Edward Solomon
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Edward Solomon (July 25, 1855 – January 22, 1895) was a prolific English composer, as well as a conductor, orchestrator and pianist. Though he died before his fortieth birthday, he wrote dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, among others.
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[edit] Life and career
Edward ("Teddy") Solomon was born in London.
[edit] Early career
His first comic opera was A Will With a Vengeance (1876) a one act work with a libretto by Frederick Hay, based on La Vendetta. With Henry Pottinger "Pot" Stephens, he achieved his first successes, Billee Taylor (1880), a "nautical comedy opera" in two acts; and Claude Duval (1881, celebrating a well known 18th Century highwayman), both of which enjoyed years of popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Other Stephens & Solomon successes were Lord Bateman, or Picotee's Pledge (1882), Virginia and Paul (1883) and later The Red Hussar (1889), a "comedy opera" in three acts.
Solomon's most successful work with librettist Sydney Grundy was The Vicar of Bray (1882), a comic opera in two acts. Together, they would also write Popsy Wopsy, a "musical absurdity" (1880) and Pocahontas (1884). Solomon also wrote the music for the short companion pieces Quite an Adventure (1880) and Round and Square (1885), each with a libretto by Frank Desprez, and each produced on tour by D'Oyly Carte companies in the 1880s (and revived at the Savoy Theatre in the 1890s, in the case of the former).
Other early shows included Love and Larceny in 1881, a farce, Through the Looking-Glass (1882), and the successful Polly, or The Pet of the Regiment (1884). He also wrote ballads like "I Should Like To" and "Over the Way", and numerous salon piano solos (he arranged George Grossmith's "See Me Dance the Polka" for piano).
[edit] Later career
From 1891–93, after Gilbert and Sullivan had temporarily separated, Richard D'Oyly Carte mounted a number of non-G&S pieces to keep the Savoy Theatre open, including a revival of The Vicar of Bray in 1892. Solomon's most famous work produced by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was probably The Nautch Girl or The Rajah of Chutneypore (1891), an "Indian comic opera" in two acts with a libretto by George Dance, and lyrics by George Dance and Frank Desprez. It initially ran for 200 performances at the Savoy Theatre and then toured.
Solomon also wrote Pickwick (1889), Domestic Economy (1890), and the burlesque Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue. His last stage work was On the March (1896), a musical comedy in two acts, with John Crook and Frederic Clay, to a libretto by William Yardley, B. C. Stephenson and Cecil Clay, based on In Camp by Victoria Vokes.
[edit] Bigamous marriage and other information
Solomon gained notoriety for his bigamous marriage to American prima donna Lillian Russell. It ended when she sued for divorce after learning of his previous marriage.
His brother Frederick Solomon sang in Billee Taylor in the provinces (1883) and was the composer of the comic opera Captain Kidd, or The Bold Buccaneer, produced at the Prince of Wales' Theatre, Liverpool, on 10 September 1883.
Had he lived, he might have been chosen to complete Sullivan and Hood's The Emerald Isle after Sullivan's death, but Solomon died in London of typhoid fever at the age of 39.
