English librettist and writer. Adrian Ross made a name for himself in England as one of the most accomplished lyricists since W.S. Gilbert. Educated as Cambridge (he was a Cambridge Wrangler, and a Fellow of King's College). Described by Walter Macqueen-Pope in Carriages at Eleven (1947) as a scholarly gentleman who, though he did not look the part... 'he was bearded and had a shock of hair and spectacles', nevertheless was a master hand when it came to writing lyrics' (p83). Ross's career as a writer for the popular stage stretches form the early 1890s to 1913. In this respect he is known to have been involved in the creation of at least thirty-two light operatic works which were produced in Great Britain up until 1913. Many of his works were also collaborations with other librettists and/or lyricists, including John L. Shine, Jerome K. Jerome, Harry Greenbank, F. C. Burnand and Owen Hall.
Ross's first works of note were with composer Frank Osmand Carr, beginning with the operatic burlesque Joan of Arc; Or, The Merry Maid of Orleans (1890). Between 1890 and 1896 he collaborated on a further eight music theatre works with Carr, including The Merry Monarch (1890) Morocco Bound (1893) and Biarritz (1896). Throughout his career Ross also worked with other high profile musical comedy composers, notably Ivan Caryll, Lionel Monckton, Hugo Felix, Sidney Jones and Howard Talbot. Among his best known works are : The Circus Girl (1897), The Messenger Boy (1900), The Toreador (1901), A Country Girl (1902), The Orchid (1903), The Cingalee (1904), The New Aladdin (1906), The Girls of Gottenburg (1907), and Our Miss Gibbs (1909).
Quite a number of Ross's collaborations, in addition to The Beloved Vagabond (1934), are known to have been produced in Australia. These include Joan of Arc, first staged by the London Gaiety Burlesque Company in 1892 at Her Majesty's Theatre (Sydney) on 15 October; and Pat; Or, The Bells of Rathbeal, which was given its Australia premiere at the Theatre Royal (Sydney) on 21 December 1895 (additional music was interpolated into the production by several Australian-based composers, among them music director/conductor, David Cope). Morocco Bound was first produced at the Lyceum Theatre (Sydney) on 1 September 1894. Ross also contributed additional lyrics to The Shop Girl (music by Ivan Caryll), which premiered on 3 March 1906 at Her Majesty's (Sydney).
Adrian Ross's non-theatre works include the popular horror novel The Hole of the Pit (1914) and a number of short stories.
[For further details regarding works co-written by Adrian Ross see H. Parsons, ed. Opera Librettists and their Works (1987)]
