Jonathan Ellis wrote:

>Listen to the Katasha aria "The hour of gladness" - is there anything more
>heart-rending?

Just about all of "Tosca," for a start.  And Puccini isn't even my favorite
opera composer.  You might say that it's unfair to put Sullivan up against
Puccini, but given the alternative of spending an equal amount of time and
money on an evening of one or the other, my choice would be automatic.

>And as for the charge of political correctness: can we really judge
>somebody who lived in a different time, different century, for not meeting
>the standards which are slowly evolving in our time? Agatha Christie
>suffered the same fate with her masterpiece, initially entitled: "Ten
>Little N*"; it was later renamed "Ten Little Indians," but this title had
>to be changed under pressure.  What the current title is I don't know.  But
>can we judge Christie for using a word which had a totally different
>connotation then to the one it has today? Can we judge Gilbert for doing
>the same - and doing it nearly 75 years earlier?

I'm not enough of a scholar of Victorian English (specifically, British
English) to know what the connotation of the "N" word was then; I'll grant
that, to Gilbert and his audience, it might have been totally innocent
(though from what I know about racial attitudes in Victorian England,
at the height of the Empire, I seriously doubt it.) My point is not to
condem Gilbert morally but to comment on how performable he is today.
I can guarantee you that, in the U.S.  at least, if you want to stage a
production of a work containing this word, you will be obliged either to
substitute another word or cut that number entirely (which could hardly be
done with something like "I've Got a Little List").  Add up enough of such
difficult passages, and producing such works becomes more trouble than it's
worth, even for well-loved ones with so many admitted virtues as the G/S
operettas.

I was merely wondering whether the paucity of G/S productions I see around
me these days (or even the rarity of broadcast excerpts) may be due to this
factor.  I can tell you that hearing this word come out of the car radio at
7 a.m.  on a fine new day, from a well-respected university CM station, was
rather a shock for me.

>I see no linguistic problem at all.  G&S are products of their period -
>just as "The Merchant of Venice" is a product of its period.

Of course, I'm a very unsophisticated native of the former North American
colonies, but my reaction to the comparison of G/S with the Bard is that
we may be inclined to excuse many more sins in the texts of the greatest
writer in world literature than in Gilbert.  And in fact, "The Merchant"
(and "Taming of the Shrew," a very interesting discussion of which I
participated in just the other day) don't strike me as linguistically
offensive at all, though they do present many intellectual and moral
challenges.

Of course, one could just resolve to stop picking these nits and just relax
and enjoy the sophisticated verbal wit and pleasant tunes.  But if that is
what you are in the mood for, might I suggest another British
institution--Flanders and Swann?

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]