G&S Opera Company - Utopia Ltd

or The Flowers of Progress

Buxton Opera House

Friday August 19^th                7.30 pm

Saturday August 20^th           2.30 pm

We are delighted that the G&S Opera Company will be performing what we believe to be only the third fully-staged UK professional production of Utopia Limited since the original run in 1893.  The most amazing cast of Gilbert & Sullivan specialists ever assembled since the closure of the original D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1982 will ensure that this unique production will be very special.

The Cast

Donald Maxwell King Paramount	Simon Butteriss Scaphio	Richard Suart Phantis	Richard Gauntlett Tarara	Oliver White Fitzbattleaxe

Barry Clarke Dramaleigh	Bruce Graham Goldbury	Debbie Norman Princess Zara	Jill Pert Lady Sophie	Rebecca Bottone Nekaya

Director Andrew Nicklin	Conductor John Owen Edwards

To read the story of Utopia Ltd click here

A Short Background to the Opera

Utopia Limited was the second-to-last of Gilbert and Sullivan's fourteen collaborations, premiering on 7 October 1893 for a run of 245 performances. Although it did not achieve the success of their earlier productions, the opera was profitable.

Gilbert's libretto satirises limited liability companies, and particularly the idea that a bankrupt company could leave creditors unpaid without any liability on the part of its owners. It also mocks the conceits of the late 19th-century British Empire and several of the nation's beloved institutions. In mocking the adoption by a "barbaric" country of the cultural values of an "advanced" nation, it takes a tilt at the cultural aspects of imperialism. The libretto was criticised as too long and rambling by the critics and later commentators, and several subplots introduced in Act I are never resolved.

Utopia is performed much less frequently than most other Gilbert and Sullivan operas and although it contains some fine music, it perhaps has less than Sullivan's usual quota of unforgettable tunes. Still, Utopia has its fans. George Bernard Shaw wrote in his highly favourable October 1893 review of the show in The World, "I enjoyed the score of Utopia more than that of any of the previous Savoy operas."