Haste to the Wedding
Haste to the Wedding is a three-act comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by George Grossmith, based on Gilbert's 1873 play, The Wedding March. The opera was the most ambitious piece of composition undertaken by Grossmith.
For the Irish jig, see Haste to the Wedding (Irish jig).The piece was produced under the management of Charles Wyndham at the Criterion Theatre, London, opening on 27 July 1892. It closed on 20 August 1892, after a run of just 22 performances. Although a failure, the opera introduced the 18-year-old George Grossmith Jr., the composer's son, to the London stage. He would go on to a long career in the theatre.
Background[edit]
The Wedding March[edit]
On 15 November 1873, Gilbert's play The Wedding March debuted at the Court Theatre, written under his pseudonym F. Latour Tomline. It was a free adaptation of Eugène Marin Labiche's Un chapeau de paille d'Italie ("The Italian Straw Hat"). The play was first to have been called Hunting a Hat, but the title was changed to capitalise on the popularity of the wedding march from Wagner's Lohengrin.[1] The name of the hero, Woodpecker Tapping, was taken from Thomas Moore's ballad, "The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree." The play ran for about 92 performances, until 3 March 1874, a good run for the time.[2] On the play's success, Stedman notes:
Chorus of Wedding Guests and Members of the Upper Aristocracy
Act I
Act II
Act III