 5 January 1868, p. 10 It was then presented in London, with a mostly new cast, at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, opening on 22 January 1868. It was part of a series of operatic burlesques and other broad comic pieces that Gilbert wrote in the late 1860s near the beginning of his playwriting career. It was modestly successful and introduced some themes and satiric techniques that Gilbert would later employ in his famous Savoy operas.
Background and analysis Gilbert's first operatic burlesque, Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, had been successful enough to encourage him to write another. It had run for 120 nights, from Christmas 1866 to Easter 1867, a good run for the London theatre of that time.Stedman, p. 38 As with Dulcamara, Gilbert based La Vivandière on a comic opera by Donizetti, using the composer's tunes, and those of other composers, and fitting new words to them.
The work was premiered in Liverpool, by Maria Simpson's Opera Company, billed as "The new, original, and brilliant Operatic Extravaganza ... from the pen of W. S. Gilbert, Esq." The Gilbert scholar Jane Stedman writes that the subtitle was a topical allusion to a popular melodrama, True to the Core; A Story of the Armada. In the Victorian era theatre managers normally bought or licensed plays from authors, and the authors had nothing to do with the staging of the works. Like his mentor Tom Robertson, however, Gilbert was not content to be merely the author, but sought to influence the staging of his works as much as a playwright was allowed to do. The press announcements for the Liverpool production stated that the piece was being staged under the author's "immediate superintendence".Stedman, p. 39 Once established, Gilbert would stage direct nearly all of his own shows. It is not clear how much the Liverpool and London productions differed. Stedman notes that Gilbert made a number of changes to the libretto for the London production. The staging of the two productions was in wholly different hands: W. H. Montgomery and George Vinning, respectively musical director and scene painter in Liverpool, were replaced by Mr. Wallerstein and T. Grieve in London, and an almost completely new cast was selected.See images of London programme and Liverpool advertisement
Gilbert generally followed the plot originally written for Donizetti by his librettists, Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard, but allowed himself some variations. In the opera, the Marchioness's husband does not appear, but Gilbert presented him as a glum figure played by Charles Wyndham in Liverpool and Lionel Brough in London. The hero, Tonio, is not an Alpine guide in the original, and, as Gilbert made plain in the libretto, Lord Margate, the noisome English tourist, was a character "unknown to Donizetti, one of the many liberties taken by the Author with the original story."Gilbert (1867), p. 1 One reviewer noted that "the story ... acquires a new aspect from the circumstance that all the soldiers are converted into gorgeously attired Zouaves, and all the peasants into picturesque mountaineers."New Queen's Theatre" . The Times, 24 January 1868; reprinted at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 10 December 2010
Among the stock devices of Victorian burlesque, such as rhymed couplets, contrived puns and other word-play, mistaken identities, and women playing male roles en travesti, La Vivandière contains the first example of what was to become one of Gilbert's trademarks: the ageing woman whose looks, if any, are fading. Gilbert later renounced breeches roles and revealing dresses on his actresses, and made publicly known his disapproval of them.In January 1885, John Hollingshead wrote to the Pall Mall Gazette, "Mr. Gilbert is somewhat severe on a style of burlesque which he did much to popularise in the old days before he invented what I may call burlesque in long clothes." Correspondence, The Pall Mall Gazette, 26 January 1885, p. 4 In his choice of music, Gilbert ranged less widely than he had done with Dulcamara, which drew not only on music by operatic composers including Bellini, Flotow and Offenbach, but also on a great number of music hall and other popular songs, such as "Champagne Charlie" and "The Frog in Yellow." For La Vivandière, he drew almost entirely on the music of Donizetti's original or Offenbach's similarly military operetta, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein."Queen's Theatre", The Morning Post 23 January 1868, p. 5. This review was of the London production. The list of numbers in the Liverpool score shows that Donizetti and Offenbach were less generously represented in the original production.
Gilbert married in 1867 amid one of his most productive periods. In addition to his other writing activities during the late 1860s, Dulcamara and La Vivandière were part of a series of about a dozen early comic stage works, including opera burlesques, pantomimes and farces. These were full of awful puns and jokes as was traditional in similar pieces of the period.Stedman, pp. 30–62 For instance, in La Vivandière Gilbert included this joke on a Darwinian theme:
Nevertheless, Gilbert's burlesques were considered unusually tasteful compared to the others on the London stage.Crowther, Andrew. The Life of W. S. Gilbert . The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive The Times wrote: "The chief care of Mr. Gilbert has been to make his dialogue as perfect a specimen as possible of smooth verse, and to stud it profusely with elaborate puns of unquestionable originality. ... Mr. Gilbert shows a power of detecting phonetic affinities ... in which perhaps he excels all his contemporaries. ... [S]eldom have mere verbal pleasantries provoked such frequent laughter and applause as those in La Vivandière ... an extravaganza more elegant in its tone than the generality of burlesques" The new piece ran for a total of 120 performances.Dark and Grey, p. 42Ainger, p. 77
Gilbert's early pokes at grand opera show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. He would depart even further from the burlesque style from about 1869 with plays containing original plots and fewer puns.The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume XIII, Chapter VIII, Section 15, (1907–21) (referring to Pygmalion and Galatea, The Cambridge History states: "The satire is shrewd, but not profound; the young author is apt to sneer, and he has by no means learned to make the best use of his curiously logical fancy. That he occasionally degrades high and beautiful themes is not surprising. To do so had been the regular proceeding in burlesque, and the age almost expected it; but Gilbert's is not the then usual hearty cockney vulgarity." The most successful of Gilbert's opera parodies, Robert the Devil, opened in December 1868. These 1860s pieces led to Gilbert's more mature "fairy comedies", such as The Palace of Truth (1870) and Pygmalion and Galatea (1871), and to his German Reed Entertainments, which in turn led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas.Crowther, Contradiction Contradicted, p. 20
Casts The original Liverpool and London casts were as follows: RoleDescriptionLiverpoolGilbert (1867)London Count Roberto Husband of the Marchioness of Birkenfelt, disguised as Manfred,Jane Stedman, p. 39, says that this was "an amusing parody" of Manfred as played by Samuel Phelps. and living on Mont Blanc. Charles Wyndham Lionel Brough Tonio An Alpine guide, sprung from a well-known Alpen-stock Miss M. Brennan Miss P. Markham The Earl of Margate A British tourist unknown to Donizetti Bella Goodall Fanny Addison Lord Pentonville His companion, man of small Parts. Miss Deane Miss Jordan Sir Peckham Rye His companion, man of small Parts. Miss Armstrong Miss Montgomery The Marquis of Cranbourne Alley His companion, man of small Parts. Miss Vining Miss Sylvia Pumpernickel Steward to the Marchioness, in love with everybody. E. Newbound Mr. Sanger Sergeant Sulpizio Paymaster sergeant, risen from the ranks to the ranks J. D. Stoyle J. L. Toole Cospetto Soldier Miss Chester Miss F. Heath Ortensio Soldier Miss J. Gunniss Miss Maxse Notary His motto is deeds, not words A. Brown Mr. Fotheringham Maria Supposedly the child of the Regiment; in reality, Roberto's daughter Maria Simpson Henrietta Hodson Marchioness of Birkenfelt Her Mother Harriet Everard Harriet Everard Cocotte Her Maid Miss E. Seymour Miss Turner Guests, Happy Peasants, Soldiers, and others, by a host of unrecognised Siddonses and Kembles
Synopsis Scene I – Grands Mulets on Mont Blanc. Sunset. Lord Margate and his five companions are discovered at luncheon. They compliment themselves on their rudeness to foreigners and their contempt for any but English culture. Intrigued by a stranger, Roberto, and his unkempt appearance, they demand to know his name and history. He tells them that he has become a hermit to escape his domineering wife. He was mistakenly reported killed in battle and has remained officially dead ever since. Margate correctly deduces that Roberto must be the husband of the Marchioness of Birkenfelt; he maliciously plans to reunite the couple. He and his friends invite Roberto to abandon the hermitage and join their party. Roberto, tired of his austere existence, accepts. They meet Maria and demand a kiss. She fends them off and calls for help from Tonio, who rushes in to rescue her. The English party, unabashed, sing a snobbish song in their own praise.
Scene II – Interior of Guardroom. The soldiers Cospetto and Ortensio discuss their sergeant's concern about Maria. She is the adopted daughter of the whole regiment, and all the soldiers care about her. The sergeant, Sulpizio, joins them and frets about Maria's absence on the mountains. She enters and reassures him that she is safe and well. He reveals to her that although she is adopted by the regiment, she is the daughter of its former captain, who, mortally wounded, gave her as a baby, wrapped in his favourite handkerchief, to Sulpizio to look after. They leave her alone, and Tonio comes in. Maria tells him that he will need the regiment's consent before he can marry her. Sulpizio, entering suddenly, finds them embracing and tells them that the regiment will consent to their marriage only if Tonio becomes a soldier. He agrees to do so.
Scene III – Exterior of Marchioness of Birkenfelt's Chateau, in Chamouni.