Detail: Since the glamorous night of its opening on 27 November 1871, with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as Guest of Honour and a double bill of Goldsmith’s evergreen comedy She Stoops to Conquer followed by the tuneful burlesque La Belle Sauvage, the Gaiety Theatre has remained true to the vision of its founders in presenting the highest quality musical and dramatic entertainment. As Dublin’s longest-established theatre in continuous production, the Gaiety triumphantly maintains its unrivalled presence as the city’s premier venue for popular musical shows, opera, ballet, dance and drama.
The inspiration behind the Gaiety came from the energetic Gunn brothers, John and Michael, whose background was a family music business in Grafton Street. They engaged the eminent architect C.J. Phipps, whose original design in the manner of the traditional European opera house has given us the essential Gaiety, with its handsome Venetian façade, which is familiar to us all. Astonishingly, only 25 weeks elapsed between the laying of the foundations and the opening night – the contractors working a 24-hour shift! After twelve years of marked success, the most distinguished theatre architect of the day, Frank Matcham, was brought in to create the commodious parterre and dress-circle bars in the extension to the west of the auditorium, which he then redecorated. Thus, we have Phipps to thank for the Gaiety’s elegant form, and Matcham for its charming baroque adornments.
Changes of ownership do not greatly concern audiences so long as the comfort of the auditorium and the standard of what is seen on the stage are maintained. Successive managements have seen to these essentials; the two, which probably left the most enduring mark in the 20th century, were the Louis Elliman Group from 1936 to 1965, and Eamon Andrews studios from 1965 to 1984. It was ‘Mr Louis’ who instituted the home-produced – as distinct from imported – Christmas pantomimes.
It was also under Louis Elliman that the Dublin Grand Opera Society established its two annual seasons, now continued by Opera Ireland. These replaced the regular visits of the celebrated Moody Manners Opera Company, the Carl Rosa Opera, and the O’Mara Opera Company, when operatic touring ceased around mid-century due to prohibitively rising costs. During World War II, when the staple product of West End successes came to an end, Louis Elliman invited Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLíammóir, founders of Dublin’s Gate Theatre Productions, to give spring and autumn seasons of plays each year. Many regard these as ‘the boys’ best work, for the Gaiety had the space and the technical facilities to give real scope for MacLíammóir’s rich scenic and costume designs, and Edwards’ dynamic staging. Among their Gaiety successes were Shakespeare’s Richard II, Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Hamlet, Maura Laverty’s perennially popular Liffey Lane and Tolka Row and MacLíammóir’s own romantic comedies Where Stars Walk and Ill Met by Moonlight. His quintessential The Importance of Being Oscar began its nine years of international touring at the Gaiety in 1960.
t was during the Eamonn Andrews era that the Gaiety’s audience swelled on one famous night to 400 million this was for the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest – the first to be held in Ireland, and RTE’s earliest colour transmission of an indoor event, the Gaiety’s pretty interior receiving much praise around the world.
‘If stones could speak’, the sturdy walls of the Gaiety would be excused for indulging in a lengthy monologue of name-dropping, for the house has witnessed the comings and goings of more famous figures and faces of the musical and dramatic stage than any building in this country. Space allows mention of but a few: in ballet, Pavlova, Markova, Krassovska and Dolin; in opera, Salvini, Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland and, in our own time, Veronica Dunne and Bernadette Greevy; among the stars of variety, Jack Benny, Noel Purcell, Julie A