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- The Carp is a one-act comic opera (styled "a whimsicality") with a libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier. It was first produced at the Savoy Theatre from 13 February 1886 to 19 January 1887, as a companion piece to The Mikado. It was then revived as companion to Ruddigore from 21 February 1887 to 5 November 1887. The piece also toured throughout 1888. No printed libretto or vocal score is found in British Library. A copy of the libretto is in the Lord Chamberlain's collection. As the score is lost, modern amateur productions have played the piece with original music. One such score, composed by Quade Winter, was originally requested in 1998 by the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive for their Web Opera series, and later orchestrated for production by the Ohio Light Opera in 1999. It was revived in 2011 by Concert Operetta Theater of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 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 such as The Carp. 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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