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right ''Eyes and No Eyes, or The Art of Seeing'' is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Thomas German Reed that premiered on 5 July 1875 at St. George's Hall in London and ran for only a month. The original music was lost, and twenty years later new music was composed by "Florian Pascal" (a pseudonym for Joseph Williams, Jr. (1847–1923), a music publisher who acquired the copyright to the show) and published but not then performed.〔See (Florian Pascal profile at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive ); ("A Thirty-ninth Garland of British Light Music Composers" at MusicWeb International ); and (Songs by Florian Pascal )〕 The piece is still occasionally played by amateur societies and was presented at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in 2006. Light Opera of New York presented it on 15 October 2008 in New York City.〔("Eyes and No Eyes" 2008 ) LOONY website, accessed 10 June 2009〕 ==Background== This work is the last in a series of six one-act musical plays written by Gilbert for Thomas German Reed and his wife Priscilla between 1869 and 1875. The German Reeds presented respectable, family-friendly musical entertainments beginning in 1855, at a time when the theatre in Britain had gained a poor reputation as an unsavoury institution and was not attended by much of the middle class. Shakespeare was played, but most of the entertainments consisted of poorly translated French operettas, risqué Victorian burlesques and incomprehensible broad farces.〔Bond, Jessie. (Introduction ), ''Reminiscences of Jessie Bond'', accessed 19 April 2012〕 Gilbert took his title from a children's story, "Eyes and No Eyes; or, The Art of Seeing", in the 1799 collection of early children's literature, ''Evenings at Home''.〔Aikin, John and Anna Laetitia Barbauld. ("Eyes and No Eyes; or, The Art of Seeing" ), The Internet Archive, accessed 24 November 2009〕 The plot is loosely based on Hans Andersen's 1837 story, "The Emperor's New Clothes". Gilbert wrote in a programme note: "Hans Andersen has a tale in which two persons, for reasons of their own, pretend that an imaginary and non-existent garment is visible only to true and faithful men. As a natural consequence every one pretends that he can see it. On this hint the piece is founded."〔''The Era'', 11 July 1875, p. 10〕 Both stories would have been familiar to Gilbert's audience. As the theatrical newspaper ''The Era'' commented, "Everyone must remember the nursery story of 'Eyes and No Eyes', but how few there are who appear to profit by the lesson it teaches!"〔'' The Era'', 7 July 1839, p. 488〕 Although written before Gilbert and Sullivan's 1875 opera ''Trial by Jury'', this work was not staged until after ''Trial'' had become a hit. During this period, both Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were still producing a considerable amount of work separately. Sullivan's ''The Zoo'' also premiered in 1875. At the première, ''Eyes and No Eyes'' was played in a triple bill with Corney Grain's musical sketch, ''R.S.V.P.'', and the play ''Very Catching'' by F. C. Burnand.〔 After the original run, ''Eyes and No Eyes'' was revived by Reed in October 1875.〔''The Observer'', 26 September 1875, p. 3〕 ''Eyes and No Eyes'' is the most tightly written of Gilbert's libretti for the German Reed Entertainments.〔(''Eyes and No Eyes'' at ''A Gilbert and Sullivan Discography'' )〕 The story uses characters from the Harlequinade. The opening scene of the piece reveals Clochette alone, singing as she sits at the spinning wheel. Gilbert and Sullivan would reuse this idea in the opening scene of their 1888 opera, ''The Yeomen of the Guard''.〔Ainger, p. 110〕 Like Gilbert's 1871 entertainment, ''A Sensation Novel'', the work was rescored by Pascal two decades later in a style reminiscent of early Debussy, but unlike his score for ''A Sensation Novel'', it seems to fit this work well.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eyes and No Eyes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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