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Patience opened April 23, 1881 at the Opera Comique and transferring to the new Savoy Theatre on October 10, 1881. The opera ran for a total of 578 performances.
The sixth G&S collaboration was "Patience", or "Bunthorne's Bride". Patience opened on April 23, 1881 at the Opera Comique and ran for 578 performances, moving on October 10, 1881 to D'Oyly Carte's new theatre, the Savoy, the first theatre in the world to be lit entirely by electric lights.
Patience satirizes the "aesthetic craze" of the 1870's and '80s, when the output of poets, composers, painters and designers of all kinds was indeed prolific — but, some argued, empty and self-indulgent. This artistic movement was so popular, and also so easy to ridicule as a meaningless fad, that it made Patience a big hit. The topical nature of the story may make Patience somewhat less accessible to some modern audiences, and G&S fans tend to have strong feelings one way or the other about Patience.
All the well-born young ladies in the village, rapturously caught up in aestheticism, are in love with two contrasting aesthetic poets — a "fleshy" poet and an "idyllic" poet. But the poets are both in love with Patience, the simple village milkmaid, who cares nothing for poetry. Patience learns that true love must be completely unselfish--it must wither and sting and burn! The girls' military suitors don't see the point to aesthetics, but they decide to give it a try to win the women's hearts. It is touch and go for awhile, but everyone ends up with a suitable partner, even if it is only a tulip or lily.
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All the Music Illustrated with Historical Photographs of D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Productions |
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- Bab Ballads: The following Bab Ballads served as source material or inspiration for Patience. The Bab Ballads were comic verses contributed in the 1860s and 1870s to magazines such as Fun, for which he used his pen name of Bab.
Patience Art
- Eight watercolors by W. Russell Flint.
- Bab
drawings illustrating Patience. Scanned
graphics files of Gilbert's own drawings.
- Opening Night Cast — a list of the principals with a biographical sketch of each.
- Programmes: A selection of programmes from the Opera Comique and Savoy Theatre, 1881-2, and of the first revival at the Savoy in 1900.
- Illustrated Music Covers were provided for the various dance arrangements. Illustrated covers also appeared in America.
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American Patience
Poster Collection — A collection of high resolution
scans of American Patience posters from the 19th and early
20th centuries.
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Discussion: Transcript of a discussion
of Patience by members of the SavoyNet distribution
list. This extensive discussion provides substantial background
information on this opera, and is useful for anyone wanting to
understand it better, produce it, or perform in it.
- Glossaries
- The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Glossary
- Benford's Gilbert and Sullivan Lexicon at GSOpera.com
- From the book Titwillow by
Guy and Claude Walmisley
- Early Reviews
- From various nineteenth century publications
- Other reviews compiled
by Helga Perry
- A chapter on Patience from the book Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, A History and a Comment, by H. M. Walbrook, published in London in 1922.
- Bunthorne and Oscar Wilde: Andrew Crowther explains why Wilde is not the model for Bunthorne.
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Faultless Sympathy: an
article by David Bamberger. This article also appeared in The
Palace Peeper, the newsletter of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan
Society. Submitted to the Archive by the author.
Page modified 24 April 2015