Frank Desprez

Frank Desprez (9 February 1853 – 25 November 1916) was an English playwright, essayist, and poet. He wrote more than twenty pieces for the theatre, as well as numerous shorter works, including his famous poem, Lasca.

Desprez was born in Bristol, England, the eldest of the eleven children of Charles Desprez, a jeweller and silversmith. The family was of French descent. He was educated at Cosham School, Wiltshire and spent three years in his teens in the U.S. State of Texas. In 1883, Desprez married Jessie Louisa Potter Macqueen. They had a son and two daughters.

Desprez returned to Britain in 1875. His first piece written for the theatre shortly thereafter was an adaptation of La fille de Madame Angot. When this piece went on the road in 1876, he also wrote a companion piece for it called Happy Hampstead, which was set to music by the theatrical agent and composer Richard D'Oyly Carte. Desprez became a close friend of Carte's and worked with him for many years as Carte's secretary.

At the same time Desprez wrote the texts for ten short works for D'Oyly Carte, most of which accompanied the Gilbert and Sullivan operas on the bills at the Opera Comique and later the Savoy Theatre. These pieces had long runs in tandem with, and sometimes beyond, the runs of the principal pieces, and they were usually played on tour throughout Britain as companion pieces, benefit pieces and short-programme items. Working with composers such as Alfred Cellier and Edward Solomon, Desprez became perhaps the most popular librettist of one-act operas in Britain.

Desprez's most frequently played work was his 1879 two-act musical play, Tita in Thibet, which was later played in the British provinces by the Majilton company more than a thousand times. It was written as a vehicle for the music hall star Kate Santley. W. H. Seymour, who would become the stage manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for 20 years, also played in the piece. The story concerns an unusual marriage custom purportedly to be found "in out of the way parts of the world" such as Tibet. The customs of the country permit every wife to have four husbands. The reviewer from The Era did not find the piece "refined" enough for his taste.

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