Early years Stephenson, the son of Sir William Henry Stephenson, came from a family with a history of public service, both civil and military. His grandfather, also named
Benjamin Charles Stephenson, was a
major-general and later one of the
Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Stephenson's father became a civil servant, rising to become chairman of the
Board of Inland Revenue. The young Stephenson was commissioned into the Middlesex Militia and later entered the civil service. While working as a civil servant, Stephenson began writing theatrical pieces. His grandfather, General B. C. Stephenson, had lived and died at a house in Bolton Row,
Mayfair, and the young Stephenson adopted "Bolton Rowe" as his pen name. Stephenson's first professional success came at the same venue, two years later, with a short
operetta, written with the composer
Alfred Cellier,
Charity Begins at Home. The piece was in the company's repertory for most of 1872, and was played more than 200 times. Stephenson was still using the pseudonym "Bolton Rowe" when he wrote the libretto for
Arthur Sullivan's one-act
comic opera The Zoo in 1875. This work is still played today with some frequency. He then began a writing partnership with
Clement Scott, who adopted the matching pen name, "Saville Rowe" (after
Savile Row, another Mayfair street). Together, for the
Bancrofts at the
Prince of Wales's Theatre, they wrote English versions of
Victorien Sardou's plays,
Nos intimes (as
Peril) and
Dora (1878 as
Diplomacy). The latter was described by the theatrical paper
The Era as "the great dramatic hit of the season". It also played with success at
Wallack's Theatre in New York. Stephenson and Scott wrote an English version of
Halévy and
Meilhac's libretto for
Lecocq's operette,
Le Petit Duc. Their adaptation so pleased the composer that he volunteered to write some new music for the English production.
West End and Broadway success In 1880, Stephenson's work again featured in New York. The reopened Broadway Opera House was inaugurated with a double bill of
Ages Ago and
Charity Begins at Home. Stephenson also supplied the libretto for a three-act
grand opera version of
Longfellow's
The Masque of Pandora, composed by Alfred Cellier, and presented in
Boston in 1881. The next year in London, Stephenson collaborated with
Brandon Thomas on a "new and critical comedy",
Comrades, for the
Court Theatre, with a cast including
Arthur Cecil,
D. G. Boucicault and
Marion Terry. Writing under his real name for the first time, Stephenson had a great success in 1882–83 with his play
Impulse, based on
La Maison du mari by
Xavier de Montépin, which opened in December 1882 and ran through most of the next year. In 1886, he adapted
Der Probepfeil by
Oscar Blumenthal as
A Woman of the World, which was staged at the
Haymarket Theatre, starring
Herbert Beerbohm Tree and
Helen Barry. In 1886 Stephenson had his greatest success. He and Cellier wrote the
comic opera Dorothy. The piece opened at the
Gaiety Theatre on 25 September 1886, receiving lukewarm notices. Much of Cellier's score was reused material from an earlier failure, and neither the music nor the libretto attracted critical praise.
The Times wrote, "Gentility reigns supreme, and with it unfortunately also a good deal of the refined feebleness and the ineptitude which are the defects of that quality." Stephenson and Cellier revised the work, and it transferred in December to the
Prince of Wales Theatre with new stars, including
Marie Tempest.
Dorothy became a great success at the box office and transferred in 1888 to the
Lyric Theatre, where it ran until 1889. Its initial run of a total of 931 performances was the longest of any piece of musical theatre up to that time. Some critics reconsidered their earlier condemnation, the work became regarded as a classic Victorian piece, and the initially despised plot was traced seriously back to the Restoration playwrights
David Garrick and
Aphra Behn, and to
Oliver Goldsmith and even
Shakespeare. Stephenson and Cellier later collaborated on another comic opera,
Doris (1888), which, without rivalling
Dorothy, had a good run of more than 200 performances. Stephenson's later work in musical theatre was less successful. For the
Carl Rosa Opera Company he rewrote the libretto for
The Golden Web, an
opera bouffe by the composer
Arthur Thomas, which was first heard in 1893. In spite of some positive critical attention, interest in the piece was short-lived. The same year, two short operettas with music by
Edward Jakobowski,
The Improvisatore and
A Venetian Singer, made little impact.
The Ranch, a musical farce with music by
Edward Solomon, failed to find a theatre to stage it. A libretto for
Charles Villiers Stanford,
Christopher Patch, The Barber of Bath, was set by Stanford but has never been performed. A libretto for
Sir Alexander Mackenzie remained, as McKenzie put it in 1898, "still in my desk".
Later years In the non-musical theatre, Stephenson continued to prosper. By the 1890s he was sufficiently well known that his name as author of a play lent cachet. In 1892 one British newspaper protested that a new play, advertised as the work of Stephenson and
Augustus Harris, was in fact the work of less-known writers. In the same year, Stephenson produced one of his more enduring works,
Faithful James, a one act comedy. It supplanted Gilbert's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a triple bill running at the Court Theatre. The cast included
Weedon Grossmith, Brandon Thomas,
Ellaline Terriss and
Sybil Grey. Among later revivals of the play was one in 1907 with
Rutland Barrington in the title role of the bumbling butler. In 1894, Stephenson co-wrote a melodrama with
Haddon Chambers,
The Fatal Card, which was well received. Asked how he and his collaborator worked together, he said, "We divide the labour. I write all the vowels and Mr Chambers all the consonants." Among revivals of Stephenson's works, during his life and after, were
Dorothy (on several occasions, notably in 1908, when the critic of
The Times called it "one of the most tuneful, most charming, and most shapely of English comic operas") and
Diplomacy, which was given in command performances for
Queen Victoria in 1893 and
George V in 1914, and was revived again in 1924, starring
Gladys Cooper. Stephenson died in
Taplow,
Berkshire, at the age of 66. ==Notes==