The Sapphire Necklace

The Sapphire Necklace, or the False Heiress (completed by 1867, and at least mostly completed by 1864), was the first opera composed by Arthur Sullivan. It was never performed, and most of the music and libretto are now lost.

After his incidental music to The Tempest brought Arthur Sullivan early fame in 1862, he began to experiment with a wide variety of musical compositions. By 1864, he had written a ballet (L'Île Enchantée), several hymns, a few piano solos, and some parlour ballads. He had also set to work on The Sapphire Necklace. As with some of his other compositions at this time, the libretto was provided by his friend Henry F. Chorley. However, this libretto proved particularly difficult to set: Sullivan, later in life, would say that no other libretto had given him more difficulty, and contemporary sources suggest that he may have later decided to suppress the opera due to dislike of the libretto.

Despite these difficulties, the young Sullivan worked diligently at the piece during 1863 and 1864 and had a finished, four-act opera by 1867. However, he was unable to find anyone willing to produce it, aside from some selections performed at The Crystal Palace. Despite this, Sullivan would go on to write a cantata with Chorley (The Masque at Kenilworth, 1864), and a few stand-alone songs including "The Long Day Closes" (1868).

On 13 April 1867, a selection of songs from the opera were performed at The Crystal Palace, arranged for military band by Charles Godfrey Jr. The overture proved popular and went on to appear in numerous further concerts. The overture, like many of Sullivan's early pieces, is in the style of Mendelssohn and suggests that The Sapphire Necklace was a more serious work than the comic operas for which Sullivan later became known.

The two other songs, "Over the Roof" and a now-lost recitative and prayer, "Then come not yet," were less successful. Only the former went as far as publication, and neither would appear again at a major concert in Sullivan's lifetime. The madrigal, "When Love and Beauty to be Married," would be saved by the Victorian love of parlour ballads, but the rest of the score, as well as the libretto, was lost. Sullivan sold the score to Metzler in 1878, but bought it back again in 1880. Sullivan evidently made an effort to revise the score under a new title, The False Heiress. He also mentioned, in an 1897 letter to his secretary, Wilfred Bendall, having part of the score in front of him when composing Victoria and Merrie England.

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