_There have been many who have made great reputations in the Gilbert and
Sullivan characters and have established themselves as favourites with
the public who love and follow the operas, and when the roll comes to be
written down finally, if ever it is, Henry Lytton undoubtedly will be
assigned a foremost place. He has played a wide variety of the parts,
and the scope and versatility of his work is unique. It is unlikely that
his record as a Gilbert and Sullivan artiste will ever be surpassed._
[Illustration: (Signature of) Rupert D'Oyly Carte]
HENRY A. LYTTON.
BY
AN ADMIRER OF HIS ART.
Sincerely indeed do I offer my good wishes to my old friend, Henry A.
Lytton, on his giving to the world this most interesting book, "The
Secrets of a Savoyard."
Lytton represents a distinct type on our musical comedy stage. No other
artiste, I think, has quite that gift of wit which makes one not merely
a happier, but a better, man for coming under its spell. Its touch is so
true and refined and delightful. Somehow we see in him the mirror of
ourselves, our whimsicalities, and our little conceits, and could ever a
man captivate us so deliciously with the ironies of life or yet chide us
so well with a sigh?
Certainly it was fortunate both to him and to us that circumstances, in
the romantic manner this book itself describes, first turned his early
steps towards Gilbert and Sullivan, and thus opened a career that was to
make him one of the greatest, as he is now the last, of the Savoyards.
Like the natural humorist he is, he could be and has been a success in
ordinary musical comedy roles, but it is in these wonderful operas that
he was bound to find just his right sphere. Lytton in Gilbert and
Sullivan is the "true embodiment of everything that is excellent." He
was made for these parts, just as they might have been made for him, and
no man could have carried into the outer world more of the wholesome
charm of the characters he depicts on the stage. He himself tells us on
these pages how his own outlook on life has been coloured by his long
association with these beautiful plays.
So closely, indeed, is he identified in the public mind with the wistful
figure of _Jack Point_, or the highly susceptible _Lord Chancellor_, or
the agile _Ko-Ko_ that the thousands of Gilbert and Sullivan worshippers
who crowd the theatres know all too little of the man behind the motley,
the real Henry A. Lytton. For that reason I want to speak less about the
great actor whom the multitude knows and more about the manner of man
that he is to those, relatively few in numbers, whose privilege it is to
own his personal friendship.
Lytton's outstanding quality is his modesty. No "star" could have been
less spoilt by the flatteries of success or by those wonderful
receptions he receives night after night. Something of the eager,
impetuous boy still lingers in the heart of him, and he loves the
society of kindred souls who have some good story to tell and then cap
it with a better one. But all the while he lives for the operas. Even
now, after playing in them for twenty-five years, he is constantly
asking himself whether this bit of action, this inflection of the voice,
this minor detail of make-up, is right. Can it be improved in keeping
with the spirit of genuine artistry? So severe a self-critic is he that
he will take nothing for granted nor allow his work to become slipshod
because of its very familiarity. If ever there was an enthusiast--and
there is much in this book to show that he is as great an enthusiast in
private life as he is while in front of the footlights--it is Harry
Lytton.
The great enthusiasm of his life is Gilbert and Sullivan. Nobody who
reads these reminiscences will have any doubt about that, for it shows
itself on every page, and it is such an infectious enthusiasm that even
we who love the operas already find ourselves loving them more, and
agreeing with Lytton that they must not be tampered with and brought
"up-to-date." From Sir William Gilbert's own lips he heard just what
the playwright wanted in every detail, and both by his own acting and
by his help to younger colleagues on the stage he has worthily and
faithfully upheld the traditions of the Savoy. I have been told more
than once by members of the company how, when they have felt
disheartened for some reason or other, he would come along with some
cheery word, some little bit of advice and encouragement that would make
all the difference to them. Often and often he has brightened up the
dreary work of rehearsals by his buoyant humour and all-compelling good
spirits.
What a happy family must be a company that is led by one who is so
entirely free from vanity and petty jealousy and whose one aim is to
help the performance along! Lytton is _bound_ to have that aim because
of his intense loyalty to the operas themselves, but how much springs as
well from that inherent kindness of his, which, with that complete lack
of affectation, makes him so truly one of Nature's gentlemen. "Each for
all and all for each" was the motto of the heart-breaking Commonwealth
days, of which he tells us such a pathetic human story here, and it
seems to remain his motto now that he has climbed to the top of his
profession as a principal of the D'Oyly Carte Company.
Lytton's acting always seems to me in such perfect "poise." It is so
refined and spontaneous. Each point receives its full measure, and yet
is so free of exaggeration or "clowning." He is, that is to say, an
artiste to his finger-tips, and no real artiste, even when he is a
humorist, has any place for buffoonery. Like the Gilbert and Sullivan
operas themselves, he is always so clean and wholesome and pleasant. The
clearness of his enunciation is a gift in itself, and his dancing
reminds us of the time when all our dancing was so charming and
graceful, and thus so different to what it is to-day. And then his
versatility! Could one imagine a contrast so remarkable as that between
his characterisation of the ugly, repulsive _King Gama_ in "Princess
Ida" and the infinitely lovable _Jack Point_ in the "Yeoman of the
Guard"? Or between his studies of the engaging and more than candid
_Lord Chancellor_ in "Iolanthe" and that pretentious humbug _Bunthorne_
in "Patience"? Or between the endless diversions of his frolicsome
_Ko-Ko_ in "The Mikado" and the gay perplexities of the sedate old
_General Stanley_ in "The Pirates of Penzance"?
So one might continue to speak of his quite remarkable gallery of
portraits, both in these operas and apart from them, and one might
search one's memory in vain for a part which was not a gem of natural
and clever characterisation, rich in humour and unerring in its
sympathetic artistry.
Yet no role of his, I think, stands out with such fascination in the
minds of most of us as does dear _Jack Point_, the nimble-witted
Merryman. The poor strolling player, with his honest heart breaking
beneath the tinsel of folly, is a figure intensely human and intensely
appealing, and no less so because of the mingling romance and pathos
with which it is played. If Lytton had given us only this part, if he
had shown us only in this case how deftly he can win both our laughter
and tears, he would have achieved something that would be treasured
amongst the tenderest, most fragrant memories of the modern stage.
Long may he remain to delight us in these enchanting operas of the
Savoy! By them English comic opera has had an infinite lustre added to
it--a lustre that will never be dimmed--and no less surely do the operas
themselves owe a little of their evergreen freshness and spirit to the
art of Henry A. Lytton.