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''The Spectre Knight'' is a one-act "fanciful operetta" with a libretto by James Albery and music by Alfred Cellier. It was first performed on 9 February 1878 at the Opera Comique by the Comedy Opera Company as a companion piece to ''The Sorcerer''. The piece continued to run until 23 March 1878 and was revived by the company from 28 May 1878 to 10 August 1878 as a companion piece to ''H.M.S. Pinafore''. The piece had a run in New York in 1880 and was toured in Britain and America. No libretto appears to have been published. A copy of the vocal score, published by Metzler, is in British Library at F.739. The vocal score contains no dialogue, although it has a synopsis of the plot. The license copy of the libretto is in Lord Chamberlain's collection at Add. MS. 53199, Play no. H, Jan–Feb 1878. ==Background== The fashion in the late Victorian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so producer Richard D'Oyly Carte preceded his Savoy operas with curtain raisers such as ''The Spectre Knight''.〔Lee Bernard. ("Swash-buckling Savoy curtain-raiser", ) ''Sheffield Telegraph'', 1 August 2008〕 W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning such curtain raisers: :This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserved much better treatment than they got, but those who saw them delighted in them. ... () served to give young actors and actresses a chance to win their spurs ... the stalls and the boxes lost much by missing the curtain-raiser, but to them dinner was more important.〔MacQueen-Pope, Walter James. ''Carriages at Eleven'' (1947), London: Robert Hale and Co., p. 23〕 ''The Spectre Knight'' is a particularly long curtain-raiser, with sixteen songs, and running over an hour. 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 Spectre Knight」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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