Basil Charles Hood (5 April 1864 – 7 August 1917) was a British librettist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of a half dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow.
The younger son of Sir Charles Hood, Basil Hood was born in Yorkshire, educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Green Howards in 1883. He was promoted to Captain in 1893 and retired in 189...
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Basil Charles Hood (5 April 1864 – 7 August 1917) was a British librettist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of a half dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow.
The younger son of Sir Charles Hood, Basil Hood was born in Yorkshire, educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, and was commissioned into the Green Howards in 1883. He was promoted to Captain in 1893 and retired in 1895, but joined the 3rd (Militia) Battalion later the same year. He resigned his commission in 1898.
Hood began writing for the theatre in his mid-twenties, and his first one-act piece, The Gypsies, was mounted as a curtain-raiser at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1890. He provided the lyrics to Lionel Monckton's song "What Will You Have to Drink?", interpolated into the Gaiety Theatre burlesque Cinder-Ellen Up-too-Late.
Hood wrote two other short operettas (with music by Walter Slaughter), before the two completed Hood's first full-scale...
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