Denmead Operatic Society - Archives

IOLANTHE
or
The Peer and the Peri
by
W.S.Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan

Dates	28th October - 1st November 1997
Producer	Petica Tedbury
Musical Director	Roger Symes
Venue	New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth

ABOUT IOLANTHE

We asked our audience to leave reality behind, for they were about to enter a world which is both magical and enchanting. Iolanthe is a delectable combination of political satire and fairy magic, with two sides - mortal and immortal - held in a unique balance, but resolved in love!

Originally entitled "Perola", it was not until the final rehearsal that the opera was renamed Iolanthe. Mr Gilbert did not attend the opening night, which was performed at the Savoy Theatre on 25th November 1882. Instead he chose to pace up and down the Thames Embankment, awaiting the comments of the audience and journalist critics. He need not have been concerned, for the papers of the day wrote "the author may congratulate himself on having opened up a fresh field.... A most brilliant political and legal parody."

As usual, Sullivan was late writing the musical score, and by the end of September 1882, had composed very little music for the opera. In a single night, he composed five songs and wrote the overture only three days before the first performance! His music delights audiences with a haunting Invocation; a surrealistic Nightmare song; a sentimental ballad; an entrancing love duet; a joyous and vivacious comedy waltz trio and martial pomp from the peers chorus who "Loudly let the trumpet bray."

Lively Choruses Entertain

"The story never threatens to engage the emotions, let alone disturb them. This satire on the House of Lords is cursory. The music is of that trite rhythmic kind that stays irritatingly on the lips. Yet Iolanthe remains on of the most popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Ah well, just one of life's little mysteries.

Denmead Operatic Society doesn't do too well for G, whose sung words often pass unheard and could be more ambitiously updated, but better for S, especially in the lively choruses. Producer Petica Tedbury has coped well with the limitastions of the Royal's temporary stage to create well-ordered movement. Vocally, David Bathurst as the silly-ass Tolloller, is impressively secure, Jeff Parkin is a suitably stentorian Private Willis and Patricia Stallard an assured Phyllis. Alan Dilworth, as the Lord Chancellor, is a graduate of the Rex Harrison school of singing - entertaining enough, but the patter songs don't quite come off.

Generally last night's performance grew in confidence as it went along, with musical director Roger Symes keeping tempi strong and getting mostly fluent orchestral playing." Mike Allen, The News 29/10/97

Iolanthe-00.gif (152537 bytes)

Programme cover design by Paul Stallard

STORY OF THE OPERA

Act I - An Arcadian Landscape

Act II - Palace Yard, Westminster

Twenty five years previous to the action of the opera, Iolanthe, a Fairy, had committed the capital crime of marrying a mortal. The Queen of the Fairies had commuted the death sentence to banishment for life - on condition the Iolanthe leave her husband without explanation, and never see him again. Her son, Strephon, has grown up a shepherd, half fairy and half mortal. Strephon loves Phyllis, a shepherdess who is also a Ward in Chancery. She returns his love, but knows nothing of his mixed origin.

At the beginning of the opera, the Queen is prevailed upon by the other Fairies to recall Iolanthe from exile. Strephon joins the glad reuinion and announces his intention of marrying Phyllis in spite of the Lord Chancellor (her guardian), who refuses to give his permission. The Queen approves of Strephon's plans and sets out to influence certain boroughs to elect Strephon to Parliament. Meanwhile, the entire House of Lords is enamoured of Phyllis, and they appeal to the Lord Chancellor to give her to whichever Peer she may select. The Lord Chancellor is also suffering pangs of love, but feels he has no legal right to assign Phyllis to himself. Phyllis declines to marry a Peer and, in vain, Strephon continues to please his case in court.

Iolanthe attempts to comfort her son, but Phyllis is horrified to see Strephon talking to a young woman and accuses him of unfaithfulness. Strephon's protest that he was talking to his mother is recieved with ridicule, and Phyllis declares that she will marry either Lord Mountararat or Lord Tolloller, her two most persistent admirers. Strephon appeals to his Fairy aunts for help, and the Fairy Queen decides to punish the Peers by sending Strephon to Parliament and influencing both Houses to pass any Bills he may introduce.

Strephon's innovations in Parliament culminate in a bill to throw the peerage open to competitative examination. The Peers, seeing their doom approaching, appeal to the Fairies to desist. The Fairies have fallen in love with the Peers and would like to oblige, but it is too late to stop Strephon. The Queen reproaches her subjects for their feminine weakness; she acknowledges her own weakness for a sentry, Private Willis, but asserts that she has her emotions under control.

Lord Mountararat and Lord Tolloller discover that if either marries Phyllis, family tradition will require the loser to kill his successful rival; both therefore renounce Phyllis in the name of friendship. The Lord Chancellor, after considerable struggle, pleads his own cause before himself and convinces himself that the law will allow him to marry her.

Meanwhile, Strephon makes Phyllis understand that his mother is a Fairy, and thet are reconciled. They persuade Iolanthe to appeal to the Lord Chancellor. To make this appeal effective, she reveals her identity to him - her husband - and thus again incurs the penaly of death. The other fairies however, have married their respective Peers and annound to the Queen they have all incurred the same sentence.

The Lord Chancellor, however, discovers a unique way of changing the law and all mortals present are then transformed into Fairies to live happily ever after in Fairyland, thus leaving the House of Lords to be replenshied according to intelligence rather than birth!

Programme notes by Patricia Stallard

PICTURES FROM THE SHOW

Click on a picture to enlarge it




			T

Last updated: 18 March 2009 21:36:58