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72-667: Originally billed as "The Hanlons," the group debuted in 1846 at London's Theatre Royal, Adelphi . At this time, the company consisted of George, William, and Alfred Hanlon, who were essentially wards of John Lees until his death in 1855. After his demise, the Hanlons returned to England and enlisted their younger brothers – Thomas, Edward, and Frederick – and rechristened themselves "The Hanlon-Lees" in honor of their fallen friend and instructor. The newly expanded troupe made its American debut in 1858 at Niblo's Garden in New York City, and spent

144-422: A "victory over repression". Late Victorian and Edwardian melodrama combined a conscious focus on realism in stage sets and props with "anti-realism" in character and plot. Melodrama in this period strove for "credible accuracy in the depiction of incredible, extraordinary" scenes. Novelist Wilkie Collins is noted for his attention to accurate detail (e.g., of legal matters) in his works, no matter how sensational

216-501: A New One In . In 1848, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain was performed. The old theatre was demolished, and on 26 December 1858, The New Adelphi was opened and was considered an improvement on the cramped circumstances of the original, which had been described as a "hasty conversion from a tavern hall, permanently kept in its provisional state". The new theatre could seat 1,500 people, with standing room for another 500. The interior

288-761: A cameo appearance in The Pickwick Papers The famous busker, Billy Waters often performed outside the Adelphi Theatre in the years before his death in 1823. The Adelphi came under the management of Madame Celeste and comedian Benjamin Webster , in 1844, and Buckstone was appointed its resident dramatist. Dramatisations of Dickens continued to be performed, including A Christmas Carol; or, Past, Present, and Future opening on 5 February; and Beckett's The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that rang an Old Year out and

360-591: A freer and more imaginative course regarding the plot prerogative. Within the context of the Czech National Revival , the melodrama took on a specifically nationalist meaning for Czech artists, beginning roughly in the 1870s and continuing through the First Czechoslovak Republic of the interwar period. This new understanding of the melodrama stemmed primarily from such nineteenth-century scholars and critics as Otakar Hostinský , who considered

432-947: A fusion of the Hispanic and Asian cultures) the Philippines . Expatriate communities in the diaspora of these countries give viewership a global market. Melodrama films are a subgenre of drama films characterized by plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience . Melodramatic films commonly use plots that involve crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship , strained familial situations, tragedy , illness , neuroses , or emotional and physical hardship . The stock characters present in melodrama films include victims, couples, virtuous and heroic characters, and suffering protagonists (usually heroines ). These characters are faced with tremendous social pressures, threats, repression, fears, improbable events or difficulties with friends, community , work , lovers, or family. Following

504-568: A list beginning in 1979). A proposed redevelopment of Covent Garden by the GLC in 1968 saw the theatre under threat, together with the nearby Vaudeville , Garrick , Lyceum and Duchess theatres . An active campaign by Equity , the Musicians' Union , and theatre owners under the auspices of the Save London Theatres Campaign led to the abandonment of the scheme. On 27 February 1982,

576-444: A means of setting Czech declamation correctly: his melodramas Štědrý den (1874) and Vodník (1883) use rhythmic durations to specify the alignment of spoken word and accompaniment. Fibich's main achievement was Hippodamie (1888–1891), a trilogy of full-evening staged melodramas on the texts of Jaroslav Vrchlický with multiple actors and orchestra, composed in an advanced Wagnerian musical style. Josef Suk 's main contributions at

648-566: A reflection of issues brought up by the French Revolution , the Industrial Revolution and the shift to modernization. Many melodramas were about a middle-class young woman who experienced unwanted sexual advances from an aristocratic miscreant, the sexual assault being a metaphor for class conflict. The melodrama reflected post-Industrial Revolution anxieties of the middle class, who was afraid of both aristocratic power brokers and

720-429: A scene within a play or an opera. It was only later, in the nineteenth century, that the term lost its association with music and began to be used for plays with sentimental and sensational plots typical of popular Victorian drama . The earliest known examples of melodrama are scenes in J. E. Eberlin's Latin school play Sigismundus (1753). The first full melodrama was Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's monodrama Pygmalion ,

792-403: A servant of the aged parent engaged in a sensational plot featuring themes of love and murder. Often the good but not very clever hero is duped by a scheming villain, who has eyes on the damsel in distress until fate intervenes at the end to ensure the triumph of good over evil. Two central features were the coup de théàtre, or reversal of fortune, and the claptrap: a back-to-the-wall oration by

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864-523: A sign says that the killer was one of the theatre's stage hands, but Richard Archer Prince committed the murder. It has been said that Terriss' ghost haunts the theatre. Terriss' daughter was Ellaline Terriss , a famous actress, and her husband, actor-manager Seymour Hicks managed the Adelphi for some years at the end of the 19th century. The stage door of the current Adelphi is in Maiden Lane but back then it

936-499: Is a West End theatre , located on the Strand in the City of Westminster , central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals . The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987. It was founded in 1806 as

1008-550: Is also frequently used in Spanish zarzuela , both in the 19th and 20th centuries, and continued also to be used as a "special effect" in opera, for instance Richard Strauss 's Die Frau ohne Schatten . In Paris, the 19th century saw a flourishing of melodrama in the many theatres that were located on the popular Boulevard du Crime , especially in the Gaîté . All this came to an end, however, when most of these theatres were demolished during

1080-410: Is available online, complete with several melodramas, for instance, No. 12 found here. A few operettas exhibit melodrama in the sense of music played under spoken dialogue, for instance, Gilbert and Sullivan 's Ruddigore (itself a parody of melodramas in the modern sense) has a short "melodrame" (reduced to dialogue alone in many productions) in the second act; Jacques Offenbach 's Orpheus in

1152-688: Is nearly always pejorative. The term was first used in English in 1784 (in 1782 as melo drame ) and came from the French word mélodrame ( c.  1772 ), which was itself derived from Greek μέλος ("song" or "music") and French drame ("drama"). The relationship of melodrama and realism is complex. Protagonists of melodramatic works may be ordinary (and hence realistically drawn) people who are caught up in extraordinary events or highly exaggerated and unrealistic characters. With regard to its high emotions and dramatic rhetoric, melodrama represents

1224-675: Is notable for being thought the first Dickens adaption performed. This was the first of many of Dickens's early works adapted for the stage of the Adelphi, including The Pickwick Papers as William Leman Rede 's The Peregrinations of Pickwick ; or, Boz-i- a-na , a three-act burletta first performed on 3 April 1837, Frederick Henry Yates 's production of Nicholas Nickleby ; or, Doings at Do-The-Boys Hall in November and December 1838, and Edward Stirling's two-act burletta The Old Curiosity Shop ; or, One Hour from Humphrey's Clock (November and December 1840, January 1841). The theatre itself makes

1296-639: The Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime , and burletta . She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas , pantomimes, farces , comic operettas , historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–1867). On 18 October 1819,

1368-746: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and Lisle's Tennis Court in Lincoln's Inn Fields , the latter of which moved to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1720 (now the Royal Opera House ). The two patent theatres closed in the summer months. To fill the gap, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket became a third patent theatre in London in 1766. Further letters patent were eventually granted to one theatre in each of several other English towns and cities. Other theatres presented dramas that were underscored with music and, borrowing

1440-399: The rebuilding of Paris by Baron Haussmann in 1862. By the end of the 19th century, the term melodrama had nearly exclusively narrowed down to a specific genre of salon entertainment: more or less rhythmically spoken words (often poetry) – not sung, sometimes more or less enacted, at least with some dramatic structure or plot – synchronized to the accompaniment of music (usually piano). It

1512-587: The 1930s until the late 1960s, Hays Code restrictions on the inclusion of "licentious" content in films would restrict the portrayal of female desire in the American film melodrama. During the 1940s, the British Gainsborough melodramas were successful with audiences. In the 1950s, films by director Douglas Sirk , such as All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Written on the Wind (1956), are representative of

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1584-637: The Adelphi Theatre Company Limited, a partnership between Andrew Lloyd Webber's LW Theatres and Nederlander International . Melodrama A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized and for a very strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental , rather than on action. Characters are often flat and written to fulfill established character archetypes . Melodramas are typically set in

1656-550: The Adelphi from 10 March to 22 September 2012, transferring from the Chichester Festival Theatre, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton. In March 2019, Waitress opened at the Adelphi. It was set to close on 4 July 2020, but it closed on 16 March, when West End theatres shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic ; the producers later announced the show would not re-open. The theatre is currently owned and managed by

1728-401: The Adelphi hosted the final night of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for a concert performance of songs from all thirteen Savoy Operas as well as Cox and Box and Thespis . In 1993, Andrew Lloyd Webber 's Really Useful Group purchased the theatre and completely refurbished it prior to the opening of his adaptation of Sunset Boulevard . The 1998 video of Lloyd Webber's musical Cats

1800-450: The French term, called it melodrama to get around the restriction. The Theatres Act 1843 finally allowed all theatres to play drama. In the early 19th century, opera's influence led to musical overtures and incidental music for many plays. In 1820, Franz Schubert wrote a melodrama, Die Zauberharfe ("The Magic Harp"), setting music behind the play written by G. von Hofmann. It was unsuccessful, like all Schubert's theatre ventures, but

1872-652: The Gothic, the next popular subgenre was the nautical melodrama, pioneered by Douglas Jerrold in his Black-Eyed Susan (1829). Other nautical melodramas included Jerrold's The Mutiny at the Nore (1830) and The Red Rover (1829) by Edward Fitzball (Rowell 1953). Melodramas based on urban situations became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, including The Streets of London (1864) by Dion Boucicault ; and Lost in London (1867) by Watts Phillips, while prison melodrama, temperance melodrama, and imperialist melodrama also appeared –

1944-557: The Hanlon-Lees.". The Hanlon-Lees also patented several inventions, including the aerial safety net, a wooden brace used in the construction of scenery (which is to this day referred to as a " hanlon ") and improvements to the Lallement velocipede in 1868 and 1869 patents. Despite the death of Thomas in 1868, the group continued to perform regularly until the early 1900s, at which point George Hanlon's sons Will and Fred assumed control of

2016-487: The Soul (1974). The 1980s saw a resurgence in American "women's" melodramas such as Terms of Endearment (1983), Beaches (1988), and Steel Magnolias (1989). On television, the miniseries was a popular format for lavish, female-centric melodramas such as Scruples (1980), Lace (1984), and Sins (1986). Melodramas like the 1990s TV Moment of Truth movies targeted audiences of American women by portraying

2088-561: The Underworld opens with a melodrama delivered by the character of "Public Opinion"; and other pieces from operetta and musicals may be considered melodramas, such as the "Recit and Minuet" in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer . As an example from the American musical, several long speeches in Lerner and Loewe 's Brigadoon are delivered over an accompaniment of evocative music. The technique

2160-878: The Villain: Six English and American Melodramas. Benjamin Blom, 1967. Booth, Michael, ed. ‘’The Lights O’ London and Other Victorian Plays.’’ Oxford University Press, 1995. Bratton, Jacky, Jim Cook, and Christine Gledhill, eds. Melodrama: Stage, Picture, Screen. British Film Institute, 1994. Buckley, Matthew S. ‘’Tragedy Walks the Streets: The French Revolution and the Making of Modern Drama.’’ The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Hambridge, Katherine, and Jonathan Hicks, eds. ‘’The Melodramatic Moment: Music and Theatrical Culture, 1790-1820. University of Chicago Press, 2018. Robinson, Terry F. “Deaf Education and

2232-708: The Western world. However, it is still widely popular in other regions, particularly in Asia and in Hispanic countries. Melodrama is one of the main genres (along with romance, comedy and fantasy) used in Latin American television dramas (telenovelas), particularly in Venezuela , Mexico , Colombia , Argentina and Brazil , and in Asian television dramas, South Korea , Japan , Taiwan , China , Pakistan , Thailand , India , Turkey and (in

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2304-437: The book Benn W. Levy. Noël Coward 's Words and Music premièred at the theatre in 1932. The operetta Balalaika (a revised version of The Gay Hussars ) played at the theatre in 1936, and in 1940 the theatre's name again reverted to 'The Adelphi'. The theatre continued to host comedy and musicals, including Bless The Bride (1947), Maggie May (1964), and A Little Night Music (1975), as well as dramas (see below for

2376-567: The characteristics of melodrama, his best-known work The Woman in White being regarded by some modern critics as "the most brilliant melodrama of the period". The villain is often the central character in melodrama, and crime was a favorite theme. This included dramatizations of the murderous careers of Burke and Hare , Sweeney Todd (first featured in The String of Pearls (1847) by George Dibdin Pitt ),

2448-472: The company's repertoire. They would carry the company successfully into the 20th Century, going so far as to appear on film for Thomas Edison in a production entitled Fantasma . The Hanlons would endure for another four decades, adapting their acts for vaudeville and finally appearing in the 1945 season of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus . In 1979, six American performers sought out

2520-532: The context of a private home. Its intended audience is a female spectator, but a male viewer can also enjoy its presentation of resolved tensions in a home. Melodrama generally looks back at ideal, nostalgic eras, emphasizing "forbidden longings". Melodrama was associated with the rise of capitalism in the 19th century. French romantic drama and sentimental novels were popular in both England and France. These dramas and novels focused on moral codes in regard to family life, love, and marriage, and they can be seen as

2592-440: The days of Ludwig van Beethoven ( Egmont ) and Franz Schubert ( Rosamunde ). (This type of often-lavish production is now mostly limited to film (see film score ) due to the cost of hiring an orchestra. Modern recording technology is producing a certain revival of the practice in theatre, but not on the former scale.) A particularly complete version of this form, Sullivan's incidental music to Tennyson's The Foresters ,

2664-447: The effects of alcoholism , domestic violence , rape and the like. Typical of the 90's melodrama is Anjelica Huston 's 1999 film Agnes Browne . Todd Haynes ' films Far from Heaven (2002), Carol (2015), and May December (2023) are more recent takes on the melodrama. Contemporary director Pedro Almodovar has also taken many inspirations from the melodramatic genre and directors like Sirk. Booth, Michael, ed. ‘’Hiss

2736-432: The film melodrama: those with a female patient, a maternal figure, an "impossible love", and the paranoid melodrama. Most film melodramas from the 1930s and 1940s, at the time known as "weepies" or "tearjerkers", were adaptations of women's fiction, such as romance novels and historical romances. Drawing from a shared history with women's fiction, melodramatic films often concentrate on female perspectives and desires. From

2808-687: The final living descendant of the original Hanlon brothers and asked for her blessing upon their new company, dubbed the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater . This modern incarnation of the original troupe is best known for pioneering and refining a theatrical form of medieval jousting, an event which the company continues to perform at Renaissance festivals in the United States. The modern day Hanlon-Lees also perform Western-themed shows such as fantasy rodeos and cowboy exhibitions. Adelphi Theatre The Adelphi Theatre / ə ˈ d ɛ l f i /

2880-703: The first public performance of Arthur Sullivan 's first opera, Cox and Box . The building was renovated in 1879 and again in 1887 when the house next door, along with The Hampshire Hog in The Strand and the Nell Gwynne Tavern in Bull Inn Court, were bought by the Gattis in order to enlarge the theatre. They also built a new enlarged facade and part of this can still be seen today above the Crystal Rooms next door to

2952-467: The first season of the Henry Wood Proms in London. It was probably also at this time when the connotation of cheap overacting first became associated with the term. As a cross-over genre-mixing narration and chamber music, it was eclipsed nearly overnight by a single composition: Schoenberg 's Pierrot Lunaire (1912), where Sprechgesang was used instead of rhythmically spoken words, and which took

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3024-408: The fourth quarter of the 18th century. Georg Benda was particularly successful with his duodramas Ariadne auf Naxos (1775) and Medea (1775). The sensational success of Benda's melodramas led others to compose similar works. Mozart, for example, spoke approvingly of Benda's music and later used two long melodramatic monologues in his opera Zaide (1780). Later and better-known examples of

3096-502: The genre to be a uniquely "Czech" contribution to music history (based on the national origins of Georg Benda , whose melodramas had nevertheless been in German). Such sentiments provoked a large number of Czech composers to produce melodramas based on Czech romantic poetry, such as the Kytice of Karel Jaromír Erben . The romantic composer Zdeněk Fibich in particular championed the genre as

3168-657: The genre. Many later melodramatic filmmakers cite Sirk and his works as significant influences. In the 1970s, Rainer Werner Fassbinder , who was influenced by Sirk, contributed to the genre by engaging with issues within the cultural subconscious, addressing class in The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) and Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975), sexual orientation and codependency in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) and racism, xenophobia, and ageism in Fear Eats

3240-469: The hero which forces the audience to applaud. English melodrama evolved from the tradition of populist drama established during the Middle Ages by mystery and morality plays , under influences from Italian commedia dell'arte as well as German Sturm und Drang drama and Parisian melodrama of the post-Revolutionary period. A notable French melodramatist was Pixérécourt whose La Femme à deux maris

3312-468: The impoverished working class "mob". Melodrama arose in the second half of the 18th century as a genre intermediate between play and opera. It combined spoken recitation with short pieces of accompanying music. Music and spoken dialogue typically alternated in such works, although the music was sometimes also used to accompany pantomime . If there is one actor, the term monodrama may be used; if there are two— duodrama . It also sometimes appeared as

3384-479: The latter typically featuring the three categories of the 'good' native, the brave but wicked native, and the treacherous native. The sensation novels of the 1860s, and 1870s not only provided fertile material for melodramatic adaptations but are melodramatic in their own right. A notable example of this genre is Lady Audley's Secret by Elizabeth Braddon adapted, in two different versions, by George Roberts and C.H. Hazlewood. The novels of Wilkie Collins have

3456-543: The melodrama genre was at the time a popular one. In an age of underpaid musicians, many 19th-century plays in London had an orchestra in the pit. In 1826, Felix Mendelssohn wrote his well-known overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream , and later supplied the play with incidental music. In Verdi 's La Traviata , Violetta receives a letter from Alfredo's father where he writes that Alfredo now knows why she parted from him and that he forgives her ("Teneste la promessa..."). In her speaking voice, she intones

3528-711: The melodramatic style in operas are the grave-digging scene in Beethoven's Fidelio (1805) and the incantation scene in Weber's Der Freischütz (1821). After the English Restoration of Charles II in 1660 lifted the Puritan ban on theatre, most British theatres were prohibited from performing "serious" drama but were permitted to show comedy or plays with music. Charles II issued letters patent to permit only two London theatre companies to perform "serious" drama. These were

3600-592: The most successful of which included The Earl and the Girl (1904), The Dairymaids (1907), The Quaker Girl (1910), The Boy (1917), Clowns in Clover (1927), and Mr. Cinders (1929). The present Adelphi opened on 3 December 1930, redesigned in the Art Deco style by Ernest Schaufelberg. It was named the 'Royal Adelphi Theatre' and re-opened with the hit musical Ever Green , by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers , based on

3672-469: The murder of Maria Marten in the Red Barn and the bizarre exploits of Spring Heeled Jack . The misfortunes of a discharged prisoner are the theme of the sensational The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863) by Tom Taylor . Early silent films, such as The Perils of Pauline had similar themes. Later, after silent films were superseded by the 'talkies', stage actor Tod Slaughter , at the age of 50, transferred to

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3744-415: The next four decades touring the United States and Europe. As their skills improved, their performances became more elaborate. When Jules Léotard introduced the trapeze in 1859, for instance, the Hanlon-Lees quickly adapted to the new device; their next production, Le Voyage en Suisse ( A Trip to Switzerland ) contained an aerial juggling sequence that stunned Émile Zola , who expressed utter astonishment at

3816-404: The plot. Melodramas focus on a victim. For example, a melodrama may present a person’s struggle between good and evil choices, such as a man being encouraged to leave his family by an "evil temptress". Stock characters include the "fallen woman", the single mother, the orphan, and the male who is struggling with the impacts of the modern world. The melodrama examines family and social issues in

3888-590: The premiere of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Love Never Dies , which closed on Saturday 27 August 2011. The National Theatre transferred their show One Man, Two Guvnors to the theatre from 8 November 2011. This production moved out of the theatre on 25 February 2012, transferring to the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street began a limited season at

3960-457: The present Adelphi Theatre. An actor who performed regularly at the Adelphi in the latter half of the 19th century, William Terriss , was stabbed to death during the run of 'Secret Service' on 16 December 1897 whilst entering the Theatre by the royal entrance in Maiden Lane which he used as a private entrance. This is now recorded on a plaque on the wall by the stage door. Outside a neighbouring pub,

4032-490: The private sphere of the home, focusing on morality, family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, film, or television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers further cues to the audience of the dramatic beats being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, melodramas are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song

4104-456: The screen the Victorian melodramas in which he had played a villain in his earlier theatrical career. These films, which include Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn (1935), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) and The Ticket of Leave Man (1937) are a unique record of a bygone art-form. Classic melodrama is less common than it used to be on television and in movies in

4176-675: The show, beginning previews on 2 June 2006 before completing a twelve-month run on 26 May 2007. Brian Wilson performed his album Pet Sounds for the last time in the UK at the Adelphi in November 2006. From 6 July 2007, the Adelphi was home to another Lloyd Webber revival, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . The actor playing Joseph, Lee Mead , was cast by winning the BBC television show Any Dream Will Do , and starred alongside Preeya Kalidas and Dean Collinson. 9 March 2010 saw

4248-517: The stage plays of the Osvobozené divadlo as melodrama (most notably the opening prologue of the anti-Fascist farce Osel a stín (1933), delivered by the character of Dionysus in bolero rhythm). Czech melodramas' practice tapered off after the Nazi Protectorate . The Victorian stage melodrama featured six stock characters : the hero, the villain, the heroine, an aged parent, a sidekick, and

4320-613: The text of which was written in 1762; it was first staged in Lyon in 1770. Rousseau composed the overture and an Andante, but the bulk of the music was composed by Horace Coignet . A different musical setting of Rousseau's Pygmalion by Anton Schweitzer was performed in Weimar in 1772, and Goethe wrote of it approvingly in Dichtung und Wahrheit . Some 30 other monodramas were produced in Germany in

4392-537: The theatre reopened under its present name, which was adopted from the Adelphi Buildings opposite. In its early years, the theatre was known for melodrama , called Adelphi Screamers . Many stories by Charles Dickens were also adapted for the stage here, including John Baldwin Buckstone 's The Christening , a comic burletta, which opened on 13 October 1834, based on the story The Bloomsbury Christening . This

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4464-463: The third theatre was opened as the Century Theatre , although the name reverted in 1904 under the management of Otho Stuart . This theatre was built by Frank Kirk to the design of Ernest Runtz. George Edwardes , the dean of London musical theatre, took over management of the theatre from Stuart in 1908. In the early part of the 20th century, the Adelphi was home to a number of musical comedies ,

4536-631: The turn of the century include melodramas for two-stage plays by Julius Zeyer : Radúz a Mahulena (1898) and Pod Jabloní (1901), both of which had a long performance history. Following the examples of Fibich and Suk, many other Czech composers set melodramas as stand-alone works based on the poetry of the National Revival, among them Karel Kovařovic , Otakar Ostrčil , Ladislav Vycpálek , Otakar Jeremiáš , Emil Axman, and Jan Zelinka. Vítězslav Novák included portions of melodrama in his 1923 opera Lucerna , and Jaroslav Ježek composed key scenes for

4608-401: The typical melodramatic format, the characters work through their difficulties and surmount the problems. A common point of plot tension sees characters feeling trapped by the typical melodramatic of the domestic sphere of the home or small town. Filmmakers often add flashbacks to expand the otherwise constant settings of melodramatic films. Feminists have noted four categories of themes in

4680-519: The vast number of airborne objects. There is a spectacular poster by Jules Chéret, the great pioneer of the classic era of French poster design, advertising their appearance at the Folies Bergère in 1878. In addition, the company is referred to in J.K. Huysmans chapter: "The Folies-Bergere in 1879" in his book Parisian Sketches, first published in France in 1880: "these side-splitting, yet funereal, clowns,

4752-417: The words of what is written, while the orchestra recapitulates the music of their first love from Act I: this is technically melodrama. In a few moments, Violetta bursts into a passionate despairing aria ("Addio, del passato"): this is opera again. In a similar manner, Victorians often added "incidental music" under the dialogue to a pre-existing play, although this style of composition was already practiced in

4824-671: Was filmed at the theatre. In November 1997, the London production of the popular American musical Chicago premiered at the Adelphi, becoming the venue's longest-ever production during its eight-and-a-half-year run (which also made it the longest running American musical in West End history). In April 2006, Chicago transferred to the Cambridge Theatre (and later to the Garrick Theatre , where it closed in 2012.). Michael Grandage 's revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber 's Evita replaced

4896-432: Was in Bull Inn Court. William Terriss would later have a Theatre named after him, the Terriss Theatre in Rotherhithe, later known as the Rotherhithe Hippodrome. The adjacent, numbers 409 and 410 Strand, were built in 1886–87 by the Gatti Brothers as the Adelphi Restaurant. The frontage remains essentially the same, but with plate glass windows, and, like the theatre, is a Grade II listed building . On 11 September 1901,

4968-407: Was lighted by a Stroud's Patent Sun Lamp , a brilliant array of gas mantles passed through a chandelier of cut-glass. In the mid-19th century, John Lawrence Toole established his comedic reputation at the Adelphi. Also in the mid-19th century, the Adelphi hosted a number of French operettas , including La belle Hélène . In 1867, however, the Adelphi gave English comic opera a boost by hosting

5040-403: Was looked down on as a genre for authors and composers of lesser stature (probably also why virtually no realizations of the genre are still remembered) - though there are examples by Robert Schumann ( Ballads for Declaration , 1850s) and Richard Strauss for narrator and piano ( Enoch Arden (1897). The English composer Stanley Hawley made many such settings, some of which were performed at

5112-426: Was used to accompany the action. The term melodrama is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, television, and radio broadcasts. In modern contexts, the term melodrama is generally pejorative, as it suggests that the work in question lacks subtlety, character development, or both. By extension, language or behavior that resembles melodrama is often called melodramatic; this use

5184-523: Was very popular. The first English play to be called a melodrama or 'melodrame' was A Tale of Mystery (1802) by Thomas Holcroft . This was an example of the Gothic genre, a previous theatrical example of which was The Castle Spectre (1797) by Matthew Gregory Lewis . Other Gothic melodramas include The Miller and his Men (1813) by Isaac Pocock , The Woodsman's Hut (1814) by Samuel Arnold and The Broken Sword (1816) by William Dimond . Supplanting

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