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- Mrs. Jarramie's Genie is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier and François Cellier. The piece was first presented at the Savoy Theatre on 14 February 1888, as a curtain raiser to the revival of H.M.S. Pinafore (November 1887 – March 1888). It was subsequently presented as a curtain raiser to revivals of The Pirates of Penzance (March – June 1888) and The Mikado (June – September 1888), and then with The Yeomen of the Guard (October 1888 – November 1889). No printed libretto or vocal score is found in the British Library, and no libretto is filed in the Lord Chamberlain's collection. The score and orchestra parts were apparently lost at sea in a shipwreck off the west coast of South America in 1892, and in 1910, Helen Carte, the widow of the work's producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, gave the libretto to Desprez. 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. W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning such curtain raisers: This was a one-act play, seen only by the early comers. It would play to empty boxes, half-empty upper circle, to a gradually filling stalls and dress circle, but to an attentive, grateful and appreciative pit and gallery. Often these plays were little gems. They deserved much better treatment than they got, but those who saw them delighted in them. ... [They] served to give young actors and actresses a chance to win their spurs ... the stalls and the boxes lost much by missing the curtain-raiser, but to them dinner was more important. (en)
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