FULL PRINCESS IDA (Gilbert&Sullivan) Simsbury CT 1993 Simsbury Light Opera Company
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Princess Ida or, Castle Adamant
- Composer: Arthur Sullivan
- Libretto: W. S. Gilbert Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut
- Recorded: March 27, 1993
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Jennifer Seiger, David Kennedy, Lawrence Constance, Ken Kousen, Jonathan L Baldwin, Roger Loucks, Mark McNally, Sharon D Gordon, Julie Poole, Sara A Lindberg, Renee Molnar, Patti Colburn
- Conductor: Wayne Pierce
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Ron Luchsinger
- Costume Designer: Catherine Savino
- Lighting Designer: R A Yurko
Information about the Recording
- Format: Unknown
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, gensubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Quote from Wikipedia: Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, for a run of 246 performances. The piece concerns a princess who founds a women’s university and teaches that women are superior to men and should rule in their stead. The prince to whom she had been married in infancy sneaks into the university, together with two friends, with the aim of collecting his bride. They disguise themselves as women students, but are discovered, and all soon face a literal war between the sexes.
The opera satirizes feminism, women’s education and Darwinian evolution, which were controversial topics in conservative Victorian England. Princess Ida is based on a narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson called The Princess (1847), and Gilbert had written a farcical musical play, based on the poem, in 1870. He lifted much of the dialogue of Princess Ida directly from his 1870 farce. It is the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera in three acts and the only one with dialogue in blank verse.
By Savoy Opera standards, Princess Ida was not considered a success due, in part, to a particularly hot summer in London in 1884, and it was not revived in London until 1919. Nevertheless, the piece is performed regularly today by both professional and amateur companies, although not as frequently as the most popular of the Savoy operas.
