D'Oyly Carte Opera: Patience (Complete Recording of the Score) 2CD

The sixth in the long line of theatrical collaborations between the comic writer, William Schwenk Gilbert (1836 - 1911) and the composer, Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842 - 1900), Patience is the first true Savoy Opera. Derived from the name of the theatre built by impressario Richard D’Oyly Carte as a permanent home for the works of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership, the generic title, Savoy Opera, has come to encompass their entire joint operatic output. To Patience, however, went the distinction of being the first piece to be staged at the superbly appointed new theatre in the Strand.

Having opened at the Opéra Comique Theatre on 23 April, 1881, the operetta was transferred to the new Savoy Theatre where it received what almost amounted to a second première on 10 October. That night Sullivan conducted a production lavishly re-mounted with new scenery and costumes and enhanced by a larger chorus. Perhaps the most novel feature of the evening, however, was the innovative use of electricity to illuminate the auditorium. Lit in its uncustomary brightness was an audience of outstanding brilliance, among the most outstanding luminaries of which was Oscar Wilde, whose aesthetic stance became widely regarded as an inspiration for Gilbert’s libretto.

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