Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera is a satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and '80s in England and, more broadly, on fads, superficiality, vanity, hypocrisy and pretentiousness; it also satirises romantic love, rural simplicity and military bluster.
"Bunthorne" redirects here. For the author writing under the pseudonym, see Bob Smithies.
First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, Patience moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the world to be lit entirely by electric light. Henceforth, the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas would be known as the Savoy Operas, and both fans and performers of Gilbert and Sullivan would come to be known as "Savoyards."
Patience was the sixth operatic collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan. It ran for a total of 578 performances, which was seven more than the authors' earlier work, H.M.S. Pinafore, and the second longest run of any work of musical theatre up to that time, after the operetta Les Cloches de Corneville.[1]
1 This was originally followed by a song for the Duke, "Though men of rank may useless seem." The orchestration survives in Sullivan's autograph score, but without a vocal line. There have been several attempts at a reconstruction, including one by David Russell Hulme that was included on the 1994 new D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recording.
Note on topical references:
Songs and dialogue in Patience contain many topical references to persons and events of public interest in 1881. In particular, the Colonel's song, Act I, item 3a above, is almost entirely composed of such references. The Wikisource text of the opera contains links explaining these references.
Of the recordings of this opera, the 1961 D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recording (with complete dialogue) has been the best received. Two videos, Brent Walker (1982) and Australian Opera (1995), are both based on the respected English National Opera production first seen in the 1970s.[44] A D'Oyly Carte production was broadcast on BBC2 television on 27 December 1965, but the recording is believed lost.[45] Several professional productions have been recorded on video by the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival since 2000.[46]
Oscar Brand and Joni Mitchell recorded "Prithee Pretty Maiden" for the Canadian folk music TV program Let's Sing Out, broadcast by CBC Television in 1966.[54]
