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''The Gentleman in Black'' is a two-act comic opera written in 1870 with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay. The "musical comedietta" opened at the Charing Cross Theatre on 26 May 1870. It played for 26 performances, until the theatre closed at the end of the season.〔(Frederic Clay, ) ''The Guide to Light Opera and Operetta''〕〔Moss, Simon. ("The Gentleman in Black" ) at ''Gilbert & Sullivan: a selling exhibition of memorabilia'', c20th.com, accessed 16 November 2009〕 The plot involves body-switching, facilitated by the magical title character. It also involves two devices that Gilbert would re-use: baby-switching and a calendar oddity. Produced soon after Gilbert first met Arthur Sullivan, but before the two had collaborated, Gilbert's first full-length comic opera, ''The Gentleman in Black'', was based on the theatrically popular theory of metempsychosis. Gilbert and Frederic Clay had collaborated previously on a one-act opera, ''Ages Ago''.〔(Frederic Clay ), entry in ''Grove Dictionary of Music'', 3d edition, reprinted at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 17 June 2015〕 The music was not published and is now lost. The piece was never revived, although modern performances have been given, fitting music by Sullivan to the Gilbert lyrics. The libretto is included in ''Original Plays by W. S. Gilbert in Four Series'', in the fourth volume in the series (1911) published by Chatto and Windus of London. ==Background== From the mid-1860s through the early 1870s, W. S. Gilbert was extremely productive, writing a large quantity of comic verse, theatre reviews and other journalistic pieces, short stories, and dozens of plays and comic operas. His output in 1870 alone included dozens of his popular comic ''Bab Ballads''; two blank verse comedies, ''The Princess'' and ''The Palace of Truth''; two comic operas, ''Our Island Home'' and ''The Gentleman in Black''; and various other short stories, comic pieces, and reviews appearing in various periodicals and newspapers. In 1871 he was even busier, producing seven plays and operas.〔(Gilbert's Plays – Annotated chronological listing ), The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 16 June 2015〕〔Crowther, Andrew. ("Gilbert's Non-Dramatic Works" ), W. S. Gilbert Society, accessed 3 January 2011〕 Gilbert's dramatic writing during this time was evolving from his early musical burlesques.〔Crowther|, Andrew. [http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/gilbert/life/long_bio.html "The Life of W. S. Gilbert", The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, March 1997, accessed 17 June 2015〕 Some of his work during this period exhibited a more restrained style, exemplified by a series of successful "fairy comedies", such as ''The Palace of Truth'' (1870).〔"Court Theatre" in The Times, 19 April 1871, p. 8, col. 2.〕 At the same time, he was developing his unique style of absurdist humour, described as "Topsy-Turvy", made up of "a combination of wit, irony, topsyturvydom, parody, observation, theatrical technique, and profound intelligence".〔 〕 The opera ''The Gentleman in Black'', one of Gilbert's most absurdist pieces, dates from the middle of this period, when Gilbert was trying different styles and working towards the mature comic style of his later work, including the famous series of Gilbert and Sullivan operas.〔Crowther, p. 67.〕〔Stedman, chapter 8〕 The story of ''The Gentleman in Black'' contains early glimpses of some of the "Topsy Turvy" ideas that Gilbert would later use in his more famous works written with Arthur Sullivan, including the switching of infants who grow up to be different ages (as in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'') and plot devices that depend on technical errors involving the calendar (as in ''The Pirates of Penzance'').〔Ainger, p. 83〕〔Gänzl, Kurt. [http://www.operetta-research-center.org/main.php?task=archart&cat=4&sub_cat=11&id=00072 "William Schwenk Gilbert",] ''Operetta Research Center'', Amsterdam, 1 January 2001〕 The music was in an "Offenbachian" vein, and the story is a "dramatic variation of the pseudo-German supernatural tale, such as Dickens's 'The Baron of Grogswig'", "The Metapsychosis" or Gilbert's own "The Triumph of Vice".〔Stedman, p. 79〕 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 Gentleman in Black」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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