page_title: Patience (opera)
section_title: Production history
hierarchical_section_title: Patience (opera) / Production history
caption_attribution_description: English: 1882 photo of Lillian Russell in the Bijou Opera House production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience Português: A cantora Lillian Russell, na ópera Patience, em 1882
context_page_description: Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera is a satire on the aesthetic movement of the 1870s and '80s in England and, more broadly, on fads, superficiality, vanity, hypocrisy and pretentiousness; it also satirises romantic love, rural simplicity and military bluster.
  First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, Patience moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the world to be lit entirely by electric light. Henceforth, the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas would be known as the Savoy Operas, and both fans and performers of Gilbert and Sullivan would come to be known as "Savoyards."
  Patience was the sixth operatic collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan. It ran for a total of 578 performances, which was seven more than the authors' earlier work, H.M.S. Pinafore, and the second longest run of any work of musical theatre up to that time, after the operetta Les Cloches de Corneville.
context_section_description: The original run of Patience in London, split across two theatres, was the second longest of the Gilbert and Sullivan series, eclipsed only by The Mikado. The original sets were designed by John O'Connor. Its first London revival was in 1900, making it the last of the revivals for which all three partners (Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte) were alive. At that time, Gilbert admitted some doubts as to whether the æsthetic subject would still be appreciated, years after the fad had died out. Gilbert wrote to Sullivan after the premiere of this revival (which the composer was too ill to attend), "The old opera woke up splendidly."
  In the British provinces, Patience played – either by itself, or in repertory – continuously from summer 1881 to 1885, then again in 1888. It rejoined the touring repertory in 1892 and was included in every season until 1955–56.  New costumes were designed in 1907 by Percy Anderson, in 1918 by Hugo Rumbold and in 1928 by George Sheringham, who also designed a new set that year. New designs by Peter Goffin debuted in 1957. The opera returned to its regular place in the repertory, apart from a break in 1962–63. Late in the company's history, it toured a reduced set of operas to reduce costs. Patience had its final D'Oyly Carte performances in April 1979 and was left out of the company's last three seasons of touring.
  In America, Richard D'Oyly Carte mounted a production at the Standard Theatre in September 1881, six months after the London premiere.  One of the "pirated" American productions of Patience starred the young Lillian Russell.  In Australia, the opera's first authorised performance was on 26 November 1881 at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, produced by J. C. Williamson.
  Patience entered the repertory of the English National Opera in 1969, in an acclaimed production with Derek Hammond-Stroud as Bunthorne. The production was later mounted in Australia and was preserved on video as part of the Brent Walker series. In 1984, ENO also took the production on tour to the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York City.
  The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in Gilbert's lifetime:
caption: Lillian Russell as Patience at the Bijou Opera House in New York, 1882
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