The Mountebanks
Libretto by W. S. Gilbert
Music by Alfred Cellier
First Produced at the Lyric Theatre,
29 January 1892 (229 performances)
Background
 Scene from the Original Production |
After The Gondoliers, the last great Gilbert and Sullivan success, the collaborators went their separate ways. In 1891, Sullivan produced the only grand opera of his career, Ivanhoe. The following year Gilbert weighed in with his first post-Sullivan opera, The Mountebanks.
The story, in which characters' personalities change after ingesting a magic potion, was essentially the "lozenge plot" that Sullivan had on several occasions refused to set. Cellier died before completing the score, and Gilbert seems to have disliked his own libretto, but the opera enjoyed a good success anyway.
Recordings
| NR | 1965 Lyric Theater Company | Mono Dial | 
 |
| NR | 1992 Royal Victorian Opera Company | Video Abrg |  |
The 1965 recording, which is virtually complete, is today extremely hard to come by. The 1992 video, titled "Put a Penny in the Slot," is a heavily abridged and rewritten version.
