Sullivan: Patience

Advantages: Complete operetta (musically) with great artists
Disadvantages: none

These Naxos re-issues are great and so reasonably priced for anyone who might be wanting to try out some Gilbert and Sullivan before plumping for the complete Decca set recorded during the 50s and 60s. This recording has Martyn Green, Leoard Osborne, Darrell Fancourt, the lovely Margaret Mitchell as Patience and Ella Halman in the contralto role. I am probably of an age that I can remember the end of this D'Oyly Carte era and the beginning of next ... Read review

Advantages: The wit, the songs, the dialogue, the costumes
Disadvantages: A satire on anyone who follows the asthetic movement

...Patience was the first Gilbert and Sullivan operetta I had any experience of. I was thrilled by the songs, the music, the costumes and the story. It was an unforgettable experience and started off an interest in Gilbert and Sullivan that I will always retain. Fortunately, we are lucky to have a Gilbert and Sullivan society in our area so I do get opportunity to see live performances of many of the operettas. Patience was the sixth of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas. It opened at the Opera Comique on 23th April 1881 and was eventually moved to D’Oyly Carte’s new theatre at the Savoy on 10th October 1881. Gilbert followed the tradition of giving contemporary operas an alternative title, Bunthorne's Bride. The libretto is writted by W S Gilbert and the music composed by Arthur Sullivan. Patience is a basically a story of rival poets... Read review

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Advantages: a range of good music, well-known songs and barbed humour.
Disadvantages: Somewhat abstract and distant for a modern audience

...“Patience” is the third of the major comic operas written by the partnership of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. By the time this operetta opened in London in 1881, they had reached the pinnacle of their popularity. They had already set a seal on the renaissance of the English comic opera and had made that medium firmly their own. “Patience” also welcomed into existence the dedicated theatre (the Savoy in the Strand, London) which coined the name Savoyard and which is now ever associated with the writers and their works. This is Gilbert’s take on cults and fads; popular cultural trends and fickleness. My title is a line from the libretto and is Victorian in meaning. The opera comes from a bye-gone era. It has not weathered the years as well as many of the catalogue and its subject is not easy to get to grips with. It is not commonly... Read review

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Advantages: The final flourish from Britain's best loved Classical duo.
Disadvantages: Patchy musically with some pleasant "highs"; rather weak and ponderous libretto.

...years. He composed three other (now lost) operettas without Gilbert. The pair made a guest appearance, taking bows from the audience, at a 21st anniversary performance of "The Sorcerer" in 1898, but did not speak to each other. It was to be the last time they met. Carte suggested that the three of them should appear together in bath chairs at the end of a revival of "Patience". Sullivan was too ill to attend. "Pray tell Gilbert how very much I feel the disappointment. Three invalid chairs would have looked very well from the front". The last line in his diary (Monday October 15th 1900) reads "I am sorry to be leaving such a lovely day". He died of bronchitis on November 22nd 1900 aged 58 years. He was given a State Funeral and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London. Richard D'Oyly Carte also died in the early months of 1901. Gilbert... Read review

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