Patience

Patience is a comic opera in two acts by W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911)[1] and Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900)[2]

While the work is generally referred to simply as Patience, it was originally named Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride.

The original text

The opera satirizes the aesthetic movement of the period and the numerous fads and pretentions of the time and was first performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, before moving to the Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881. Patience was the first theatrical production in the world to be lit entirely by electric light.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1890: Performed in the Exhibition Theatre, Cape Town, in January by The Edgar Perkins Lyric Opera Company , an opera company managed and directed by Edgar Perkins. The company included R.S. Gregg, E. le Hay, Dennis Coyne, Frank Wheeler, Harry Miller, Ada Bemister, Carrie Nelson, Harriet Wood, and Ella Bankhardt. Musical direction was by James Hyde.

1902-3: Performed in South Africa by the visiting D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as part of their repertoire of Gilbert and Sullivan works, presented over the course of two seasons.

1933: Staged by the Port Elizabeth Gilbert & Sullivan Society

1935: Staged by the Port Elizabeth Gilbert & Sullivan Society

1948: Staged by the Port Elizabeth Gilbert & Sullivan Society

1950: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

1954: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

1962: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

1973: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

1979: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

1993: Staged by the Cape Town Gilbert and Sullivan Society

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience_%28opera%29

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 389-390, 410-411, 424

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