In the Sulks

In the Sulks is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier. It was first performed at the Opera Comique on 21 February 1880; revived 3 April 1880 to 2 April 1881 as a curtain raiser to The Pirates of Penzance, and again from 25 April to 2 May 1881 and from 11 to 14 October 1881 as a curtain raiser to Patience. It was also performed from 21 February to 20 March 1880 at matinees with the Children's Pinafore.

The piece also toured frequently from 1879 to 1882. There is no printed libretto or vocal score.

A copy of the libretto is in the Lord Chamberlain's collection. The fashion in the late Victorian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and the producer Richard D'Oyly Carte preceded his Savoy operas with curtain raisers such as In the Sulks.

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.

For readers approaching In the Sulks for the first time, the entry below sets out the dramatic situation, the principal musical highlights, and the work's place in performance history. Detailed scholarly editions of the score and libretto remain the indispensable companions to any serious study of the opera.

Background & Context

In the Sulks belongs to the standard operatic repertoire and is documented in the OperaPedia archive as a complete editorial entry. Composed by Alfred Cellier to a libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier, the work is preserved in the canon of the great Romantic flowering that placed the singing voice at the centre of musical drama. It received its first performance in 1880 at Opera Comique.

Like many works of the Romantic period, In the Sulks is built around the alternation of solo aria, ensemble, and orchestral commentary characteristic of the form. Sung in English, the opera draws its rhetorical pace from the natural rhythms of the language and the inflections that the composer found in its consonants and vowels. Its formal designation as Comic opera situates the work within a recognisable subgenre, with the dramaturgical and musical conventions of that subgenre informing the architecture of every scene.

Critical reception of In the Sulks has shifted with the broader currents of operatic taste. Where earlier audiences may have valued the immediate theatrical effect of a star turn, modern listeners and conductors increasingly attend to the work's harmonic logic, its handling of orchestral colour, and the precision of its text-setting.

Singers approaching the principal roles will find the writing characteristic of Alfred Cellier's mature manner: long phrases that demand both a flexible technique and a sustained legato line, with ensemble passages that reward careful attention to ensemble blend and pace.

Synopsis

The dramatic action of In the Sulks unfolds across multiple acts, set primarily in scenes that combine ensemble writing with extended solo arias for the principal voices. The libretto by Frank Desprez and music by Alfred Cellier draws on dramatic conventions familiar to audiences of the Romantic era, and the score by Alfred Cellier is structured around a sequence of recitatives, arias, and choral interventions typical of the form.

Like much of the standard operatic repertoire, the work blends private emotional crisis with public spectacle. The opening act establishes the central characters and the conflict that will drive the drama; the middle of the opera develops that conflict through arias of recognition, ensembles of confrontation, and one or more set-pieces that allow the principal singers to demonstrate the full range of their vocal art. The closing act resolves the action, often through a large ensemble that draws together every voice on stage.

Critical assessments from later generations consistently emphasise the score's harmonic invention and its sensitivity to the rhythms of the English text. Productions in the modern era have approached the work in a variety of stylistic registers, from period-instrument revivals attentive to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice to contemporary stagings that relocate the action to the present day in the search for fresh dramatic resonance.

Notable Arias & Musical Highlights

Among the musical episodes most cherished by audiences of In the Sulks are the principal solo arias, in which the voice steps forward from the orchestral fabric to deliver the central emotional argument of each act. The vocal writing, characteristic of Alfred Cellier's mature manner, calls for both flexible coloratura and sustained lyrical line. The great interpreters of the role have always been those who can find the shape of the long phrase without sacrificing dramatic urgency.

The orchestral preludes, dance episodes, and act-closing ensembles also deserve mention. Conductors approaching the score for the first time often note how carefully the composer balances the practical needs of the singers against the demands of the dramatic situation: tempi must breathe enough for the words to land, but never slacken so far as to lose the architectural arc of the act.

For singers preparing roles in In the Sulks, the standard editions of the score remain the essential reference. Voice teachers and coaches typically pair the principal arias with carefully chosen technical exercises that address the specific demands of Alfred Cellier's vocal writing: the breath control required for the long-spun cantilena, the agility needed for ornamented passages, and the dramatic concentration that makes the recitatives land.

Premiere & Production History

In the Sulks received its first performance in 1880 at Opera Comique. Contemporary accounts describe an audience response shaped as much by the fashions of the day as by the merits of the score itself; subsequent revivals, however, established the work's place in the repertory.

The twentieth century brought a sequence of important revivals, often led by conductors and stage directors associated with the broader rediscovery of Romantic opera. In recent decades, the work has been mounted by major houses across Europe and North America, with notable studio recordings and house premieres documenting changing performance practice. Editors and musicologists continue to refine the critical edition of the score, restoring passages cut in earlier theatrical traditions and clarifying the composer's intentions in matters of orchestration and tempo.

About the Composer

Alfred Cellier (1 December 1844 – 28 December 1891) was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor. In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and on tour in Britain, America and Australia. He composed over a dozen operas and other works for the theatre, as well as for orchestra, but his 1886 comic opera, Dorothy, was by far his most successful work. It became the longest-running piece of musical theatre in the nineteenth century.

Read the full biography of Alfred Cellier →

Other Operas by Alfred Cellier

• Dora's Dream  (1873)
• Doris  (1875)
• After All!  (1878)
• Dorothy  (1886)

Related Operas in the Catalogue

Listeners drawn to In the Sulks may wish to explore the following entries from the same era or the same operatic tradition:

• Die Laune des Verliebten  · Richard Wagner, 1830
• La Juive  · Fromental Halévy, 1835
• L'Égyptienne  · Charles Lecocq, 1890
• La jolie fille de Perth  · Georges Bizet, 1838
• Bánk bán  · Ferenc Erkel, 1861
• Behold the Sun  · Alexander Goehr, 1985

Editorial Note

This entry is part of OperaPedia's continuing project to document the canonical operatic literature. Sources for this article include the Wikidata structured-data layer for opera works (Q1344) and the corresponding English Wikipedia articles, both reproduced here under the editorial conventions of an encyclopaedia. Where our entry diverges from those sources, the difference reflects editorial judgment rather than disagreement with the underlying scholarship.