Opera · Opera in English

Princess Ida

5 January 1884, Savoy Theatre, London

Arthur Sullivan · libretto by W. S. Gilbert

A princess betrothed in infancy has renounced men and founded a women's university behind the walls of Castle Adamant; her intended husband and two friends get in disguised as female undergraduates, are discovered, and the matter is settled by a combat between her three warrior brothers and the three intruders. Subtitled "Castle Adamant", it is the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera in three acts and the only one whose dialogue is in blank verse.

How to spot them

▸A women's university sealed against men, with a hundred girls and a gate nobody may pass
▸Three young men who climb the wall and put on academic robes as a disguise
▸A crabbed old king who boasts of being a genuine philanthropist and cannot understand why nobody likes him
▸Three armoured brothers who complain about the weight of their own armour
▸The only piece in the series in three acts, with dialogue in blank verse

Arias & moments — listen

"Would you know the kind of maid sets my heart aflame-a?" — a drinking song that gives away a disguise (1884)

Cyril, tipsy at luncheon, sings the kissing song and betrays the three intruders

Recording: H. Scott Russell · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am: I'm a genuine philanthropist — all other kinds are sham" (1884)

King Gama's self-portrait: he can't think why nobody is pleased with him, and the punishment devised for him is having nothing to grumble at

Recording: Arthur Sullivan (music) / W. S. Gilbert (libretto) / Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society Dunedin (performance) · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Oh, goddess wise that lovest light, keep thou her, fire of soul, in thrall" — an invocation to Minerva that opens the second act (1884)

The heroine's prayer to the goddess of wisdom before her lecture to the students

"We are warriors three, sons of Gama, Rex" — three brothers who state that their profession is the sword and their manners are not polished (1884)

Arac, Guron and Scynthius; in Act 3 they remove their armour piece by piece to 'This helmet, I suppose'

"Expressive glances shall be our lances" — three men in academic gowns pretend to be new students (1884)

Hilarion, Cyril and Florian resolve to keep up the masquerade

A women's college where a lecturer explains that man is nature's sole mistake, and the classics are taught with the coarse bits taken out (1884)

Lady Psyche and Lady Blanche's curriculum, Gilbert's dig at both sides of the women's-education argument

Quick-fire facts

•Opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884 and ran for 246 performances — modest by the standards of its neighbours.
•It is the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera in three acts, and the only one in which the spoken dialogue is blank verse.
•It is a reworking of Gilbert's own 1870 play The Princess, itself a 'respectful perversion' of Tennyson's 1847 narrative poem The Princess: A Medley.
•The last lines of the libretto are taken almost word for word from Tennyson.
•Sullivan conducted the first night while seriously ill and collapsed afterwards; his dissatisfaction during the run brought the partnership to the crisis that produced The Mikado.
•Characters: Princess Ida, Hilarion, King Hildebrand, King Gama, his sons Arac, Guron and Scynthius, and the dons Lady Blanche, Lady Psyche and Melissa.
•King Gama's punishment in the finale is to be given everything he wants, so that he has nothing left to grumble about.
•It is generally the least often performed of the regularly staged Savoy operas; its reputation was rescued by a 1922 revival at the Princes Theatre.
•Castle Adamant, the women's university of the title page, has become a shorthand for the whole piece.

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Sources

The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive — Princess Ida — Introduction
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Princess Ida: operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan
Arthur Jacobs — Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician