New: Save your favorite arias, videos and singers!
Tell me more - Check it later - Not interested

My name is John Wellington Wells

Opera details:

Opera title:

The Sorcerer

Composer:

Arthur Sullivan

Language:

English

Synopsis:

The Sorcerer Synopsis

Libretto:

The Sorcerer Libretto

Translation(s):

Not entered yet.

Aria details:

Type:

aria

Role(s):

John Wellington Wells

Voice(s):

Baritone

Act:

1.12

Previous scene: For Love Alone
Next scene: Sprites of earth and air

John Reed - My Name Is John Wellington Wells (The Sorcerer).avi

Singer: John Reed

John Reed's astonishing elocution is put to the test in this wonderful patter song from Gilbert & Sullivan's 'The Sorcerer'. He held the comic lead in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for 20 years, from 1959 to 1979. This 1978 album was under the direction of Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte. Isidore Godfrey conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on this number.

Watch videos with other singers performing My name is John Wellington Wells:

Libretto/Lyrics/Text/Testo:

SONG--MR. WELLS

Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.
If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"--
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax--
You've but to look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

We've a first-class assortment of magic;
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic,
There's no cheaper house in the trade.
Love-philtre--we've quantities of it;
And for knowledge if any one burns,
We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:

For he can prophesy
With a wink of his eye,
Peep with security
Into futurity,
Sum up your history,
Clear up a mystery,
Humour proclivity
For a nativity--for a nativity;
With mirrors so magical,
Tetrapods tragical,
Bogies spectacular,
Answers oracular,
Facts astronomical,
Solemn or comical,
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!
Oh!

If any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

He can raise you hosts
Of ghosts,
And that without reflectors;
And creepy things
With wings,
And gaunt and grisly spectres.
He can fill you crowds
Of shrouds,
And horrify you vastly;
He can rack your brains
With chains,
And gibberings grim and ghastly.

And then, if you plan it, he
Changes organity,
With an urbanity,
Full of Satanity,
Vexes humanity
With an inanity
Fatal to vanity--
Driving your foes to the verge of insanity!

Barring tautology,
In demonology,
'Lectro-biology,
Mystic nosology,
Spirit philology,
High-class astrology,
Such is his knowledge, he
Isn't the man to require an apology!

Oh!
My name is John Wellington Wells,
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells.

If any one anything lacks,
He'll find it all ready in stacks,
If he'll only look in
On the resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe!

English Libretto or Translation:

Not entered yet.

Sheetmusic in our database with this aria

Gilbert & Sullivan for Singers: Baritone/Bass

Contributors to this page