Adrian Ross

"For the NFL player see Adrian Ross (American football)"

Arthur Reed Ropes (December 23 1859 – September 10 1933), better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a writer of lyrics for more than 60 British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th century. He served as the senior lyricist of the British stage for over five decades.

Life and career

Ross was born in Lewisham. He was a Cambridge University graduate and don, historian, and translator of French and German literature and won the Chancellor's Medal for verse. He created the fictitious name due to a concern that writing musicals would compromise his academic career.

Early career

Ross's first work for the stage was the book and lyrics for a burlesque, "Faddimir" (1889), with music by fellow Cambridge graduate, Frank Osmond Carr. The piece earned enough praise so that the impressario George Edwardes commissioned the two to write another burlesque, together with the experienced comedian John Shine, "Joan of Arc" (1891). Songs from that success included "I Went to Find Emin", "Round the Town", and`"Jack the Dandy-O". Ross and Carr's next work, "In Town" (1892), a smart tale of backstage and society intrigue, broke away from the burlesque style and helped set the new fashion for the series of Gaiety musical hits that followed.

established the usefulness of a separate lyricist.

Ross contributed lyrics to virtually all of the Gaiety Theatre's shows, beginning with "The Shop Girl" (1894, with the song "Brown of Colorado"). In 1896, he contributed to the Gaiety Theatre hit, "The Circus Girl" and also wrote lyrics for the one-act comic opera, "Weather or No", which played as a companion piece to "The Mikado" at the Savoy Theatre. Ross also wrote additional numbers for the shows at Daly's Theatre. His small contributions to "An Artist's Model" (1895) and "The Geisha" (1896) were successful enough so that Edwardes asked him for major contributions to the rest, beginning with "A Greek Slave" (1898), especially after the death of Harry Greenbank. During the following years, Ross collaborated on a series of enormous successes, including "San Toy" (1899), "The Messenger Boy" (1900), "The Toreador" (1901), "A Country Girl" (1902), "The Girl from Kays" (1903), "The Orchid" (1903), "The Cingalee" (1904), "The Spring Chicken" (1905) and "The Girls of Gottenberg" (1907).

" in 1915.

Later career

Ross continued, after the Edwardes's death, to write lyrics for shows at the Gaiety, Daly's, the Adelphi Theatre, and other London theatres. As tastes changed the "revue" became popular, and Ross worked with Herman Darewski on "Three Cheers" (1917) and with Lionel Monckton on "Airs and Graces". After the onset of World War I, he wrote lyrics for a number of successful shows, including the musicalized French comedy "Theodore & Co" (1916), the hit "The Boy" (1917), and André Messager's adaptation of Booth Tarkington's "Monsieur Beaucaire" (1919, "Philomel"). In 1922, he wrote both the book and the lyrics for the popular English version of "Das Dreimäderlhaus", the international hit based on Franz Schubert's music and life, produced in Britain as "Lilac Time". In 1927, Ross collaborated with Australian composer Dudley Glass on a musical version of W. J. Locke's "The Beloved Vagabond". His last works included the English version of Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Lohner-Beda's libretto to the operetta "Friederike" and a musical version of Austin Strong's "The Toymaker of Nuremberg" played as a Christmas entertainment.

Ross wrote regularly and extensively with the most successful British-based composers of his time, including Caryll, Monckton, and Leslie Stuart and Sidney Jones, and later Howard Talbot and Messager. Sixteen of his musicals ran for more than 400 performances. Ross tailored each song to fit the style required by the producer -- songs for the Gaiety were different from those for Daly's. Many of his adaptations are still performed today.

Fiction

Ross also wrote the popular horror novel "The Hole of the Pit" and a number of short stories. Set in 1645, during the English Civil War, and dedicated to M. R. James, the novel tells of a loathsome entity which inhabits a flooded pit amid the marshes surrounding the castle belonging to a brutal Cavalier. The book is notable for its depth of characterisation - the narrator, a young Puritan scholar who has refused to join Oliver Cromwell's army because of his objections to religious violence, is a compassionate man who sees the good in everyone, including the villains - and for its subtle depiction of the creature in the hole, which is never completely seen even as it overwhelms the castle. The novel was published in 1914 and never reprinted until Ramsey Campbell collected it in his 1992 anthology "Uncanny Banquet".

Ross died in London at the age of 73.

Musicals

Ross contributed lyrics to the following musicals, often in collaboration with other lyricists:
*"Faddimir, or The Triumph of Orthodoxy" (1889)
*"Joan of Arc" (1891, starring Arthur Roberts and Marion Hood)
*"Don Juan" (1892, starring Roberts)
*"The Young Recruit" (1892)
*"In Town (musical)" (1892) (292 performances)
*"Morocco Bound" (1893) (295 performances)
*"Go-Bang" (1894) (129 performances)
*"The Shop Girl" (1894) (546 performances)
*"Mirette" revised English version (1894) (total of 102 performances in both versions)
*"Bobbo" (1895)
*"Biarritz" (1896) (71 performances)
*"My Girl" (1896) (183 performances)
*"Weather or No" (1896) (209 performances)
*"The Circus Girl" (1896) (497 performances)
*"His Majesty, or The Court of Vignolia" (1897) (61 performances)
*"The Ballet Girl" (1897)
*"The Grand Duchess" (1897) (104 performances)
*"The Transit of Venus" (1898)
*"Billy" (1898)
*"A Greek Slave" (1898) (349 performances)
*"Milord Sir Smith" (1898) (82 performances)
*"The Lucky Star" (1899) (143 performances)
*"San Toy" (1899) (768 performances)
*"The Messenger Boy" (1900) (429 performances)
*"The Toreador" (1901) (675 performances)
*"Kitty Grey" (1901) (220 performances)
*"A Country Girl" (1902) (729 performances)
*"The Girl from Kays" (1903) (432 performances)
*"The Orchid" (1903) (559 performances)
*"The Cingalee" (1904) (365 performances)
*"The Spring Chicken" (1905) (401 performances)
*"The Little Cherub" (1906) (114 performances)
*"Naughty Nero" (1906)
*"The New Aladdin" (1906) (203 performances)
*"See-See" (1906) (152 performances)
*"Les Merveilleuses" (1906) (196 performances)
*"The Girls of Gottenberg" (1907) (303 performances)
*"The Merry Widow" (1907) – English Adaptation (778 performances)
*"A Waltz Dream" (1908) (146 performances)
*"Havana (musical)" (1908) (221 performances)
*"King of Cadonia" (1908) (333 performances)
*"The Dollar Princess" (1909) (428 performances)
*"The Antelope" (1909)
*"Our Miss Gibbs" (1909) (636 performances)
*"The Dashing Little Duke" (1909) (101 performances)
*"Captain Kidd" (1910)
*"The Girl in the Train" (1910)
*"The Quaker Girl" (1911) (536 performances)
*"Castles in the Air" ("Frau Luna") (1911)
*"The Count of Luxembourg" (1911) (240 performances)
*"Gipsy Love" (1912) (299 performances)
*"The Wedding Morning" (1912)
*"Tantalising Tommy" (1912)
*"The Dancing Mistress" (1912) (241 performances)
*"The Girl on the Film" ("Filmzauber") (1913) (232 performances)
*"The Marriage Market" ("Lednyedsdr") (1913)
*"The Girl from Utah" (1913) (195 performances)
*"The Belle of Bond Street" revised version of "The Girl from Kays" (1914)
*"Betty" (1915) (391 performances)
*"The Light Blues" (1915)
*"The Happy Day" (1916) (241 performances)
*"Theodore & Co" (1916) (503 performances)
*"Oh! Caesar" (1916) (toured only)
*"The Happy Family" (1916)
*"Arlette" (1917)
*"The Boy" (1917) (801 performances)
*"Three Cheers" (1917) (revue)
*"Monsieur Beaucaire" (1919) (400 performances)
*"The Kiss Call" (1919)
*"Maggie" (1919)
*"The Eclipse" (1919)
*"Medorah" (1920)
*"A Southern Maid" (1920) (306 performances)
*"The Love Flower" (1920)
*"The Naughty Princess" (1920) (280 performances – at the Adelphi Theatre) [ [http://moderntheatre.info/productions_detail.asp?ID=1107 Information about "The Naughty Princess"] ]
*"Faust on Toast" (1921)
*"Love's Awakening" (1921)
*"Lilac Time" (1922) (626 performances)
*"The Cousin from Nowhere" (1922)
*"Head Over Heels" (1923)
*"The Beloved Vagabond" (1927) (107 performances)
*"Frederica" ("Friederike") (1930) (music by Franz Lehár) [ [http://www.nodanw.com/shows_f/frederica.htm Information from NODA] ]
*"The Toymaker of Nuremberg" (1930) (32 performances)

References

*
*Reeves, Ken: "The Life and Work of Adrian Ross" in "The Gaiety" Annual (2002) pp. 3-14
* [http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/british/authors/ross.html Profile of Ross]
* [http://www.musicals101.com/who7c.htm Brief profile of Ross from the comprehensive musicals101 site]

External links

* [http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/british/musicals.html Listing of English musicals with links]
* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=13251 Ross's extensive Broadway show credits]
* [http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/d1107.htm Links to poems by Ross]