Editing Princess Ida (section)

==History of productions==
''Princess Ida'' was not as successful as the Gilbert and Sullivan operas that had preceded it. In the midst of the unusually hot summer of 1884, Richard D'Oyly Carte closed the Savoy Theatre for a month, starting in mid-August. The opera had been running for seven months, a short period by the partnership's past standards. The opera re-opened for just three weeks, starting in mid-September, before giving way to a revival of ''[[The Sorcerer]]'' (revised) and ''[[Trial by Jury]]''.<ref name=R&W9>Rollins and Witts, p. 9</ref> Gilbert designed the costumes himself. Act I and Act III sets were by the Drury Lane designer Henry Emden, while the Act II set was by [[Hawes Craven]].<ref name=R&WAppendixVIII>Rollins and Witts, Appendix, p. VIII</ref> A New York production ran briefly in 1884, and there was a second American production in 1887.<ref name=Ganzl247/> As had happened with their earlier operas in America, Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan could do nothing to stop producers from mounting unauthorised productions, since there was no international copyright treaty at the time.<ref>[[H. L. Mencken|Mencken, H. L.]] [https://www.gsarchive.net/mikado/html/mikado_by_mencken.html ''The Mikado''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080924045602/https://www.gsarchive.net/mikado/html/mikado_by_mencken.html |date=24 September 2008}}, ''Baltimore Evening Sun'', 29 November 1910</ref><ref>Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried various techniques for gaining an American copyright that would prevent unauthorised productions. In the case of ''Princess Ida'' and ''The Mikado'', they hired an American, George Lowell Tracy, to create the piano arrangement of each score, hoping that he would obtain rights that he could assign to them. See, Murrell, Pam. [https://blogs.loc.gov/music/2020/08/gilbert-sullivans-american-ally "Gilbert & Sullivan’s American Ally"], In the Muse, US Library of Congress, 5 August 2020.</ref> The U.S. courts held that the act of publication made the opera freely available for production by anyone.<ref>Jacobs, p. 214 and Ainger, pp. 247, 248 and 251</ref> In Australia, ''Princess Ida'''s first authorized performance was on 16 July 1887 at the Princess Theatre, [[Melbourne]], produced by [[J. C. Williamson]].

Provincial tours of ''Princess Ida'' began in early 1884 and ended by mid-1885. The opera was revived on tour in December 1895, remaining in the touring repertory through 1896. It re-appeared in late 1897 or early 1898, and from then on was never out of the D'Oyly Carte touring repertory through the early years of the twentieth century.  The first London revival, however, did not come until 30 December 1919. From then on, it was included in every D'Oyly Carte touring season until the company disbanded at the outbreak of war in 1939.<ref>Rollins and Witts, pp. 127–164</ref> New costumes were designed by [[Percy Anderson (designer)|Percy Anderson]] in 1921.<ref name=R&WAppendixVIII/>

[[File:BarringonHild.jpg|left|thumb|upright=0.85|[[Rutland Barrington]] as Hildebrand, 1884]]
During [[World War II]], the Company played a smaller repertory. The scenery and costumes for ''Princess Ida'', which were in storage, were destroyed by enemy action over the winter of 1940–41. A new production was mounted at the Savoy Theatre on 27 September 1954. A guest artist, opera singer Victoria Sladen, was engaged to sing the title role for the London season.<ref name="Rollins and Witts, p. 179">Rollins and Witts, p. 179</ref> For the 1954 revival, the Act II line "And the niggers they'll be bleaching by and by," was changed to "And they'll practice what they're preaching by and by," to accommodate the sensibilities of modern audiences, following similar changes in other Gilbert and Sullivan works. After the 1954 revival, ''Princess Ida'' was an irregular presence in the D'Oyly Carte repertory. While it never went unperformed more than two or three seasons at a time, it was usually performed only in London and a few other major cities. The demands of the title role were considered unusual by Gilbert and Sullivan standards, and often the Company brought in guest artists to play it. The company's final performances of the opera were in February–April 1977.<ref>Rollins and Witts, 1st Supplement, p. 7 and Third Supplement, p. 28</ref> The company's reduced repertory in its final five seasons did not accommodate it.

The film director [[Ken Russell]] staged ''Princess Ida'' for [[English National Opera]] in 1992, conducted by [[Jane Glover]]. The radical contemporary concept involved an American-Japanese theme park version of [[Buckingham Palace]], with a chorus of [[Madonna]] lookalikes (led by [[Rosemary Joshua]] as Ida) studying in the [[Tower of London]]; Gama (alternating [[Nickolas Grace]] and [[Richard Suart]]) operated a sushi chain. The production, unanimously reviled by critics, was quickly dropped from ENO's repertoire.<ref>Bradley (2005), p. 83</ref> Other professional companies have produced ''Princess Ida'', including [[American Savoyards]] in the 1950s and 1960s, [[Light Opera of Manhattan]] in the 1970s and 1980s, [[New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players]] since the 1980s, [[Ohio Light Opera]] (which recorded the piece in 2000), the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company at the [[International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival]] in 2003 and 2009, and others.<ref>Bradley (2005), chapters 3 and 4, ''passim''</ref>

The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in Gilbert's lifetime:
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!Theatre!!Opening Date!!Closing Date!!Perfs.!!Details
|-
|nowrap rowspan=2|Savoy Theatre||5 January 1884||15 August 1884|| style="text-align:center;" rowspan="2"|246||rowspan=2|First run
|-
|15 September 1884||9 October 1884
|-
|[[Fifth Avenue Theatre]], New York||nowrap|11 February 1884||nowrap|22 March 1884||align=center|48||rowspan=2|Authorised American productions
|-
|Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York||nowrap|22 November 1887||align=center| ||3 wks
|}