Captain Billy is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by Harry Greenbank and music by François Cellier. It was first performed at the Savoy Theatre on 24 September 1891[1] until 16 January 1892, as a curtain raiser to The Nautch Girl, and from 1 February 1892 to 18 June 1892, as a curtain raiser to The Vicar of Bray, for a total of 217 performances.[2]
The first stage production with an orchestra for over 100 years was done in May 2007 by the Chapel End Savoy Players at the Deaton Theatre, Forest School, Snaresbrook, London as a curtain raiser for their production of The Pirates of Penzance.[3]
The vocal score was published by Chappells and is in the British Library. There is no printed libretto. A copy of the libretto was filed in the Lord Chamberlain's collection in January/February 1880. A recording of an abridged version was made by a Leicester (UK) G&S Society in the 1970s.[4] A recording (omitting the spoken dialogue) was issued by Dutton Epoch in 2020, together with Haddon Hall and Mr. Jericho,[5] The recording features the BBC Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by John Andrews.[6]
When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte needed new works to fill the Savoy Theatre. The first of these was The Nautch Girl. 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.[7] W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning such curtain raisers:
To create a curtain raiser for The Nautch Girl, Carte turned to Cellier, who was the long-time music director of the Savoy Theatre and had produced other works for Carte. Greenbank, on the other hand, was a new writer who would go on to a very productive and successful career writing lyrics for hit musicals, although he lived to the age of only 33.
Captain Billy has been absent from Porthaven, his native village, for many years. His relatives do not know that he has been pursuing a very successful career as a pirate. A young foundling, Christopher Jolly, visits the village to examine the parish register in an attempt to find his birth certificate; he does not know his own age. Jolly falls in love with Polly, and they exchange this dialogue:
Billy returns to the village on the same day and is recognised by his brother Samuel Chunk. Billy is reunited with his wife, who is surprised to discover that she is not a widow after all, and Jolly discovers that he is Billy's nephew, whom the old scoundrel had "lost" in the Sahara Desert many years before. Billy attests to Jolly's age, so that he can wed Polly. Billy becomes a respectable soap salesman.[9]
The original cast was as follows:[10]