I can't tell you how pleased I am to be playing the Lord Chancellor in this Operetta. Ever since I first became familiar with Iolanthe over twenty years ago, I have hoped someday to get a chance to play this role; it is literally a dream come true for me, and I am deeply grateful to Jennifer and Cameron for giving me this opportunity.
Also since I first got to know it well, Iolanthe has been my favorite Gilbert & Sullivan Operetta. I have never understood why it isn't better known, and have always considered it to be just as funny, and to have just as good music, as any of the more popular ones. So, hoping that it may help the rest of you appreciate it as much as I do, I offer this little "learning aid."
The "Triviolanthe" (Trivia about Iolanthe) section contains some interesting tid-bits about the show. The "Iolanthicon" (Iolanthe lexicon) contains definitions of (and occasionally trivia about) any words or phrases I found that I thought people might not know (leaving out a few that are virtually defined right in the script).
The "stars" of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which originally produced G&S's Operettas and continued in operation until rather recently, were the men who played all those middle-aged-or-older baritone comic lead characters [Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance, Sir Joseph Porter (the "Ruler of the Queen's Nay-vee") in H.M.S. Pinafore, etc., and in Iolanthe, the Lord Chancellor]. One of the most famous of these was Martyn Green, who performed these roles through roughly the second quarter of the 20th Century. He published an annotated collection of complete libretti, with introductions and many marginal explanatory notes. Most Triviolanthe information is quoted (or paraphrased) from his commentary, plus some other little sources I had available.
Iolanthicon entries followed by "[O.E.D.]" are from the Oxford English Dictionary, which is British and exhaustive, and (in the edition I have) nearly contemporaneous with Iolanthe's creation. Those followed by "[M.G.]" are from Martyn Green's commentary. Unattributed ones are from ordinary dictionaries, general knowledge, miscellaneous sources, and (sometimes) a little bit of guesswork. They're alphabetical, but if you want to know where they occur in the script, I might be able to remember and tell you.
- Kent