From Alamy.com
It was first performed at the Opera Comique, London on 23rd April 1881 and it moved to the Savoy Theatre, which could seat 1,292 people, on the 10th October 1881. From this point on the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas would be known as the Savoy Operas. Carte named the theatre the Savoy after the 14C palace that once stood on the site. This palace was inhabited by John of Gaunt and the Dukes of Lancaster of the Wars of the Roses. The performance on the 10th October 1881 was the first theatrical production in the world to be lit entirely by electric light. There were 1,200 lights used and to power them were some large steam-engines placed on some vacant land near the theatre.
New Zealand Times 10th February 1882
The Observer 20th August 1881
It was the sixth operetta written by Gilbert and Sullivan of the fourteen they wrote together. It ran for a total of 578 performances. The operetta is a satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870/80s in England. The following is from the Victoria and Albert Museum website ‘this movement, was a reaction to the ugliness and materialism of the Industrial Age, by focusing instead of producing art that was beautiful rather than having a deeper meaning’. Because the movement championed aesthetic beliefs over moral or social aspects some felt that the movement was empty and self-indulgent. As Wikipedia explains Patience derides pretentiousness, hypocrisy, vanity, superficiality along with romantic love, military bluster and rural simplicity. A quote from Leslie Baily’s “The Gilbert and Sullivan Book” – ‘when Gilbert looked around in 1880-1 he found languid ladies and affected men at fashionable salons, he looked at Punch, in which the aesthetic craze was caricatured by George du Maurier’s drawings and he noted that the movement towards Beauty in daily life had swung to ridiculous extremes of ‘greenery-yallery’ fashions and medieval English posturing, all ridiculously mixed up with a vogue for Japanese fans and jars which had come from Paris to London and had turned upper-middle class England into something like an Oriental bazaar’.
Leslie Baily writes that Gilbert designed the costumes himself, buying the fabric at Liberty’s, a shop in London which specialised at the time in aesthetic robes and beads. As D’Oyly Carte said at the time, ’Patience does not ridicule the true aesthetic spirit, but only attacks the unmanly oddities which masquerade in its likeness’. Basically it is a satire about affectation. One must also consider that at the time Patience was written, the British were colonisers. Queen Victoria had become Empress of India. The soldiers depicted in Patience have scarlet costumes, contrasting with the pastel shades of the characters at the start of the operetta.
From “The Really Authentic Gilbert and Sullivan Performance Trust” programme performed at the Mayfair,Theatre, Dunedin from 4th - 11th September 2004.
The website to the Theater Monmouth website, ‘The society ladies in the village are mad for aesthetic poets but the poets are in love with Patience, the village milkmaid. The young ladies’ military suitors see no point to overblown verses but give it a try to win back the ladies’ hearts. Things are touch and go for a while but in the end, everyone lands a suitable partner, even if it is only a tulip or lily’.
Oscar Wilde was sent to the US on a lecture tour in 1882 by Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte (with his green carnation and knee-breeches) explaining the English aesthetic movement, the intention being to help popularise Patience’s American touring productions. It was revived in 1900, and at this time Gilbert was concerned about whether the aesthetic subject would still be enjoyed and appreciated considering it was no longer a current movement.
The music for Patience was written against the clock; the cast and Gilbert in rehearsal were left waiting for the newly written music from Sullivan and the publisher, Chappell, was waiting for the music so that the piano score would be ready for sale in shops the morning after the premiere. Patience made Sullivan and Gilbert very wealthy, Gilbert built a house in Harrington Gardens, five stories high with mullioned windows and carved stone.
The New Zealand Herald dated 11th June 1881 contains a review of opening performance of Patience in London. It is of the opinion that Sullivan’s music is not ‘strikingly original, altogether the music is rather disappointing’ although it does comment that some of the ballads ‘are extremely pretty’.
The Observer 2nd July 1881
It was first produced in Australia on the 26th November 1881 at the Theatre Royal in Sydney produced by J. C. Williamson. And it was first performed in Dunedin, New Zealand on the 27th February 1882. It was performed in Christchurch in March 1882 and there is a review in the Globe newspaper on the 30th March 1882. It discussed the fact that the production is lavish and that the singers/actors performed well. However, the article states that there was ‘a glaciality about the audience which must have rendered the work of those engaged in the production of the piece very much more difficult that it would otherwise have been, owing to the unresponsiveness of the audience’. It states that the music has a strong resemblance to the “Pirates of Penzance”. The reviewer has no criticism of the music. Another review in the Evening Post dated 19th April 1882 comments on the lavish production but states that ‘people go away with the idea that there is nothing to catch hold of, as it were, and yet they have a desire to see it all again’.
Otago Daily Times 10th December 1881
Below is from The Evening Star dated 18th February 1882.
By February 1882 there were 19 companies touring the United States playing Patience.
Wellington saw its first production on the 27th April 1882. A review in the evening Post dated 29th April 1882 states that the performance was a ‘triumphant success’. However the music is criticised ‘for it is utterly pretentious so far as the music is concerned, which is merely a string of light and quaint melodies, always harmonised gracefully, and with the skill of an accomplished master. The choruses are generally spirited and telling and a movement calling for special notice is the charming unaccompanied sextet, which, while strikingly simple in construction, is, nevertheless, quite worthy of the gifted composer of so many delightful part-songs. The reviewer feels that the libretto could stand as a play by itself without the music. It states ‘ it is impossible within our brief limits to give any adequate conception of the extraordinary variety and abundance of its wit, surprises and conceits’. Also praise is given for the mounting of the operetta, the sets and the costumes. All of the singers/actors are applauded.
New Zealand Times 3rd May 1882
It was first performed in Auckland on the 23rd May 1882. The Observer newspaper dated 17th June 1882 discussed the Williamson Opera Company terminating their Gilbert and Sullivan season. It states that “Pirates of Penzance” should have been performed more as ‘it seems to have hit the popular taste even better than “Patience” and we are inclined to think that the public are correct in their judgement. It may be that “Patience” is the cleverer of the two, but its cleverness lies principally in the keenness of its satire on a craze which is absolutely unknown in the colonies, and it is therefore to rely for success in a great measure on the music, which we unhesitatingly aver to be considerably inferior to what Sir Arthur Sullivan treated us to in the “Pirates”. At the end of the article it covers the financial results of the season in New Zealand, the Auckland receipts were in excess of Dunedin and Wellington and equalled those of Christchurch, which it points out, had the Exhibition at the same time. After finishing in Auckland, the company was off for Melbourne. Later in the year it was produced again in Auckland by a different company, the Tambour Major Company. Many provincial towns saw it produced too at the end of 1882 and into 1883. One such production in Wanganui in December 1882 was criticised for its high price of admission. One reviewer in the Wanganui Chronicle stated that ‘it cannot be said to have very high pretensions musically speaking’. Again, the sets and costumes were praised.
Daily Telegraph 27th November 1882
The West Coast Times dated 18th July 1882 has an article concerning the anniversary of the first performance of Patience at the Savoy Theatre the year before. Sir Arthur Sullivan conducted the orchestra; bouquets were presented to the ladies in all parts of the theatre, there was an enlarged chorus and new costumes. And ‘after the performance any member of the audience who was curious regarding the details of the electric lighting of the stage was permitted, on presenting a card, to pass behind the scenes’.
www.vam.ac.uk/articles/an-introduction-to-the-aesthetic-movement
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_(opera)
www.theateratmonmouth.org/gilbert-sullivans-musical-comedy-patience-next-up-at-tam