PATIENCE (OPERA)

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:''This article refers to the Savoy Opera. For other meanings, see Patience (disambiguation).

'''Patience', or Bunthorne's Bride'', is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on April 23 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on October 10 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the world to be lit entirely by electric light.^[1] Henceforth, the G&S comic operas would be known as the Savoy Operas, and both fans and performers of G&S 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''.^[2]

Contents

Background

Roles

Synopsis

Musical numbers

Production history

Historical casting

See also

Notes

References

External links

Background

The opera is a satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and '80s in England, 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''. Modern productions have sometimes "updated" the setting of ''Patience'' to an analogous era, such as a hippie ''Patience'', where there is a flower-child poet versus a beat poet.
A popular myth holds that the central character, Bunthorne, a "Fleshly Poet," was intended to satirize Oscar Wilde. However, this identification is retrospective: In fact, the authors hired Wilde, after the fact, to popularize the opera in America (see below). There is a good case to be made that Bunthorne is based on the poets Algernon Swinburne and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were considerably more famous than Wilde in 1881. Rossetti had been attacked for immorality by Robert Buchanan (under the pseudonym of Thomas Maitland) in an article called "The Fleshly School of Poetry", published in the Contemporary Review for October, 1871. Nonetheless, Wilde's biographer Richard Ellmann suggests that Wilde is a partial model for both Bunthorne and his rival Grosvenor. Wilde had recently been satirised by F. C. Burnand in his play ''The Colonel'' (February 1881), and he wrote to George Grossmith (who played the role of Bunthorne), having been informed that Bunthorne 'took him off', asking for tickets for the first night.
The makeup and costume adopted by the first Bunthorne, George Grossmith, used the velvet jacket of Swinburne, the hair style and monocle of the painter James McNeill Whistler, and knee-breeches similar to those worn by Wilde and others.^[3] The title character, Patience, was made up and costumed to exactly resemble the subject of Luke Fildes's first successful picture, "Where are you going to, my pretty maid?"^[4]
Gilbert and Sullivan's partner, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte, was also the booking manager for Oscar Wilde. It was he who sent Wilde and his green carnation and knee-breeches to enlighten Americans on the English Aesthetic Movement and, incidentally, to build up the box office for ''Patience''. Wilde even agreed to attend one of the early performances of ''Patience'', with suitable publicity arranged by Helen Lenoir, who would become the second Mrs. D'Oyly Carte.
Gilbert originally conceived ''Patience'' as a tale of rivalry between two curates and of the doting ladies who attended upon them. The plot and even some of the dialogue was lifted straight out of Gilbert's Bab Ballad "The Rival Curates." During the course of writing the libretto, however, Gilbert took note of the criticism he had received for his very mild satirizing of a clergyman in ''The Sorcerer'', and looked about for an alternative pair of rivals. The aesthetes proved to be a gift to topsy-turvydom. Some remnants of the Bab Ballad version do survive in the final text of ''Patience.'' Bunthorne sings to Grosvenor, "Your style is much too sanctified—your cut is too canonical!" Later, Grosvenor agrees to change his lifestyle by saying, "I do it on compulsion!"—the very words used by the Reverend Hopley Porter in the Bab Ballad.

Roles

★ Colonel Calverly (''Officer of Dragoon Guards'') (bass-baritone)

★ Major Murgatroyd (''Officer of Dragoon Guards'') (baritone)

★ Lieut. The Duke of Dunstable (''Officer of Dragoon Guards'') (tenor)

★ Reginald Bunthorne (''a Fleshly Poet'') (comic baritone)

★ Archibald Grosvenor (''an Idyllic Poet'') (lyric baritone)

★ Mr. Bunthorne's Solicitor (Silent)

★ The Lady Angela (''Rapturous Maiden'') (mezzo-soprano)

★ The Lady Saphir (''Rapturous Maiden'') (mezzo-soprano or soprano)

★ The Lady Ella (''Rapturous Maiden'') (soprano)

★ The Lady Jane (''Rapturous Maiden'') (contralto)

★ Patience (''a Dairy Maid'') (soprano)

★ Chorus of Rapturous Maidens and Officers of Dragoon Guards

Synopsis

'Act I'
In front of Castle Bunthorne, a group of "lovesick maidens" are all in love with the aesthetic poet Bunthorne ("Twenty lovesick maidens we"). Lady Jane, the oldest and plainest of the ladies, informs them that Bunthorne, far from returning their affections, has his heart set on the simple milkmaid, Patience. Patience appears and confesses that she has never loved anyone; and she is thankful that love has not turned her miserable as it has them ("I cannot tell what this love may be"). Soon, the ladies' old sweethearts, the Dragoon Guards, appear ("The soldiers of our Queen"), led by Colonel Calverly ("If you Want a Receipt for that Popular Mystery"), Major Murgatroyd, and the droopy but immensely rich Lieutenant the Duke of Dunstable. They arrive ready to propose, only to discover their beloveds fawning over Bunthorne, who is in the throes of poetical composition, pretending to ignore the attention of the ladies thronging around him ("In a doleful train"). Bunthorne reads his poem and departs, while the officers are coldly rebuffed and mocked by the aesthetic ladies, who turn their noses up at the sight of the red and yellow uniforms. The Dragoons, reeling from the insult, depart ("When I first put this uniform on").
Bunthorne, left alone, confesses that his aestheticism is a sham, and mocks the movement's pretensions ("If you're anxious for to shine"). Soon, he reveals to Patience that, like her, he does not really like poetry, but she tells him that she could not love him. Later, Lady Angela, one of Bunthorne's admirers, explores with Patience the latter's childhood crush ("Long years ago"). Lady Angela rhapsodizes upon love as the one truly unselfish pursuit in the world. Impressed by this eloquence, Patience promises to fall in love at the earliest opportunity. That opportunity is provided by the arrival of Archibald Grosvenor, another aesthetic poet who turns out to be Patience's childhood love. He has grown up to be the infallible, widely-loved poet known as "Archibald the All-Right" ("Prithee, pretty maiden"). The two declare themselves in love but are brought up short by the realisation that as Grosvenor is a perfect being, for Patience to love him would be a selfish act, and therefore impossible; thus, they must part.
Bunthorne, heartbroken by Patience's rejection, has chosen to