Princess Ida
- Robert Beale
- Aug 8
- 3 min read
Gilbert & Sullivan, after Tennyson
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
Buxton Opera House
August 9,10,15, 2025: 2 hrs 45 mins
(also Festival Theatre, Malvern, September 5)
Princess Ida is one of the more intellectual operettas in the G&S canon. It’s really a parody adaptation of Tennyson’s poem of 1847, The Princess – itself a semi-mocking bit of medievalism, revealing what the prospect of higher education for women looked like to most educated men in the first two-thirds of the 19th Century.
It seems barely credible today that the thought of educated women was so ludicrous to men of the time, but then universal education itself was a concept still only slowly making its way in Britain.
The story is of a princess who forswears the world of men and founds a women’s university, where no man may set foot. But she has been betrothed in infancy to a prince who, with two friends, enters the place disguised as female. They are discovered, there is a battle and in Tennyson the men come off worse; in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1884 version (Gilbert had already made a farce from it in 1870), the girls surrender – but all is well as the princess returns the prince’s love... A happy ending.
This production, by Jeff Clarke of Opera della Luna fame, returns to the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival for the first time since 2009, and is a gem in itself, with a mock-abstract set design and vividly-coloured costumes (all designed by Clarke), very much in keeping with the spirit of the work but allowing just enough parody to create a knowing, post-modern view of it all.
Philip Cox, Clarke’s colleague in many Opera della Luna outings of the past, returns to recreate his role as King Gama, the “most disagreeable man” who is Ida’s father. All the other roles are cast with a team of strong, youthful voices in almost every case.
Ben McAteer brings his operatic training to bear on King Hildebrand and is very good with the dialogue, too; Alex Aldren (Hilarion, the love-lorn prince) has a warm and very British lyric tenor; Alfred Mitchell (his mate, Cyril) can do a twerp beautifully - including a very convincing drunk, and Felix Kemp finds an individual characterisation for Florian (the other one).
Gaynor Keeble and Kelli-Ann Masterson, as the two professors of the female college, are seasoned G&S performers and deliver high value in dialogue and song; Samantha Price makes a very impressive contribution as the daughter of one of them, Melissa.
Carl Sanderson, James Connolly and William Costello are comically resonant as the three soldier sons of Gama.
The Princess herself is Phoebe Smith, a soprano of Wagnerian potential, whose voice rings throughout the ensembles and gives an extra edge of satiric value to her portrayal of the steely defender of the female sex.
There is a lot in this score to delight Sullivan fans: he shows off his counterpoint skills time and again, and has some fun with pastiche as he imitates Mozart (in We are warriors three – as in Magic Flute) and Handel (in the warriors’ later trio); there’s an old-time minuet and there’s a gavotte; and the finale to Act Two (it’s a three-act piece) is quite a composition in its own right. John Andrews, the conductor, makes it all sound wonderful and chooses his speeds just right.
Thanks to Jeff Clarke, there’s an excellent fight at the end and a few bits of business playing with the G&S tradition of encores (but abbreviated both times).
It’s a show with big demands in casting and resources, but worth every penny. Well done the festival for bringing it back.
More info and tickets here
