Everything about The Savoy Theatre totally explained
The
Savoy Theatre is a
West End theatre located in the
Strand in the
City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on
10 October 1881 and was built by
Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old
Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of
comic operas of
Gilbert and Sullivan, which became known as the
Savoy Operas as a result.
The theatre was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by
electricity. In 1889, Richard D'Oyly Carte built the
Savoy Hotel next to the theatre. For many years, the Savoy was the home of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and it was run by the Carte family for over a century. Richard's son
Rupert D'Oyly Carte rebuilt and modernised the theatre in 1929, and it was rebuilt again in 1993 following a fire.
Aside from
The Mikado and other famous Gilbert and Sullivan premières, the theatre has hosted such notable premières as
Noel Coward's
Blithe Spirit in 1941. In recent years it has presented opera,
Shakespeare and other non-musical plays and
musicals. Today, the theatre is owned by the
Ambassador Theatre Group.
History of the site
The
House of Savoy was the ruling family of
Savoy descended from
Humbert I, Count of Sabaudia (or "Maurienne"), who became count in 1032. The name Sabaudia evolved into "Savoy" (or "Savoie").
Count Peter (or
Piers or
Piero) of Savoy (d. 1268) was the maternal uncle of
Eleanor of Provence, queen-consort of
Henry III of England, and came with her to London. King Henry made Peter
Earl of Richmond and, in 1246, gave him the land between
The Strand and the
Thames where Peter built the Savoy Palace in 1263. On Peter's death, the Savoy was given to
Edmund, 1st Earl of Lancaster, by his mother, Queen Eleanor. Edmund's great-granddaughter, Blanche, inherited the site. Her husband,
John of Gaunt, 2nd Duke of Lancaster, built a magnificent palace that was burned down by
Wat Tyler's followers in the
Peasants' Revolt of 1381. King
Richard II was still a child, and his uncle John of Gaunt was the power behind the throne and so a main target of the rebels.
In about 1505,
Henry VII planned a great hospital for "pouer, nedie people", leaving money and instructions for it in his will. The hospital was built in the palace ruins and licensed in 1512. Drawings show that it was a magnificent building, with a dormitory, dining hall and three chapels. Henry VII's hospital lasted for two centuries but suffered from poor management. The sixteenth-century historian Stow noted that the hospital was being misused by "loiterers, vagabonds and strumpets". In 1702 the hospital was dissolved, and the hospital buildings were used for other purposes. Part of the old palace was used for a military prison in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century the old hospital buildings were demolished and new buildings erected.
In 1864 a fire burned everything except the stone walls and the
Savoy Chapel, and the property sat empty until D'Oyly Carte bought it in 1880 to build the Savoy Theatre there. The new theatre was built speedily, and accounts noted that it "was situated on a site which, though rich in historical associations, was also rich in the olfactory sense. Mr Rimmeil's scent factory was close by as was Burgess's Noted Fish-Sauce Shop." The theatre originally had its main entrance on the
Embankment. The parcel on which it was built was steep, stretching from the Strand down to the Embankment along Beaufort Street. After Carte built the
Savoy Hotel in 1889, the entrance to the theatre was moved to the hotel's courtyard off the Strand, where it still is today.
Gilbert and Sullivan's
comic opera Patience, which had opened at the smaller
Opera Comique, moved to the Savoy on
October 10 1881 and was the first production at the new theatre. Carte hired
George Edwardes as the theatre's first managing director. The Savoy was a state-of-the-art theatre and the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electricity. At a performance shortly after the theatre opened, Carte stepped on stage and broke a glowing before the audience lightbulb to demonstrate the safety of the new technology. Gaslights had also been installed as a backup, but they rarely had to be used.
The last eight of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas were premièred at the theatre (including such popular favourites as
Iolanthe,
The Mikado,
The Yeomen of the Guard and
The Gondoliers), and the term
Savoy Opera has come to be associated with all their joint works. After the end of their partnership Carte, and later his widow,
Helen, and her manager
William Greet, staged other
comic operas, notably by
Ivan Caryll, Sullivan,
Sydney Grundy,
Basil Hood and
Edward German. In 1903, the theatre closed and was reopened under the management of
Edward Laurillard in February 1904. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company returned to the Savoy for repertory seasons between 1906 and 1909, in which year
C. H. Workman took over the management of the theatre, producing, among other works, Gilbert's final opera, with music by German,
Fallen Fairies, which ran for only 51 performances.
Eventually, Richard's son and heir,
Rupert D'Oyly Carte, took over management of the theatre. The opera company didn't play in the theatre again until 1919, instead touring throughout Britain, and other works held the stage. In 1914,
Basil Rathbone made his London stage debut here, appearing as Finch in
The Sin of David. In 1920, he returned to the theatre playing the title-role in
Peter Ibbetson.
The Strand, and a depiction of Richard D'Oyly Carte, were featured in
Nicholas Meyer's 1976 novel
The West End Horror.
Rupert D'Oyly Carte's theatre
After serving in the navy in
World War I,
Rupert D'Oyly Carte decided to bring the company back to the Savoy in first-rate style and began to update and refresh the Gilbert and Sullivan productions with new designs, including
Charles Ricketts's new designs for
The Mikado (first seen at the Prince's Theatre) in 1926. Carte also hired first
Geoffrey Toye and then
Malcolm Sargent as guest conductors, and
Harry Norris and then
Isidore Godfrey as musical directors.
On
3 June 1929, Carte closed the theatre, and the interior was completely rebuilt to designs by Frank A. Tugwell with elaborate décor by Basil Ionides. The ceiling was painted to resemble an April sky; the walls, translucent gold on silver; the rows of stalls were all richly upholstered in different colours, and the curtain repeated the tones of the seating. Ionides said that he took the colour scheme from a bed of zinnias in
Hyde Park.. The entire floor space had been replanned: the old cloakrooms and bar at the back of the theatre were relocated to the the side, and instead of 18 boxes there was now only one. The new auditorium had two tiers leaving three levels: stalls, dress, and upper circle. The capacity of the old house, originally 1,292, had by 1929 been reduced to 986, and the new theatre restored the capacity almost completely, with 1,200 seats. The new stage was 29 feet, 4 inches wide, by 29 feet, 6 inches deep. The theatre reopened on
21 October 1929 with a new production of
The Gondoliers designed by Charles Ricketts and conducted by
Malcolm Sargent. In the only box sat Lady Gilbert, the librettist's widow.
There were further Gilbert and Sullivan seasons in 1929–30, 1932–33, 1951, 1954, 1961–62, 1975, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. Other works presented at the Savoy included the première of
Noel Coward's
Blithe Spirit (1941, which ran 1,997 consecutive performances – the longest run since
Chu Chin Chow, and the longest in London for many years),
Robert Morley in
The Man Who Came to Dinner, and several comedies by
William Douglas-Home starring, among others,
Ralph Richardson,
Peggy Ashcroft, and
John Mills.
After Rupert D'Oyly Carte's death in 1948, his daughter,
Bridget D'Oyly Carte, succeeded to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and became a director and later president of the Savoy Hotel group, which controlled the theatre. The opera company closed in 1982, and Dame Bridget died childless in 1985, bringing the family line to an end.
1990 fire and restored theatre
While the theatre was being renovated in February 1990, a fire gutted the building, except for the stage and backstage areas. Tugwell's and Ionides's designs had been preserved, however, allowing the accurate restoration of the theatre under the direction of the architect Sir William Whitfield, Sir Hugh Wontner and the theatre's manager, Kevin Chapple. It reopened on
19 July 1993. The present theatre has a capacity of 1,158. During the renovation an extra storey was added above the theatre that includes a health club for the hotel and a swimming pool above the stage. The reopened theatre was the venue for the
World Chess Championship in 1993, won by
Garry Kasparov.
In 1993,
Noel Coward's
Relative Values, played at the theatre, having premièred there in 1951.
Tom Stoppard's
Travesties, with
Anthony Sher was next, and in 1994 the musical
She Loves Me played, with
Ruthie Henshall and
John Gordon Sinclair. These were followed by
Terry Johnson's
Dead Funny;
Alan Ayckbourn's
Communicating Doors, with
Angela Thorne;
J B Priestley's
When We Are Married, with
Dawn French,
Alison Steadman, and
Leo McKern; and
Ben Travers'
Plunder, with
Griff Rhys Jones and
Kevin McNally. In 1997, a group led by Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen was given management of the theatre by The Savoy Group. Productions that followed included
Simon Callow in
The Importance of Being Oscar;
Pet Shop Boys in concert,
Ian Richardson in
Pinero's
The Magistrate;
Edward Fox in
A Letter of Resignation; the
Royal Shakespeare Company's production of
Richard III, with
Robert Lindsay; and Coward's
Hay Fever, with
Geraldine McEwan.
In 2000, the briefly reconstituted D'Oyly Carte Opera Company produced
H.M.S. Pinafore;
Donald Sutherland starred in
Enigmatic Variations, followed by a second D'Oyly Carte season, playing
The Pirates of Penzance; and
Antarctica by
David Young played at the theatre. In 2002, a season of
Return to the Forbidden Planet was followed by the D'Oyly Carte productions of
Iolanthe,
The Yeomen of the Guard, and
The Mikado, and then a revival of
Yasmina Reza's
Life x 3. In 2003, the D'Oyly Carte revived
Pinafore, followed by
Bea Arthur at The Savoy,
John Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men,
Peter Pan, and
Pirates. These were followed by
The Marriage of Figaro and
The Barber of Seville performed by The Savoy Opera Company in 2004. Next were seasons of
Lorna Luft starring in
Songs My Mother Taught Me and the new salsa musical
Murderous Instincts. Coward's
Blithe Sprit was revived in 2004-05.
According to the
Irish Post, the Savoy Hotel group and the theatre were sold around 2004 to a group of Irish investors who in turn sold the theatre in 2005 to Prince
Al-Waleed bin Talal. The hotel was purchased by the Ambassador Theatre Group, who produced
The Rat Pack, which closed in October 2006, and a new
musical version of
Gershwin's
Porgy and Bess, directed by
Trevor Nunn, which premièred
November 9 2006. The theatre was sold in 2007 to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.
Fiddler On The Roof, starring
Henry Goodman as Tevye, played at the theatre from May 2007 to February 2008.
Recent and present productions
Nearby Tube Stations
Charing Cross
Embankment
Covent GardenFurther Information
Get more info on 'Savoy Theatre'.
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