Topsy-Turvy (1999) on Netflix
R19992h 40mBiographyComedyDrama
Arthur Sullivan finds Gilbert's stories predictable and wants to compose a full opera. Gilbert's new libretto turns on a magic lozenge. A Japanese exhibition gives Gilbert another idea.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.3/1014,355 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Princess Ida opens at the Savoy Theatre in January 1884, and Arthur Sullivan, ill with kidney disease, can barely conduct it. He goes abroad to rest, and during the hot summer the Savoy's audiences shrink. The producer Richard D'Oyly Carte wants a new piece from Gilbert and Sullivan, and with nothing ready he revives their earlier work, The Sorcerer. Gilbert proposes an opera built on a transformative magic lozenge. Sullivan, urged by the British musical establishment to write serious music, calls it mechanical and too close to their old talismans. Gilbert will not produce another libretto, and the two are stuck, until Gilbert and his wife visit a Knightsbridge exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts.
Cast
- Stefan Bednarczykas Frank Cellier
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film depicts the Savoy Theatre as having electric lighting; it really was the first public building in Britain, and one of the first of any kind, to be lit entirely by electricity.
- At the 72nd Academy Awards the film won Best Costume Design and Best Makeup, and was also nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Original Screenplay.
- Broadbent won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 56th Venice International Film Festival, where the film was also nominated for the Golden Lion.
- Leigh cast actors who did their own singing in the film; the singing performances were faulted by some critics, while others lauded his strategy.
- Though considered an artistic success as an in-depth illustration of British life in the theater during the Victorian era, the film did not recover its production costs.
