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Kent Cooper's Triviolanthe

(Trivia about Iolanthe)

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Arthur Sullivan Though among the gayest of Arthur Sullivan's scores, Iolanthe is connected with personal tragedy on his part. His mother had died the previous year. And as he conducted the premiere, he had just learned (that very day!) that his bankers had gone bankrupt, leaving him nearly penniless. Fortunately, the production ran for fourteen months, returning him to solvency.


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Iolanthe was the first G&S Operetta for which Sullivan actually composed the overture himself. Many of the others were compiled and arranged by assistants, using Sullivan's music and often with his input as to which tunes to use and how they should be treated.

CORRECTION:  Relying on Martyn Green, this page previously stated that Iolanthe's overture was the only one composed by Sullivan.  This was an error.  Our thanks to David Cantor and Marc Shepherd for setting us straight on this. Marc attributes six overtures to Sullivan:  Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, Utopia Limited,  and The Grand Duke.

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Arthur Sullivan usually conducted the premier performances, but the "regular" conductor, Alfred Cellier, took over for the rest of the run. At one performance of Iolanthe, Sullivan went into the theater to listen, and during the Overture he started to hum along. A nearby patron tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, but I came to hear Sullivan's music -- not yours."

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William S. Gilbert William S. Gilbert (who wrote the stories and song lyrics) was so nervous on all of the Operettas' opening nights that he rarely, if ever, actually attended the premieres. He wandered the streets moodily, usually returning (as he did for Iolanthe) just in time for the curtain calls at the end.


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Sullivan was knighted by Queen Victoria during the run of Iolanthe, in May of 1883. The knighthood was not for the Operettas, however, but rather "in recognition of your distinguished talents as a composer and of the services which you have rendered to the promotion of the art of music generally in this country." (Gilbert was not knighted then, though he was in 1907 by Edward VII.)

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Martyn Green Martyn Green (that famous player of roles like the Lord Chancellor) would have known and sung all the "patter songs" (rapid-fire, lots of words, etc.) that most of the Operettas have for the characters he played. He considered the Chancellor's nightmare song in Iolanthe to be "Probably the perfect prototype of a patter song. I say this because it is the only one of its length that I know that keeps going without pause almost to the end. And well I know it! There is hardly time to take a breath."


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Martyn Green said of the ballad "He loves!" (Iolanthe begging the Chancellor to let Strephon marry Phyllis): "Without a doubt, I think this is the most beautiful lyric Gilbert ever wrote. And Sullivan was with him every inch of the way in providing exquisite music."

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The end of Act I is the longest Finale, of musical material strung together uninterrupted by spoken dialogue, of any G&S Operetta.

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Iolanthe was the first G&S to premiere at the Savoy Theater, which D'Oyly-Carte built largely for doing G&S (and which was, incidentally, the first public building in England illuminated by electricity!). It was not, however, the first G&S to be performed there; Patience moved into the new theater about six months after its premiere at the Opera Comique.

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