Frank Desprez
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Frank Desprez (February 9, 1853 – November 25, 1916) was an English playwright, essayist, and poet. He wrote more than twenty pieces for the theatre, as well as numerous shorter works, including his famous poem, Lasca.
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[edit] Life and career
Desprez was born in Bristol, England, the eldest of the eleven children of Charles Desprez, a jeweler and silversmith. The family was of French descent. He was educated at Cosham School, Wiltshire and spent three years in his teens in the U.S. State of Texas. In 1883, Desprez married Jessie McQueen. They had a son and two daughters.
[edit] Librettist and assistant to Richard D'Oyly Carte
Desprez returned to Britain in 1875. His first piece written for the theatre shortly thereafter was La Fille de Madame Angot.When this piece went on the road, he also wrote a forepiece for it called Happy Hampstead, which was set to music by theatrical agent and composer Richard D'Oyly Carte. Desprez became a close friend of Carte's and worked with him for many years as Carte's secretary.
At the same time, Desprez wrote the texts for ten short works for D'Oyly Carte, most of which preceded the Gilbert and Sullivan operas on the bills at the Opera Comique and later the Savoy Theatre. These curtain raisers had long runs in tandem with, and sometimes beyond, the runs of the principal pieces, and they were usually played on tour throughout Britain as forepieces, benefit pieces and short-programme items. Working with composers such as Alfred Cellier and Edward Solomon, Desprez became perhaps the most popular librettist of one-act operas in Britain.
Desprez's most frequently played work was his 1879 two-act musical comedy, Tita in Thibet, which was later played in the British provices by the Majilton company more than a thousand times. It was writted as a vehicle for the music hall star Kate Santley. W. H. Seymour, who would become the stage manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for 20 years, also played in the piece. The story concerns an unusual marriage custom purportedly to be found "in out of the way parts of the world" such as Tibet. Brum, a European idol merchant, has a jealous wife named Tita. Two Tibetan merchants and a young tea-gardener all seek to wed Tita. They point out that the customs of the country permit every wife to have four husbands. Brum is disgusted and enraged. To punish her husband for imagined flirtations, Tita pretends to be charmed with the idea, and she agrees to meet her suitors in the Temple of Fo for the necessary ceremonies. Brum disguises himself as an idol to watch the ceremony. Complications ensue, and all ends happily. The reviewer from The Era did not find the piece "refined" enough for his taste.
Desprez's best work as a lyricist was The Nautch Girl, or, The Rajah of Chutneypore, which played at the Savoy Theatre in 1891-92.
[edit] Poet, essayist, journalist, and editor
Desprez' best-known work, however, is a poem, Lasca, about a Mexican girl and her cowboy sweetheart caught in a cattle stampede "in Texas down by the Rio Grande." The ballad-like poem, first published in a London magazine in 1882, has often been reprinted, usually with deletions and changes, and recited in many parts of the English-speaking world. Between 1873 and 1882 at least four other of Desprez's poems had been published, two of which are about Texas.
In 1884, Desprez began writing for The Era, London's foremost theatre paper, and he became its editor in 1893, a position he held until illness forced him to retire in 1913. Desprez was also wrote dozens of essays on travel, art, music, and famous personalities that were published in English periodicals, most of them between 1905 and 1914.
Desprez died in London at the age of 63.
[edit] Theatrical Works
- 1875 La Fille de Madame Angot English version (Royalty Theatre)
- 1876 Happy Hampstead (Richard D'Oyly Carte) 1 act Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool
- 1878 After All! (Alfred Cellier) 1 act Opera Comique
- 1879 Tita in Thibet, aka Brum, a Birmingham Merchant Royalty Theatre
- 1880 In the Sulks (A. Cellier) 1 act Opera Comique
- 1880 Quite an Adventure (Edward Solomon) 1 act Revived in 1894 at the Savoy Theatre
- 1881 Mock Turtles (Eaton Fanning) 1 act Savoy Theatre
- 1883 Lurette (Belle Lurette) English version w Alfred Murray, H S Leigh (Avenue Theatre)
- 1883 A Private Wire (Percy Reeve/w Arnold Felix) 1 act Savoy Theatre
- 1885 Round and Square (Edward Solomon) Performed on tour by two touring companies, casts unknown.
- 1886 The Carp (A. Cellier) 1 act Savoy Theatre
- 1888 Mrs. Jarramie's Genie (A. Cellier, Francois Cellier) 1 act Savoy Theatre
- 1889 Delia (Procida Bucalossi) Bristol (as `F Soulbieu')
- 1891 The Nautch Girl (Edward Solomon and George Dance) Savoy Theatre
- 1892 Brother George (Bucalossi) Portsmouth
[edit] Reference
- Major, Mabel (1951). "The Man Who Wrote `Lasca'". Southwest Review 36.
