From Our President, JOHN FLORANCE

Ruddigore. . . A Personal View

IN the popularity league table, Ruddigore has never been up there with such winners as The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance and The Gondoliers. On the other hand, it has never languished in the relegation zone like Princess Ida and The Grand Duke.

There are historical reasons for its middling position. Because it followed the record breaking Mikado it suffered from the great expectations of press and public alike.

What could surpass the Savoy's Japanese opera? Not Ruddigore apparently! For the first time boos were heard from the gallery at a Savoy premiere. These were mainly directed at the staging of the supernatural scenes but cries of "Give us back The Mikado!" were also heard.

Perhaps those first critics of the piece noticed that Gilbert was rehashing old ideas. For instance, the gallery of ancestral portraits derives from a non Savoy piece he'd written years before called Ages Ago and the Sir Roderic and Dame Hannah relationship brings to mind a similar couple in The Sorcerer. The plot was largely derived from Rookwood by W. Harrison Ainsworth and the parody of naval behaviour and language reminds one of HMS Pinafore.

In addition, the blood and thunder melodrama of which Ruddigore is a parody was virtually extinct as a theatrical fashion. If all that wasn't enough, even the sanguinary of the title drew comment from some quarters, causing the irascible Gilbert to suggest it should be changed to Kensington Gore or Not Half so Good as The Mikado. In the end he simply changed the spelling from Ruddygore to Ruddigore.

Given all this it is hardly surprising that Ruddigore was one of the few operas not revived during the lifetime of its creators. The initial run of The Mikado was 672 performances; Ruddigore ran for 288. "It was", writes Hesketh Pearson, "what the Savoy partners called a failure". But his next sentence makes clear that "failure" was a relative concept. "That is to say, Gilbert made seven thousand pounds out of the original run, Sullivan made more because of the sale of his music and Carte made most of all because having only financed it instead of creating it, he naturally made the most".

None of this, however, really accounts for the relative neglect of Ruddigore today for I am convinced that it is one of Gilbert & Sullivan's finest creations. In part, the reservations Gilbert himself had about the piece are the very reasons why we today can arrive at a more just estimate of its qualities.

The playwright had an admirable sense of his own competence and very rarely expressed an opinion on the art which was Sullivan's sphere, but on this occasion he blamed the composer's music for the opera's poor reception. "I fancy he thought his position demanded something grander and more impressive than the words suggested" he wrote to a friend, adding that the ghost music was like introducing fifty lines of Paradise Lost into a farcical comedy. He was, of course, thinking of Sir Roderic's superb song "When the night wind howls" with its colourful orchestration, unusual harmonies and unexpected rhythms. These days we can appreciate stylistic contrast with rather more pleasure than Gilbert. Indeed the stylistic breadth, abundant subtleties and sly felicities of Sullivan's score are what make Ruddigore the gem it is.

Of course, the team's old trademarks are there, such as the patter trio "My eyes are fully open" (which delightfully makes mock of the convention) and the parodies of grand opera. But the score also abounds in numbers that either represent something new or a real development of tried and tested techniques. For example, it seems to me that the Act One finale is an advance on the much-lauded equivalent in The Mikado. It contains one of the composer's sweetest inventions (the madrigal) and the interrupted gavotte is marvellously done.

Mention of that reminds one how cleverly Sullivan uses dance in the score. The hornpipe, gavotte and others pave the way for even more subtle integration of dance into the fabric of The Gondoliers and Utopia. The finale of the opera ("Oh happy the lily") in 9/8 time is delightfully unexpected and the aforementioned song of Sir Roderic represents daring and inspiration of a kind not heard elsewhere in the canon.

Whilst Gilbert the playwright often marks time (though the picture gallery scene was effective enough for it to be virtually lifted by the creators of Me and My Girl fifty years later) Gilbert the lyricist shows no sign of diminished power. For example, Mad Margaret's Act One scena and ballad are splendid examples of his art, as is the madrigal, which moves even without Sullivan's music.

One could go on but the risk of boredom looms! For those unconvinced that Ruddigore should be up there with the league champions, well all I can say is that I hope our production will persuade you otherwise!