Gilbert & Sullivan’s Patience

Madison Savoyards presents Patience, an operatic ode to the silliness
of fads, fashion, and Art for Art’s sake, imbued with the brilliant
music of Arthur Sullivan and biting wit of W.S. Gilbert.  Singers and
orchestra take the stage of the Bartell Theatre in downtown Madison
August 2 through 11 to perform this rarely produced, poetic and
aesthetic titillating tale.

In Patience, Madison Savoyards continues to present the core of the
Gilbert & Sullivan corpus, while also finding content that speaks to
audiences today. A show that invokes themes of the vain, pretentious,
and superficial, as well as of simplicity and love, MSL’s Patience
will shed an entertaining and “new light” on our contemporary world.
Satire can be a rapier, cutting into the pretenses of society — in the
20th century sometimes a weapon in the class struggle. The G&S operas
did (and still do!) offer a concerted pushback against the
self-important authority figures who were their constant targets. A
healthy skepticism laced with broad humor can go a long way toward
keeping public officials honest and above-board. Typical of a G&S
work, hilarity, contradictions, and topsy-turvy reversals ensue, all
set to charming melodies, the requisite patter songs, duets and
choruses.