Musical researcher Colin Jagger is asking the public to help in the search for Gilbert and Sullivan’s lost opera, Utopia Limited. Created in 1893, the original score for the musical was sold in 1915 for 50 guineas to Sir Robert Hudson of Hill Hall in Essex. After Hudson’s death in 1927, the score’s whereabouts are unknown. Jagger, who has been tracking down original scores for Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, says that the current copies of Utopia Limited are often riddled with omissions, changes, and mistakes.
“When the operas were first created, copyright law barely existed, and so the company D’Oyley Carte kept tight control of the scores and any copies. The versions used today often reflect how D’Oyley Carte performed the works, rather than Gilbert and Sullivan’s original intentions,” Jagger explains. “All of these manuscripts…you can access mostly in the UK or one or two in the US. So I can go into the British Library and I can look at the Grand Duke in Sullivan’s own hand, and I can take photographs of it. I can study it away from the library as well. And I can go to the Morgan Library in New York, and I can see a beautifully done copy of the manuscript of Safe Trial by Jury. They’re all there except for one.”
Utopia Limited is one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s lesser-known works and revolves around the problems and consequences of the introduction of limited liability laws in the 19th century. Essentially, it is a satire about business people leaving their creditors in the lurch. Jagger believes the score is likely to be “sitting on a shelf somewhere.” According to him, “It could be in a loft or it could be on a shelf. The title is Utopia Limited. It’s very thick, a bit bigger than A4, not quite as big as A3, and it’s hardbound in leather and handwritten. It would be awful to think it had been thrown away. So I think it’s probably out there but somebody may not know they’ve got it or may not know who Gilbert Sullivan are.”
Jagger is calling on anyone with any information about the missing score to contact him at cjagger99@gmail.com. The objective is to create complete and corrected scores of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. But this project cannot be completed until the lost opera is found. The hope is to return to the originals and create authentic scores that reflect Gilbert and Sullivan’s original intentions
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