Editing Savoy opera (section)

{{short description|Opera genre}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}}
[[File:Souvenir program for the première production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience - Cover.jpg |right|thumb|1881 Programme for ''[[Patience (opera)|Patience]]'']]
'''Savoy opera''' was a style of [[comic opera]] that developed in [[Victorian England]] in the late 19th century, with [[W. S. Gilbert]] and [[Arthur Sullivan]] as the original and most successful practitioners.  The name is derived from the [[Savoy Theatre]], which [[impresario]] [[Richard D'Oyly Carte]] built to house the [[Gilbert and Sullivan]] pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of the non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas (in both senses) were seminal influences on the creation of the modern [[Musical theatre|musical]].

Gilbert, Sullivan, Carte and other [[Victorian era]] British composers, librettists and producers,<ref>Such as [[German Reed Entertainments|German Reeds]], [[Frederic Clay]], [[Edward Solomon]] and [[F. C. Burnand]]</ref> as well as the contemporary British press and literature, called works of this kind "comic operas" to distinguish their content and style from that of the often risqué continental European [[operetta]]s that they wished to displace. Most of the published literature on Gilbert and Sullivan since that time refers to these works as "Savoy Operas", "[[comic operas]]", or both.<ref>See, e. g., Crowther, Stedman, Bailey, Bradley, Ainger and Jacobs. Gilbert & Sullivan described 13 of their 14 collaborations as "operas" or "operatic":
*''Thespis'': an "Operatic Extravaganza"
*''The Sorcerer'': a "Modern Comic Opera"
*''H.M.S. Pinafore'': a "Nautical Comic Opera"
*''The Pirates of Penzance'': a "Melo-Dramatic Opera"
*''Patience'': an "Aesthetic Opera"
*''Iolanthe'': a "Fairy Opera"
*''Princess Ida'': "A respectful Operatic Perversion of Tennyson's ''Princess''"
*''The Mikado'': a "Japanese Opera"
*''Ruddygore'': a "Supernatural Opera"
*''The Yeomen of the Guard'': an "Opera"
*''The Gondoliers'': a "Comic Opera"
*''Utopia, Limited'', a "Comic Opera"
*''The Grand Duke'': a "Comic Opera"
They called the 14th, ''Trial by Jury'', a "Dramatic Cantata".</ref> However, the ''Penguin Opera Guides'' and many other general music dictionaries and encyclopedias classify the Gilbert and Sullivan works as operettas.<ref>''The New Penguin Opera Guide'', ed. Amanda Holden, Penguin Books, London 2001 and ''The Penguin Concise Guide to Opera'', ed. Amanda Holden, Penguin Books, London 2005 both state: "[[Operetta]] is the internationally recognized term for the type of work on which William Schwenck Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated under Richard D'Oyly Carte's management (1875–96), but they themselves used the words 'comic opera'".  See also the ''Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', ed. John Warrack and Ewan West, Oxford University Press 1992 and ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', 4 vols, ed. Stanley Sadie, Macmillan, New York 1992</ref>

Gilbert and Sullivan's early operas played at other London theatres, and ''[[Patience (operetta)|Patience]]'' (1881) was the first opera to appear at the Savoy Theatre, and thus, in a strict sense, the first true "Savoy Opera", although the term "Savoy Opera" has, for over a century, referred to all thirteen operas that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote for Richard D'Oyly Carte.

[[File:1881 Savoy Theatre.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Savoy Theatre, c. 1881]]