Gilbert and Sullivan’s Savoy Opera librettos have lasted into the 21st century. Gilbert wrote escapist stories accompanied
by Sullivan’s soaring dance music. Gilbert’s plots rely on impossibilities, his stories happen in a dream world, they are primed with death yet they dissolve in frivolity, relying on beheading, hanging and torture.The Mikado has a Lord High Executioner as its comedic lead; Ruddigore starts with a witch burning; Frederic, the hero of The Pirates of Penzance swears to hang everyone when they come of age, they escape because born on 29th February they never age!These Savoy
operas express the all conquering power of an island
empire presently in decline. Author and audience knew that England was supreme and its army and navy ruling an empire that stained one third of the globe red. Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore produces a Union Jack and the policeman in The Pirates of Penzance says ‘Yield in Queen Victoria’s name’, everyone kneels. Great Britain in Utopia Limited is a powerful, happy and blameless country, terrifying all foreign born rapscallions. Foreign dignitaries such as the Duke of Plazo-Toro and the Grand Duke of Pfennig-Halbpfennig appear ridiculous and cowardly. Gilbert modelled HMS Pinafore on HMS Victory. The elite in the British establishment were mocked because he was writing for an emerging and discerning middle class delighted to see their superiors lampooned. Gilbert’s conservatism is glaringly obvious in Princess Ida, the least known and performed opera, which ridicules the education of women, how the world has changed! Gilbert disliked Oscar Wilde’s pretentiousness which he parodied in Patience. Gilbert dispelled gloom and seriousness and gave life a chance with his poetic versatility glittering on every page.