Contents.


PAGE.
FOREWORD. BY MR. RUPERT D'OYLY CARTE 8
HENRY A. LYTTON: AN APPRECIATION 9

CHAPTER.
I. YOUTH AND ROMANCE 13
II. VAGABONDAGE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 25
III. CLIMBING THE LADDER 38
IV. LEADERS OF THE SAVOY 53
V. ADVENTURES IN TWO HEMISPHERES 69
VI. PARTS I HAVE PLAYED 81
VII. FRIENDS ON AND OFF THE STAGE 94
VIII. HOBBIES OF A SAVOYARD 110
IX. GILBERT AND SULLIVAN 121

THE STORIES OF THE OPERAS 136
A SAVOYARD BIBLIOGRAPHY 185




FOREWORD.


_There have been many who have made great reputations in the Gilbert and
Sullivan characters and have established themselves as favourites with
the public who love and follow the operas, and when the roll comes to be
written down finally, if ever it is, Henry Lytton undoubtedly will be
assigned a foremost place. He has played a wide variety of the parts,
and the scope and versatility of his work is unique. It is unlikely that
his record as a Gilbert and Sullivan artiste will ever be surpassed._

[Illustration: (Signature of) Rupert D'Oyly Carte]




HENRY A. LYTTON.
BY
AN ADMIRER OF HIS ART.


Sincerely indeed do I offer my good wishes to my old friend, Henry A.
Lytton, on his giving to the world this most interesting book, "The
Secrets of a Savoyard."

Lytton represents a distinct type on our musical comedy stage. No other
artiste, I think, has quite that gift of wit which makes one not merely
a happier, but a better, man for coming under its spell. Its touch is so
true and refined and delightful. Somehow we see in him the mirror of
ourselves, our whimsicalities, and our little conceits, and could ever a
man captivate us so deliciously with the ironies of life or yet chide us
so well with a sigh?

Certainly it was fortunate both to him and to us that circumstances, in
the romantic manner this book itself describes, first turned his early
steps towards Gilbert and Sullivan, and thus opened a career that was to
make him one of the greatest, as he is now the last, of the Savoyards.
Like the natural humorist he is, he could be and has been a success in
ordinary musical comedy rôles, but it is in these wonderful operas that
he was bound to find just his right sphere. Lytton in Gilbert and
Sullivan is the "true embodiment of everything that is excellent." He
was made for these parts, just as they might have been made for him, and
no man could have carried into the outer world more of the wholesome
charm of the characters he depicts on the stage. He himself tells us on
these pages how his own outlook on life has been coloured by his long
association with these beautiful plays.

So closely, indeed, is he identified in the public mind with the wistful
figure of _Jack Point_, or the highly susceptible _Lord Chancellor_, or
the agile _Ko-Ko_ that the thousands of Gilbert and Sullivan worshippers
who crowd the theatres know all too little of the man behind the motley,
the real Henry A. Lytton. For that reason I want to speak less about the
great actor whom the multitude knows and more about the manner of man
that he is to those, relatively few in numbers, whose privilege it is to
own his personal friendship.

Lytton's outstanding quality is his modesty. No "star" could have been
less spoilt by the flatteries of success or by those wonderful
receptions he receives night after night. Something of the eager,
impetuous boy still lingers in the heart of him, and he loves the
society of kindred souls who have some good story to tell and then cap
it with a better one. But all the while he lives for the operas. Even
now, after playing in them for twenty-five years, he is constantly
asking himself whether this bit of action, this inflection of the voice,
this minor detail of make-up, is right. Can it be improved in keeping
with the spirit of genuine artistry? So severe a self-critic is he that
he will take nothing for granted nor allow his work to become slipshod
because of its very familiarity. If ever there was an enthusiast--and
there is much in this book to show that he is as great an enthusiast in
private life as he is while in front of the footlights--it is Harry
Lytton.