Review from The Times, Wednesday, May 11, 1887.

SAVOY THEATRE

A change in the cast of Ruddigore calls for a brief notice of Saturday evening’s performance of that operetta, which, although less successful than some of its predecessors, continues to attract numerous audiences to the Savoy Theatre.

Miss Geraldine Ulmar, the lady who succeeds Miss Braham in the part of Rose Maybud, is evidently an experienced actress who has all the points of Mr. Gilbert’s humour and Sir Arthur Sullivan’s pretty melodies at her fingers’ ends, in addition to which she is born to the manner of the peculiar form of art invented by those two clever men. Her voice, although not very powerful, is quite capable of dealing with the composer’s short-skirted airs, and the occasional dose of sentiment which Sir Arthur Sullivan knows how to extract from the quaint pranks of his collaborateur is quite within her reach. Compared with that of her charming predecessor, Miss Ulmar’s style must be called a little prononcé. Her accents in the music, her treatment of the dialogue, and most of all, her by-play, are coloured a trifle more highly than is altogether compatible with the very subdued and refined tone of the general picture, which forms one of the most attractive features of the genre. At the same time she eschews any approach to vulgarity, and her impersonation, apart from its individual attractiveness, also afforded the London public an interesting opportunity of judging how these operettas are treated outside the classical precincts of the Savoy Theatre.

The general rendering of the piece is, in its way, as perfect as ever, Miss Jessie Bond, as the demented Margery (sic), and Messrs. Rutland Barrington, Lely, Grossmith, and Temple, not forgetting Miss Rosina Brandram, in their various ways being excellent.

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