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''The Geisha, a story of a tea house'' is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts. The score was composed by Sidney Jones to a libretto by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank. Additional songs were written by Lionel Monckton and James Philp. ''The Geisha'' opened in 1896 at Daly's Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes. The original production had the second longest run of any musical up to that time. The cast starred Marie Tempest and C. Hayden Coffin, with dancer Letty Lind and comic Huntley Wright. The show was an immediate success abroad, with an 1896 production in New York and numerous tours and productions in Europe and beyond. It continued to be popular until World War II and even beyond to some degree. The most famous song from the show is "The Amorous Goldfish". ==Background and productions== The success of ''An Artist's Model'' in 1895 had set the pattern for the Hall, Greenbank and Jones Edwardian musical comedies. Edwardes immediately put his team to work on a new musical. ''The Geisha'' was first performed on 25 April 1896 at Daly's Theatre in London, produced by George Edwardes. The original production ran for 760 performances. This run, the second longest of any musical up to that time, would be beaten three years later by Edwardes' ''San Toy'', which was written by Jones, Greenbank and Monckton. The cast included Marie Tempest in the role of O Mimosa San and Letty Lind as the dancing soubrette Molly Seamore. C. Hayden Coffin played Lieutenant Reginald Fairfax, Huntley Wright played Wun-Hi, and later Rutland Barrington and Scott Russell joined the cast. Direction was by J. A. E. Malone, choreography by Willie Warde and costumes by Percy Anderson. The music director was Ernest Ford. Edwardes took advantage of the continuing fascination of the public with the orient that had brought such success to Gilbert and Sullivan in ''The Mikado''.〔Hicks, William L. ("Social Discourse in the Savoy Theatre's Productions of ''The Nautch Girl'' (1891) and ''Utopia Limited'' (1893): Exoticism and Victorian Self-Reflection ) (2003)〕 However, ''The Geisha'' was a more topical entertainment than ''The Mikado'', and despite its great initial popularity, ''The Geisha'' and the many other topical oriental Edwardian musicals, such as ''San Toy'', ''A Chinese Honeymoon'' and even ''Chu Chin Chow'' did not endure through the decades as well as ''The Mikado''.〔 Jones, aiming for a light, breezy score, kept each of his musical numbers under three minutes, except that the finales ran to about five. In addition to oriental shadings, Jones's music borrowed from continental European dance rhythms. Hall had taken some of the sauciness out of his style, since ''An Artist's Model'', and evolved a combination of sprightly, up-to-date comedy and old-fashioned romance, into which he would insert parodies when the opportunity arose. Indeed, the Daly's Theatre shows were more romantic in character than the sillier Gaiety Theatre shows. Still, these musicals hewed to most of the features that made the Gaiety Theatre shows popular, especially Edwardes' pretty Gaiety Girls, dressed in the latest fashions. Many of the best-known London couturiers designed costumes for stage productions. The illustrated periodicals were eager to publish photographs of the actresses in the latest stage hits, and so the theatre became an excellent way for clothiers to publicise their latest fashions. The Gaiety Girls were, as ''The Sketch'' noted in its 1896 review of ''The Geisha'', "clothed in accordance with the very latest and most extreme modes of the moment, and the result is a piquantly striking contrast, as you may imagine."〔(Information about the famous costume designs of the musicals )〕 The next musical for the Hall, Greenbank and Jones team moved from Japan to Ancient Rome, with ''A Greek Slave''. ''The Geisha'' was also an immediate success abroad, with an 1896 production in New York (starring Nancy McIntosh beginning in November),〔Brown, Thomas Allston. ("A history of the New York stage" ). Dodd, Mead and company (1903), p. 580〕 It became the biggest international sensation that the British musical theatre had ever known. It enjoyed other productions in America and played for thousands of performances on the European continent (one source counts some 8,000 in Germany alone).〔Fort, John. ("La Geisha", ) ''Companion Guide to Rome'' (2006)〕 It has been "ranked as the first internationally successful British musical," helping to introduce the previously obscure term "Geisha" into many languages as a symbol of Japanese culture.〔''Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict'' (ed. John K. Walton), p. 105 (2005, Multilingual Matters Limited). ISBN 1-84541-031-9〕 In 1897, Robert Baden-Powell appeared in the role of Wun-hi in Simla, India. Two years later, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was present at its premiere in the Russian resort town of Yalta and mentions the show as a backdrop to the climatic scene in one of his best-known stories, "The Lady with the Dog" (1899).〔(''The Lady with the Dog )'' at Gutenberg], retrieved March 12, 2008〕 The musical continued to tour for a few decades in Britain, receiving its last major revival in 1934,〔Richards, Jeffrey. (''Imperialism and Music: Britain, 1876-1953'' ), pp. 262–66, Manchester University Press (2001) ISBN 0-7190-6143-1〕 although lesser productions continued into the 1950s,〔Walker, Raymond J. (Sidney Jones: ''The Geisha'' ), MusicWeb International, accessed 3 January 2013〕 and it was popular with amateur theatre groups, particularly in Britain, from World War I into the 1960s.〔Bond, Ian. ("Rarely Produced Shows" ). St. David's Players, accessed 22 July 2010〕 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「The Geisha」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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