Smith and DeKoven, who have made countless thousands laugh, are living still, and will very likely continue to do gracious things for the comic-opera-loving public.

The very imperfect sketch of the opera, “Robin Hood,” given in this book, is lacking in coherence and in completeness in every way, but a prompt-book, being necessary properly to give the story, is not obtainable. Rather than ignore an American performance which is so graceful, so elegant, and which should certainly be known to every child, an attempt had been made to outline the story.

Little idea can be had of the opera’s charm from this sketch, but the opera is likely to live, even after the topical stories of “Pinafore” and “The Mikado” have lost their application, because the story of Robin Hood is romantic forever, and the DeKoven music is not likely to lose its charm.

“Robin Hood” was first produced at the Chicago Opera House, June 9, 1890, by the Bostonian Opera Company. In January, 1891, under the management of Mr. Horace Sedger, the opera was produced, under the title of “Maid Marian,” at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre in London. The cast included Mr. Haydn Coffin, Mr. Harry Markham, Miss Marion Manola, and Miss Violet Cameron.

ROBIN HOOD

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA

Robin Hood Edwin H. Hoff
Little John W.H. Macdonald
Scarlet Eugene Cowles
Friar Tuck George Frothingham
Alan-a-Dale Jessie Bartlett Davis
Sheriff of Nottingham H.C. Barnabee
Sir Guy Peter Lang
Maid Marian Marie Stone
Annabel Carlotta Maconda
Dame Durden Josephine Bartlett

ACT I

In Sherwood forest, the merriest of lives,
Is our outlaw’s life so free!
We roam and rove in Sherwood’s grove,
Beneath the greenwood tree.
Through all the glades and sylvan shades
Our homes (through the glades) are found;
We hunt the deer, afar and near,
Our hunting horns do we sound.

And thus begins the merriest tale of the merriest lives imaginable. It is on a May morning: every young sprint and his sweetheart in Nottingham are out in their best, for the fair May-day fair in Nottingham; and near at hand, Alan-a-Dale, Little John, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, and the finest company of outlaws ever told about, are just entering the town to add to the gaiety.

Now in the village of Nottingham lived Dame Durden and her daughter, Annabel. Annabel was a flirtatious young woman who welcomed the outlaws in her very best manner. She assured them that outlaws of such high position would surely add much to the happiness of the occasion; and they certainly did, before the day was over. The outlaws came in, as fine a looking lot and as handsome as one would wish to see, and joined the village dance. It was an old English dance, called a “Morris Dance,” with a lilt and a tilt which set all feet a-going.

If anything was needed to add to the gaiety of the day, the outlaws furnished it, because, among other things, they brought to the fair a lot of goods belonging to other people, and they meant to put them up at auction.

Friar Tuck was an old renegade monk who travelled about with the merry men of Sherwood, to seem to lend a little piety to their doings. He had a little bottle-shaped belly and the dirtiest face possible, a tonsured head, and he wore a long brown habit tied round the middle with a piece of rope which did duty for several things besides tying this gown. He was a droll, jolly little bad man and he began the auction with mock piety:

As an honest auctioneer,
I’m prepared to sell you here
Some goods in an assortment that is various;
Here’s a late lamented deer
(That was once a King’s, I fear)
Killing him was certainly precarious.

Here I have for sale
Casks of brown October ale,
Brewed to make humanity hilarious;
Here’s a suit of homespun brave
Fit for honest man or knave;
Here’s a stock in fact that’s multifarious.

And so it was!

His stock consisted of the most curious assortment of plunder one ever saw even at a Nottingham fair in the outlaw days of Robin Hood.

While all that tow-wow was going on, people were coming in droves to the fair; and among them came Robert of Huntingdon. The name is very thrilling, since the first part gives one an inkling that he beholds for the first time the future Robin Hood. However, on that May morning he was not yet an outlaw. He was a simple Knight of the Shire.

The Sheriff, who was a great personage in Nottingham, had a ward whom he had foisted upon the good folks of Nottinghamshire as an Earl, but as a fact he was simply a country lout, and all the teachings of the Sheriff would not make him appear anything different. Robert of Huntingdon was the Earl, in fact, and the Sheriff was going to try to keep him out of his title and estates. The merry men of Sherwood forest were great favourites with Robert and they were his friends. During the fair a fine cavalier, very dainty for a man, fascinating, was caught by Friar Tuck kissing a girl, and was brought in with a great to-do. She declared that she had a right to kiss a pretty girl, since her business was that of cavalier. Robin Hood discovered her sex, underneath her disguise, and began to make love to her.

Among other reasons for Robin Hood being at the fair was that of making the Sheriff confer upon him his title to the Earldom. When he boldly made his demand, the foxy Sheriff declared that he had a half-brother brought up by him, and that the half-brother, and not Robert, was the Earl.

“You are a vain, presumptuous youth,” the Sheriff declared. “You are no Earl, instead it is this lovely youth whom I have brought up so carefully.” And he put forth Guy, the bumpkin. This created an awful stir, and all the outlaws who were fond of Robin Hood took up the case for him.

“A nice sort of Earl, that,” Little John cried.

“You think we will acknowledge him as heir to the estates of Huntingdon? Never!” Scarlet declared.

“Traitor!” Robin Hood cried to the Sheriff. “In the absence of the King I know that your word is law; but wait till the King returns from his Crusade! I’ll show you then whose word is to prevail.”

“My friend!” Little John then cried, stepping into the middle of the row, “take thou this good stout bow of yew. You are going to join us and make one of Sherwood’s merry men till his Majesty returns and reinstates you as the rightful Earl of Huntingdon. Come! Say you will be one of us.” All the outlaws crowded affectionately about Robert and urged him.

“You shall become King of Outlaws, if you will,” Scarlet cried. “Come! accept our friendship. Become our outlaw king!”

After thinking a moment, Robert turned and looked at the gay cavalier whom he knew to be his cousin Marian, in masquerade, and whom he loved. Then he decided he would go and live a gay and roving life in the forest till he could return and marry his cousin as the Earl of Huntingdon should.

“Farewell,” he sang to her. “Farewell, till we meet again,” and he was carried off amid the uproarious welcome of the outlaws of Sherwood forest, to become their leader till the King returned from the Crusades to make him Earl.

ACT II

Away in Sherwood forest the outlaws were encamped which meant merely the building of a fire and the assembling of the merry men. Robin Hood had become their leader.

Oh, cheerily soundeth the hunter’s horn,
Its clarion blast so fine;
Through depths of old Sherwood so clearly borne,
We hear it at eve and at break of morn,
Of Robin Hood’s band the sign.
A hunting we will go,
Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!
We’ll chase for the roe,
Tra-ra-ra-tra-ra!
Oh where is band so jolly
As Robin’s band in their Lincoln green?
Their life is naught but folly,
A rollicking life I ween!

Now the merry men gathered about their fire, and while the old monk was broiling the meat, they all lounged about in comfortable ways and Little John sang to them:

And it’s will ye quaff with me, my lads,
And it’s will ye quaff with me?
It is a draught of nut-brown ale
I offer unto ye.
All humming in the tankard, lads,
It cheers the heart forlorn;
Oh! here’s a friend to everyone,
’Tis stout John Barley-corn.

So laugh, lads, and quaff, lads!
’Twill make you stout and hale,
Through all my days I’ll sing the praise
Of brown October ale!

While the outlaws were lounging thus, in came the Sheriff, Sir Guy, the spurious Earl, and a lot of journeymen tinkers. Immediately they began a gay chorus, telling how they were men of such metal that no can or kettle can withstand their attack, and as they hammered upon their tin pans, one believed them. Of all the merriment and nonsense that ever was, the most infectious took place there in the forest, while the tinkers sang and hammered, and Friar Tuck made jokes, and the other outlaws drank their brown October ale: but soon Maid Marian, the dainty cavalier, wandered that way, looking for Robin Hood Robert of Huntingdon. She had missed him dreadfully, and finally could not refrain from going in search of him. She was certain she should find him thinking of her and as true to her as she was to him.

Robin Hood found that she had come to the forest, and sang to her a serenade which was overheard by the other outlaws. Alan-a-Dale, who was in love, became jealous, and the Sheriff came on to the scene, and the outlaws, finding him on their ground, took him prisoner, and Dame Durden, who secretly had been married to the Sheriff, and from whose shrewish tongue the Sheriff had fled, came to free him. She declared that if the Sheriff of Nottingham would acknowledge her, she would get him free from the stocks, into which the outlaws had put him, and would take him home. But the prospect of having to stand Dame Durden’s tongue was so much worse than the stocks, that the Sheriff begged the outlaws to take him anywhere so long as it was away from his wife.

Woman, get thee gone,
I’d rather live alone!
If Guy should come with the King’s men,
I’d turn the tables on them,

the Sheriff cried, trying to plan a way to get free.

At that all the outlaws danced gaily about him, gibing at him and making the pompous Sheriff miserable. They were trying to pay him for his mistreatment of Robin Hood, their beloved leader.

In the height of their gaiety in rushed Sir Guy with the King’s men.

“We’re lost,” all cried.

“You are,” Sir Guy recklessly shouts, “because we’re brave as lions, all of us, and shall make short work of you.”

We’re brave as lions, every one,
We’re brave as lions for we’re two to one,

all cried, and immediately they marched the gay outlaws off to prison and set the Sheriff free.

As it turned out, Maid Marian, the cousin and beloved of Robin Hood, had been commanded by the King himself to become Robin’s wife, or rather the wife of the Earl of Huntingdon. As the false Earl, Guy had tried to make love to the maid, and to win her, but the cousins loved each other, and all Guy’s efforts were quite hopeless. But now that the outlaws, and Robin Hood with them, were all in the power of the Sheriff again, the case looked serious. As outlaws, the Sheriff could hang them, every one. Little John and the leading outlaws pleaded for their friend, reminding the Sheriff and Sir Guy that, since Robin must, by the King’s command, marry Marian, the Sheriff dare not kill him.

“Don’t count upon that,” the wily Sheriff cried “The King’s command was to the Earl of Huntingdon and he is my ward, Sir Guy; not your outlaw friend! Robin Hood shall go to the gallows and Guy shall marry the Maid Marian.” At that everybody sighed very sadly. It really began to look as if the wicked Sheriff was going to get the best of them.

ACT III

Among the outlaws, the strongest and also the cleverest, perhaps, was Will Scarlet. He had not been captured with the others of the band, and so he had come into Nottingham, whence the prisoners had been taken, to spy out the ground and to see if he could not help to free his comrades. He had set up a blacksmith’s shop and had set about forging a sword. All the while he was watching what took place about him, and hoping to get news of his friends.

Friar Tuck was finally discovered locked up in a tower, and with his dirty face at the window. It would have been a shame for so dirty and merry a gentleman as the Friar to have his life cut short, and of course he was freed, but before this happened he had plenty of chance to get scared half to death.

At the very moment when Maid Marian was distracted because she feared that her lover, Robin Hood, was to be led to the gallows, a message came from the King, pardoning all of the outlaws. Some one had revealed to his Majesty the doings of the Sheriff, and the King had hastened to look into matters. When everybody’s life seemed to be in danger, the King rushed back from the Crusades and saved them all, and put the temporary outlaw into his rightful place, and forgave all the other merry men because they had befriended Robert of Huntingdon.

In the midst of the rejoicing, Robin bade the foresters farewell, clasped his cousin in his arms, the Sheriff was properly punished, and the merriest of operas came to an end.