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Portrait of Patience

Opera · Opera in English

Patience

23 April 1881, Opera Comique, London; transferred to the Savoy Theatre, 10 October 1881

Arthur Sullivan · libretto by W. S. Gilbert

Twenty lovesick maidens have abandoned their dragoon officers to droop after a fleshly poet, who is himself in love with a dairymaid who cannot see the point of him; when a rival idyllic poet appears, the maidens transfer their raptures en masse. Subtitled "Bunthorne's Bride", it skewers the Aesthetic Movement of Wilde, Swinburne and Whistler, and it was the piece that opened the Savoy Theatre — the first public building in the world lit throughout by electricity.

How to spot them

  • ▸A castle exterior and a glade; a chorus of maidens in medieval-Pre-Raphaelite drapery
  • ▸A poet who confesses in soliloquy that his aestheticism is a sham got up to attract attention
  • ▸Officers of the 35th Dragoon Guards who try to out-aesthetic him in velvet and sunflowers
  • ▸A lily carried down Piccadilly; 'greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery' art
  • ▸Subtitled 'Bunthorne's Bride'

Arias & moments — listen

"If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line, as a man of culture rare" (1881)

Bunthorne's patter song, prefaced by his admission 'Am I alone and unobserved? I am!' — the whole pose is a sham

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"If you want a receipt for that popular mystery, known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon" (1881)

Colonel Calverley's catalogue song, a recipe made of Bismarck, Lord Waterford, Victor Emmanuel and Beadle of Burlington

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Twenty lovesick maidens we" — the opening chorus of rapturous young ladies pining in medieval costume (1881)

Angela, Saphir, Ella and Lady Jane lead them; they have jilted the Dragoon Guards for a poet

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"A magnet hung in a hardware shop, and all around was a loving crop of scissors and needles, nails and knives" (1881)

Archibald Grosvenor's parable of a magnet that loved a silver churn — he is cursed with irresistible beauty

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Prithee, pretty maiden, prithee tell me true" — a courtship duet in mock-pastoral style (1881)

'Hey, but he's doleful, willow willow waly!' — the dairymaid meets her childhood sweetheart, now a poet

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Am I alone and unobserved?" — a soliloquy in which an aesthete admits he does not like the things he professes to like (1881)

'I am not fond of uttering platitudes in stained-glass attitudes'

"When I go out of door" — two rival poets compare their greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, foot-in-the-grave young man styles (1881)

The Act 2 duet; one of them is about to be forced to become an everyday young man

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Quick-fire facts

  • •Opened at the Opera Comique on 23 April 1881 and transferred on 10 October 1881 to the new Savoy Theatre, running 578 performances in all.
  • •The Savoy was the first public building in the world lit throughout by electricity — about 1,200 Swan incandescent lamps, powered by a generator on open land nearby.
  • •The stage itself was still gas-lit at first; it was fully electrified during a performance on 28 December 1881, the first theatre stage anywhere lit entirely by electric light.
  • •Gilbert first drafted the plot as a quarrel between two rival curates, from his Bab Ballad 'The Rival Curates', and switched them to poets to avoid offending the clergy.
  • •Reginald Bunthorne is 'a Fleshly Poet' and Archibald Grosvenor 'an Idyllic Poet'; the targets include Swinburne, Rossetti, Whistler and Oscar Wilde.
  • •Richard D'Oyly Carte sent the young Oscar Wilde on a lecture tour of America in 1882, partly to prepare audiences for the touring production.
  • •The military characters are the Duke of Dunstable, Colonel Calverley and Major Murgatroyd of the 35th Dragoon Guards.
  • •Lady Jane, the oldest and stoutest of the maidens, accompanies her Act 2 song on a cello.
  • •Despite the subtitle, Bunthorne gets no bride: the dairymaid marries Grosvenor, Lady Jane takes the Duke, and the poet is left alone with his lily at the final curtain.

Drill it — 9 cards

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