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La huitième collaboration de Gilbert et Sullivan, "Princess Ida", ouvrit ses portes le 5 janvier 1884 au Savoy Theatre pour 246 représentations. Pour créer le livret, Gilbert s'est tourné vers une pièce qu’il avait écrite en 1870, intitulée "The Princess", et réutilisa une grande partie du dialogue de cette pièce. Il conserva sa structure en trois actes, mais il écrivit de nouvelles paroles pour Sullivan. Sullivan fournit une partie de la meilleure musique qu’il ait jamais écrite pour le Savoy.

La pièce et l’opéra s’inspirent des personnages et des incidents du poème narratif en vers vierges de Tennyson, The Princess, publié en 1847.

Acte I

There is an air of expectancy at King Hildebrand's Castle, for it is the day on which Princess Ida, the daughter of King Gama, should appear to meet Prince Hilarion, to whom she was betrothed twenty years before, when she was one, and he only two, years old. Soldiers and Courtiers are discovered scanning the landscape, and debating as to whether the Princess will come.

King Hildebrand appears, and asks if Gama has yet been sighted, adding that if he does not come before sunset, bringing the Princess with him, "there's war between King Gama and ourselves." He hates the coming interview with Gama, who is twisted in body and warped in mind, his one pleasure being to wound with his spiteful tongue.

Gama is seen in the distance, but is apparently without the Princess. Hildebrand, puzzled, bids the best and the worst to be brought . . . the richest robes, the coarsest prison dress, for, as Gama brings the Princess or brings her not, so shall he have "Much more than everything, much less than nothing."

Hilarion enters and sings in anticipation of his meeting with Ida. He is, however, uneasy because he has heard that she had forsworn the world, and, with a band of women, shut herself up within a lonely country house, there to study stern philosophies. His father tells him that a reasonable man would be reconciled to the loss of such a wife, but Hilarion refuses to be thus advised.

The sons of King Gama approach, and, having entered, sing of their valour. Gama is with them, and introduces himself in a song that reveals his spiteful nature, although, obtusely enough, he "can't think why" people should say he is a
disagreeable man!

After an exchange of anything but compliments, Gama informs Hildebrand that he has not brought the Princess, who refuses to leave her "University," having renounced mankind. In this retreat, even the crowing is done by an "accomplished hen."

Gama tells the young men that, if they "humbly beg and humbly sue, most politely," the Princess may deign to look upon them. But Hildebrand retorts that, while they will make the attempt, Gama shall remain as hostage, and"should Hilarion disappear, we will hang you, never fear, 'most politely'." Hilarion and his friends determine to try their fortune, Gama and his three sons being kept as hostages against their safe return.

Acte II

In the gardens of Castle Adamant, Princess Ida's country home, the graduates of the Women's University are discovered seated at the feet of Lady Psyche, the Professor of Humanities. Their song is interrupted by the entry of Lady Blanche (Professor of Abstract Science), who proceeds to read the "list of punishments," after which Princess Ida approaches. She is welcomed as "Mighty maiden with a mission" and delivers her inaugural address, which takes the form of a tirade against Man, following which the curriculum for the day is reviewed. Lady Blanche is to lecture on Abstract Philosophy, under three heads . . . "The Is, the Might Be, and the Must."

The Princess and the maidens pass on, leaving Lady Blanche to reflection and soliloquy, from which it is quite evident that she considers Lady Blanche would make a far better Principal than the Princess.

She goes off, and Hilarion and his two friends are seen climbing the wall. Having successfully negotiated the broken bottles adorning the top, they are highly diverted at having reached the jealouslyguarded precincts without detection. They find some academic robes left by the maidens, and these make such an effective disguise, that they decide, on seeing the Princess approaching, to pose as three wellborn maidens who wish to join the University.

She questions them and they manage to steer sufficiently clear of pitfalls to satisfy her as to their suitability. Together they lament the hollow pleasures of the world, and the Princess leaves them to meditate on the extraordinary fix into which they have been landed. Amid much merriment they decide to see the thing through, but their mirth is checked by the entrance of Lady Psyche, who is Florian's sister. There is only one way out and that is to let her into the secret.

This they do, and she informs them that the penalty, if they are discovered, is death. She is, nevertheless, very pleased to see them and tells them more about the objects of the University. She points her argument with the story of "The Ape and the Lady."

Meanwhile, Melissa, another of the girl graduates, enters unobserved and overhears them. She is, however, so fascinated on beholding a man for the first time, that she readily agrees to keep the secret. A closer inspection begins to shake the girls' faith in the principles enunciated by Ida and, in the quintet that follows, the change of view is very pronounced. Melissa is left alone, and is presently joined by Lady Blanche, her mother, who has been attracted by the singing. She remarks how odd it is that of the three new "girls" two should be tenors, and one a baritone. Her suspicions are confirmed when she picks up the reticule dropped by one of them and finds that it contains not only scissors and needles, but . . . cigars! Melissa pleads with Lady Blanche, and, knowing the latter's jealousy of Princess Ida, reminds her that if she furthers Hilarion's scheme, Ida will marry him, and leave Blanche to "rule the roast."

When Lady Blanche has gone, Melissa sees Florian and urges him to fly. He is about to do so, taking her with him, when the luncheon bell is heard, and the Princess with Hilarion, Cyril, the Staff and Students, appear; also "Daughters of the Plough," bearing luncheon. Having heard that the three new students know the Court of King Hildebrand, the Princess, although affecting indifference, makes sly inquiries as to his son, Hilarion. The disguised youth answers cleverly, but unfortunately Cyril is taking too much wine, and after various rather dangerous interruptions, bursts into the famous "Kissing Song." It is at once discovered that they are men.

The Princess, in panic, runs towards the rustic bridge that crosses the stream flowing through the grounds. Hilarion follows, endeavoring to explain; the Princess misses her footing and falls into the water. Hilarion springs in after her and brings her safely to shore, amid the plaudits of the assembled company. Ida, however, is furious at the trick which has been played and orders the arrest of the three young men, which command is carried out by "The Daughters of the Plough." Hilarion is bound, and the three are marched off. At this moment Melissa rushes in and tells the Princess that an armed band is without the Castle walls, demanding admittance in the name of King Hildebrand. As she speaks, the gate is battered down, and soldiers rush in; with them are the three sons of King Gama in chains. Hildebrand follows and tells the Princess that he has come to claim fulfillment of the vow which was made when she was a child, and that if she refuses, he will raze her castle to the ground. To the King's threat the three brothers, Arac, Guron and Scynthius add their entreaties, for Hildebrand has promised them that if he fails in his quest they will most certainly be hanged.

He gives Ida twentyfour hours for her answer. The Act closes with the Princess hurling defiance at the invader.

Acte III

The Outer Walls of the Courtyard at Castle Adamant The Princess has decided to fight, and Melissa, Sacharissa and the ladies are assembled, armed with battleaxes. The Princess enters, attended by Blanche and Psyche, and issues her instructions. Unfortunately, her theories break down in practice, and not one of the ladies is willing to perform the duties allotted to her. For example, Sacharissa is required to be the surgeon, but she cannot bear the thought of cutting off real live legs and arms. The fusiliers have not brought their rifles because they "might go off," the band do not feel well and are therefore not present.

Chloe and all the ladies enter and announce the approach of Ida's father, King Gama, and her brothers. Gama explains that Hildebrand is loth to war with women, and he has therefore sent the Princess's brothers to fight for her against Hilarion and his two friends. Gama tells Ida his punishment and the tortures he has endured, which consisted of having "nothing whatever to grumble at"; to his warped nature this being the worst that could be conceived. Ida is so moved by the tale of woe that she agrees to the contest taking place. Disillusioned, she sings of the failure of her ambitions. The gates are opened and soldiers with the three sons of Gama enter.

Hilarion, Florian, and Cyril are led in by the "Daughters of the Plough." They are still bound and wear their academic robes. Gama finds food for his mordant wit in their appearance, and goads them on for the fight. The fight takes place, Hilarion and his friends being victorious. The Princess begs them to stay their hands. She asks Lady Blanche if she can with dignity resign her post, in which case will she (Lady Blanche) take her place? This, of course, is just what Lady Blanche wants, and she takes the opportunity to indulge in a little abstract philosophy.

So the Princess yields to Hilarion, Lady Psyche to Cyril, and Melissa to Florian. Lady Blanche is left, having achieved her heart's desire to be the principal of the "University." She promises the other three that they shall return to their former positions should they ever desire to do so, and the opera ends in general joy.

Génèse

Princess Ida is based on Tennyson's serio-comic narrative poem of 1847, The Princess: A Medley. Gilbert had written a blank verse musical farce burlesquing the same material in 1870 called The Princess. He reused a good deal of the dialogue from this earlier play in the libretto of Princess Ida. He also retained Tennyson's blank verse style and the basic story line about a heroic princess who runs a women's college and the prince who loves her. He and his two friends infiltrate the college disguised as female students. Gilbert wrote entirely new lyrics for Princess Ida, since the lyrics to his 1870 farce were written to previously existing music by Offenbach, Rossini and others.
Tennyson's poem was written, in part, in response to the founding of Queen's College, London, the first college of women's higher education, in 1847. When Gilbert wrote The Princess in 1870, women's higher education was still an innovative, even radical concept. Girton College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge, was established in 1869. However, by the time Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated on Princess Ida in 1883, a women's college was a more established concept. Westfield College, the first college to open with the aim of educating women for University of London degrees, had opened in Hampstead in 1882. Thus, women's higher education was in the news in London, and Westfield is cited as a model for Gilbert's Castle Adamant.
Increasingly viewing his work with Gilbert as unimportant, beneath his skills and repetitious, Sullivan had intended to resign from the partnership with Gilbert and Richard D'Oyly Carte after Iolanthe, but after a recent financial loss, he concluded that his financial needs required him to continue writing Savoy operas. Therefore, in February 1883, with Iolanthe still playing strongly at the Savoy Theatre, Gilbert and Sullivan signed a new five-year partnership agreement to create new operas for Carte upon six months' notice. He also gave his consent to Gilbert to continue with the adaptation of The Princess as the basis for their next opera. Later that spring, Sullivan was knighted by Queen Victoria and the honour was announced in May at the opening of the Royal College of Music. Although it was the operas with Gilbert that had earned him the broadest fame, the honour was conferred for his services to serious music. The musical establishment, and many critics, believed that Sullivan's knighthood should put an end to his career as a composer of comic opera – that a musical knight should not stoop below oratorio or grand opera. Having just signed the five-year agreement, Sullivan suddenly felt trapped.
By the end of July 1883, Gilbert and Sullivan were revising drafts of the libretto for Ida.[9] Sullivan finished some of the composition by early September when he had to begin preparations for his conducting duties at the triennial Leeds Festival, held in October. In late October, Sullivan turned his attentions back to Ida, and rehearsals began in November. Gilbert was also producing his one-act drama, Comedy and Tragedy, and keeping an eye on a revival of his Pygmalion and Galatea at the Lyceum Theatre by Mary Anderson's company. In mid-December, Sullivan bade farewell to his sister-in-law Charlotte, the widow of his brother Fred, who departed with her young family to America, never to return. Sullivan's oldest nephew, Herbert, stayed behind in England as his uncle's ward, and Sullivan threw himself into the task of orchestrating the score of Princess Ida. As he had done with Iolanthe, Sullivan wrote the overture himself, rather than assigning it to an assistant as he did in the case of most of his operas.

Production

Princess Ida is the only Gilbert and Sullivan work with dialogue entirely in blank verse and the only one of their works in three acts (and the longest opera to that date). The piece calls for a larger cast, and the soprano title role requires a more dramatic voice than the earlier works. The American star Lillian Russell was engaged to create the title role of Princess Ida, but Gilbert did not believe that she was dedicated enough, and when she missed a rehearsal, she was dismissed. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's usual female lead, Leonora Braham, a light lyric soprano, nevertheless moved up from the part of Lady Psyche to assume the title role. Rosina Brandram got her big break when Alice Barnett became ill and left the company for a time, taking the role of Lady Blanche and becoming the company's principal contralto.
The previous Savoy opera, Iolanthe, closed after 398 performances on 1 January 1884, the same day that Sullivan composed the last of the musical numbers for Ida. Despite grueling rehearsals over the next few days, and suffering from exhaustion, Sullivan conducted the opening performance on 5 January 1884 and collapsed from exhaustion immediately afterwards. The reviewer for the Sunday Times wrote that the score of Ida was "the best in every way that Sir Arthur Sullivan has produced, apart from his serious works.... Humour is almost as strong a point with Sir Arthur... as with his clever collaborator...." The humour of the piece also drew the comment that Gilbert and Sullivan's work "has the great merit of putting everyone in a good temper." The praise for Sullivan's effort was unanimous, though Gilbert's work received some mixed notices.

Aftermath

Sullivan's close friend, composer Frederic Clay, had suffered a serious stroke in early December 1883 that ended his career. Sullivan, reflecting on this, his own precarious health and his desire to devote himself to more serious music, informed Richard D'Oyly Carte on 29 January 1884 that he had determined "not to write any more 'Savoy' pieces." Sullivan fled the London winter to convalesce in Monte Carlo as seven provincial tours (one with a 17-year-old Henry Lytton in the chorus) and the U.S. production of Ida set out.
As Princess Ida began to show signs of flagging early on, Carte sent notice, on 22 March 1884, to both Gilbert and Sullivan under the five-year contract, that a new opera would be required in six months' time.[20] Sullivan replied that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself." Gilbert was surprised to hear of Sullivan's hesitation and had started work on a new opera involving a plot in which people fell in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge – a plot that Sullivan had previously rejected. Gilbert wrote to Sullivan asking him to reconsider, but the composer replied on 2 April that he had "come to the end of my tether" with the operas: “...I have been continually keeping down the music in order that not one [syllable] should be lost.... I should like to set a story of human interest & probability where the humorous words would come in a humorous (not serious) situation, & where, if the situation were a tender or dramatic one the words would be of similar character."
Gilbert was much hurt, but Sullivan insisted that he could not set the "lozenge plot." In addition to the "improbability" of it, it was too similar to the plot of their 1877 opera, The Sorcerer, and was too complex a plot. Sullivan returned to London, and, as April wore on, Gilbert tried to rewrite his plot, but he could not satisfy Sullivan. The parties were at a stalemate, and Gilbert wrote, "And so ends a musical & literary association of seven years' standing – an association of exceptional reputation – an association unequalled in its monetary results, and hitherto undisturbed by a single jarring or discordant element." However, by 8 May 1884, Gilbert was ready to back down, writing, "...am I to understand that if I construct another plot in which no supernatural element occurs, you will undertake to set it? ... a consistent plot, free from anachronisms, constructed in perfect good faith & to the best of my ability." The stalemate was broken, and on 20 May, Gilbert sent Sullivan a sketch of the plot to The Mikado.
A particularly hot summer in London did not help ticket sales for Princess Ida and forced Carte to close the theatre during the heat of August. The piece ran for a comparatively short 246 performances, and for the first time since 1877, the opera closed before the next Savoy opera was ready to open. Princess Ida was not revived in London until 1919. Some of these events are dramatised in the 1999 film Topsy-Turvy.

Overture (includes "We are warriors three" and "Minerva! oh, hear me")

Acte I

1. "Search throughout the panorama" (Florian and Chorus)
2. "Now hearken to my strict command" (Hildebrand and Chorus)
3. "Today we meet" (Hilarion)
4. "From the distant panorama" (Chorus)
5. "We are warriors three" (Arac, Guron, Scynthius and Chorus)
6. "If you give me your attention" (Gama)
7. Finale Act I (Gama, Hildebrand, Cyril, Hilarion, Florian and Chorus)
"P'raps if you Address the Lady"
"Expressive glances"
"For a month to dwell in a dungeon cell"

Acte II

8. "Towards the empyrean heights" (Lady Psyche, Melissa, Sacharissa and Chorus of Girls)
9. "Mighty maiden with a mission" (Chorus of Girls)
10. "Minerva! oh, hear me!" ... "Oh, goddess wise" (Princess)
10a."And thus to Empyrean Heights" (Princess and Chorus)
11. "Come, mighty Must" (Lady Blanche)1
12. "Gently, gently" (Cyril, Hilarion and Florian)
13. "I am a maiden, cold and stately" (Cyril, Hilarion and Florian)
14. "The world is but a broken toy" (Princess, Cyril, Hilarion and Florian)
15. "A lady fair, of lineage high" (Psyche with Cyril, Hilarion and Florian)2
16. "The woman of the wisest wit" (Psyche, Melissa, Cyril, Hilarion and Florian)
17. "Now wouldn't you like to rule the roast" (Melissa and Blanche)3
18. "Merrily ring the luncheon bell" (Blanche, Cyril and Chorus of Girls)
19. "Would you know the kind of maid?" (Cyril)
20. Finale Act II (Princess, Hildebrand, Melissa, Psyche, Blanche, Cyril, Hilarion, Florian, Arac, Guron, Scynthius and Chorus)
"Oh, joy! our chief is saved"
"Whom thou hast chained must wear his chain"
"Walls and fences scaling"
"Some years ago, no doubt you know"
"We may remark, though nothing can dismay us"
"To yield at once to such a foe with shame were rife"
1 Starting in the 1920s, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company traditionally deleted this song.

2As musical director, Harry Norris was responsible for adding prominent horn parts to the accompaniment to "A Lady Fair". They were expunged by Malcolm Sargent but subsequently restored by Royston Nash in the 1970s. These are customarily referred to as the ‘Norris’ horn parts, though they may have been written by Geoffrey Toye.

3 The first line of this song is often erroneously sung as "Now wouldn't you like to rule the roost" instead of "roast" (rhymes with "clear the coast" in the next couplet). This typographical error appeared in early vocal scores and still appears in a current Chappell vocal score edition, although some scores have corrected it.

Acte III

21. "Death to the invader" (Melissa and Chorus of Girls)
22. "Whene'er I spoke" (King Gama with Chorus of Girls)4
23. "I built upon a rock" (Princess)
24. "When anger spreads his wing" (Chorus of Girls and Soldiers)
25. "This helmet, I suppose" (Arac with Guron, Scynthius and Chorus)
26. Chorus during the fight, "This is our duty plain" (Chorus)
27. "With joy abiding" [Reprise of "Expressive glances"] (Ensemble)