Patience

2016

Summer Operetta - Important Dates and Information

REHEARSAL DATES & CONFLICTS
Company music rehearsals and round table read through/discussion will begin on Tuesday, May 31.
Following which, weeknights rehearsals will be call as needed till production week.
(Monday Friday, 6:00-10:00 p.m.) *Look at attached Calendar for TBD exceptions.
Please look at the attached calendar, and indicate your conflicts on the backside of your audition form.
PERFORMANCES
July 8, Friday
- 8pm
July 9, Saturday - 2pm & 8pm
July 10, Sunday - 2pm
At the Nancy OBrian Center for the Performing Arts
MUSICAL SCORE
We will be using the Schirmer Edition of vocal score for Patience.
Upon mutually accepting being a part of our summer production, you may purchase the score on your own,
or have us purchase a copy for you for $15, which you may collect from our office in the basement of First
Presbyterian Church.

It is essential that you bring a pencil to every rehearsal to mark cuts,

blockings and errata corrections that may be found in the Schirmer edition.

NOTE:
Please check your emails regularly, as schedule and rehearsal details will be
disseminate via email
Performance dates:

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at mervin@cimarronopera.org

or visit us at cimarronopera.org.

CIMARRON OPERA - Patience (Summer 2016)

Adults Rehearsal Schedule
MON

TUE

WED

THURS

FRI

June

Wk1

SAT

START>>

SUN
4

10

13

14

15

16

17

11

12

Wk2

Wk3

18

19

TBD
20

21

22

23

TBD

24

25

26

Wk4

TBD
>>in NOPAC
27

28

29

Wk5

30
TECH

Camp Perf Camp Perf

1-Jul
2-Jul
TECH
TBD

3-Jul

4-Jul

July

5-Jul

6-Jul

7-Jul

8-Jul

9-Jul

10-Jul

Wk6

Sitzprobe

DRESS 1

DRESS 2

8pm show

2pm & 8pm

denotes no rehearsal

Regular weeknight rehearsals

(Monday Friday, 6:00-10:00 p.m.)
Starting June 20th, Rehearsls will be at the Nancy O'Brian Center for the Performing Arts
The adult cast will be given complimentary tickets to watch the Camp Productions
on June 24 and 25, 2pm & 8pm.

2pm Show

Soprano!

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Patience
(a Dairy Maid)

Reginald Bunthorne
(a Fleshly Poet)

Colonel Calverley,

(an Idyllic Poet)

Archibald Grosvenor Lyric Baritone

Mr. Bunthorne's Solicitor Silent - SHH!!

Bass Baritone

Major Murgatroyd BARITONE

(Officers of Dragoon Guards)

Tenor Lieut.The Duke of Dunstable

The Lady Jane Contra-Alto
confused?!? The Lady Saphir
The Lady Angela mezzo-soprano
The Lady Ella
Soprano! (Rapturous
Maidens)

Chorus of
RAPTUROUS MAIDENS & OFFICERS OF DRAGOON GUARDS

Scenes and settings:

ACT 1: Exterior of Castle Bunthorne.
ACT II: A Glade

Musical Numbers
ACT I
1. Overture
2. Chorus of Maidens with Solos (Angela and Ella) - Twenty love-sick maidens we
3. Recitative - (Patience, Saphir, Angela and Chorus) - Still brooding on their mad
infatuation
4. Song (Patience) ... " I cannot tell what this love may be
5. Chorus of Maidens - Twenty love-sick maidens we
6. Solo - (Colonel) and Chorus of Dragoons - The soldiers of our Queen
7. Chorus with Solos - (Angela, Ella, Saphir, and Bunthorne) - In a doleful train two
and two we walk
8. Chorus of Maidens (Exit) - Twenty love-sick maidens we
9. Song (Colonel) When I first put this uniform on
10. Recitative & Song - (Bunthorne) - Am I alone and unobserved
11. Duet - (Patience and Angela) - Long years ago, fourteen maybe
12. Duet - (Patience and Grosvenor) - Prithee, pretty maiden
13. Duet - (Patience and Grosvenor) - Though to marry you would really selfish be
14. Finale - Let the merry cymbals sound
Act II
1. Chorus of Maidens - On such eyes as maidens cherish
2. Recitative - & Song - (Jane) - Sad is that woman's lot
3. Chorus of Maidens - Turn, oh turn in this direction
4. Song - (Grosvenor) & Chorus of Maidens - A magnet hung in a hardware shop
5. Song - (Patience) - Love is a plaintive Song
6. Duet - (Jane and Bunthorne) - So go to him, and say to him
7. Trio - (Duke, Major, and Colonel) - It's clear that rnediaeval art
8. Qunitet (Angela, Saphir, Duke, Major, and Colonel) - If Saphir I choose to marry
9. Duet - (Bunthorne and Grosvenor) - When I go out of door
10. Song - (Grosvenor) & Chorus of Maidens - I'm a Waterloo House young man
11. Finale ... After much debate internal

Gilbert & Sullivans Patience - Plot

Short Plot Summary:

In this witty and light operetta, G&S have fun satirizing the British aesthetic
movement of the late nineteenth century and Oscar Wilde in particular. The
aesthetic poet Bunthorne and the idyllic poet Grosvenor have fallen for Patience, the
village milkmaid, much to the disappointment of the lovely Lovesick Maidens who
are in turn in love with the poets. Their fiances, the Dragoon Guards, arent very
happy about that.
Having been told that true love must be unselfish, Patience rejects her true love
Archibald Grosvenor, who is too perfect. She agrees to love the imperfect
Bunthorne, who admits to the audience that his aestheticism is really a sham done
for the adoration of the ladies. On the defection of their idol, the Lovesick Maidens,
return to the Dragoon Guards, but the short-lived reunion only lasts until Grosvenor
appears. Only Jane remains true to Bunthorne. When the Colonel, the Major, and the
Duke attempt to become aesthetic to win back their ladies, things become even
more complicated (and funny).

Fuller Synopsis

The scene opens on Castle Bunthorne, residence of Reginald Bunthorne, who is
described as 'a fleshly poet'. Outside the castle, young ladies dressed in aesthetic
dress, playing lutes and other instruments, are apparently in the last stage of
despair as they sing. Angela, Ella and Saphir are among them. Adopting languorous
attitudes, they proclaim themselves to be 'twenty love-sick maidens', pining for
Bunthorne, who cares not for them. Enter the middle-aged Lady Jane, who also is
lovesick for Bunthorne. She announces that Bunthorne is in love with Patience, a
dairymaid. But, comments Saphir, Patience herself boasts that she has never loved.
Patience enters and confirms, with some pride that she knows not what love is.
She tells everyone that the 35th Dragoon Guards have arrived in the village. But the
Maidens, although a year ago were all engaged to the officers, now care nothing for
them.
The officers enter in full uniform and in swaggering style. The colonel details the
sum of the exceptional qualities that go to make up a Heavy Dragoon. Enter
Lieutenant the Duke of Dunstable, who has entered the army to avoid the boring,
undeserving flattery which his noble rank attracts elsewhere. With his fellow
officers he sees Bunthorne approach, followed by the love-sick Maidens.
The Maidens only pay attention to Bunthorne and completely ignore the officers.
The officers call this state of affairs preposterous; the Maidens continue their
amorous plaint; and Bunthorne admits that (while pretending to ignore them) he
really observes all that the Maidens do.
Bunthorne declares that he has finished writing a poem and reads it'a wild, weird,
fleshly thing; yet very tender, very yearning, very precious'to the enraptured
Maidens. He leaves. But still the Maidens scorn the officers: 'You are not even early
English!'
The officers consider this an insult to their uniform, 'a uniform that has been as
successful in the courts of Venus as on the field of Mars!' How unexpected that the

Gilbert & Sullivans Patience - Plot

appearance of the 'long-haired aesthetics' should prove more attractive than the
British military uniform! With which sentiments they leave angrily.
Entering alone and with melodramatic urgency, Bunthorne reveals that he is 'an
aesthetic sham', posing for admiration's sake. To Patience, who now enters,
Bunthorne declares his love, and says he will drop his posing if she will love him.
She firmly declines and he leaves. Angela enters and impresses on Patience the
importance of loveespecially its unselfishness.
Patience confesses that she did once feel the emotion of lovefor a little boy, when
she was four. Angela is interested. Patience, now brought to believe that love is a
duty because it means unselfishness, is almost ashamed at not being in love.
Suddenly Grosvenor, 'an idyllic poet', enters.
Grosvenor proposes marriage; Patience declines on the grounds that she does not
know him. Grosvenor reveals that he is the little boy she once loved. Patience is
ready to marry himuntil she recalls that he is perfection, so to monopolise his
perfection would be selfishness, which could not be love. So she may not love him
though he may with propriety continue to love her.
Bunthorne enters, looking miserable, followed by the Maidens who are playing
cymbals and other pastoral, archaic instruments.
The spectacle puzzles the Dragoons, who now return. Bunthorne discloses that,
since Patience has refused him, he has put himself up to be raffled for advised by
his solicitor (who now comes forward but flees when the Dragoons utter a
melodramatic curse on him). Led by the Duke, the Dragoons make a last pathetic
appeal; the Maidens ignore it. Bunthorne urges the Maidens to buy tickets for the
raffle but is a little disturbed when Jane (like all the others) does so. Suddenly
Patience rushes in and declares that she will marry Bunthornesince love must be
unselfish, and since she would indeed be sacrificing her own feelings by marrying
him. The Maidens are outraged but accept the consolations of the officers to whom
they were formerly betrothed.
Enter Grosvenor. Angela, then the other Maidens, are fascinated by him. They
withdraw from the Dragoons and kneel to Grosvenor, as they once had to
Bunthorne. Grosvenor affects annoyance; the Dragoons are furious; so is Bunthorne
at the success of a rival poet; Patience continues to declare her love for Bunthorne
and the Maidens theirs for Grosvenor.
In a glade, Jane is alone, leaning on a cello. The love-sick Maidens (lovesick now for
Grosvenor) voice their predicament to a new tune, a little like their old one. Jane
declares that she, at least, will remain faithful to Bunthorne. But signs of her
advancing age make it advisable for Bunthorne not to delay much longer.
Grosvenor enters, the Maidens following him with the tune they sang before.
Grosvenor loves only Patience but entertains the Maidens by reciting some of his
verseswhich turn out to be like nursery rhymes, in contrast to Bunthorne's
flowing rhapsodies. But, bored with the Maidens' adoration, and loving Patience in
vain, he decides to sing to them the fable of the Magnet and the Churn. Pity the poor
Magnet who attracted things of mere iron and steel (which he did not want) but
could never attract the Silver Churn he loved!
The Maidens leave. Patience enters and alternates between tender words to
Grosvenor (asking him to think of her, as she is so unhappy with Bunthorne) and

Gilbert & Sullivans Patience - Plot

stern admonitions to him because she is Bunthorne's ('Advance one step, and as I
am a good and pure woman, I scream !') Grosvenor leaves. Bunthorne enters,
dogged by Jane. He reproaches Patience for her tenderness to Grosvenor, then
leaves (still pursued by Jane).
Alone, Patience sings paradoxically of the unhappiness of what she has been told is
love. Patience, weeping, leaves. Re-enter Bunthorne, now determined to drive away
Grosvenor. Jane will help him. Bunthorne will pooh-pooh Grosvenor off his own
aesthetic preserves. Jane and he leave in confident anticipation.
Enter the Duke, Major and Colonel; they have abandoned their uniforms and donned
'aesthetic' dress to try to supplant Bunthorne. They do their best (which is not very
good) to strike the right 'aesthetic' poses. The officers strike an attitude which
captivates Angela and Saphir as they enter. (They are indeed jolly utter!' says Saphir
in admiration.) But if the two Maidens are now willing to marry, which two of the
three officers shall have them? The Duke, as the most 'desirable' match, must take
first pick.
The two-into-three problem is worked out in the form of dance and song. The
officers and the girls leave. Enter Bunthorne and Grosvenor: they confront one
another. Bunthorne demands a monopoly of aestheticism for himself and at length
Grosvenor (having longed for a pretext to become a 'matter-of-fact man again)
yields. Both rejoice: Bunthorne that the Maidens will languish for him again,
Grosvenor that he will be 'a steady and stolidly, jolly Bank Holiday, everyday young
man'.
Bunthorne assures Patience who enters, that he will now be mild and aesthetic. But
in that case, Patience reflects, she could not love him, since it would be a pleasure
and not at all unselfishto do so. Suddenly a very ordinary-looking young man
enters in everyday clothes. It is Grosvenor, transformed. The Maidens, similarly
transformed, follow him.

They rejoice in being ordinary, everyday young people. Patience, having ascertained
that Grosvenor will always be commonplace, can now truly love him. Bunthorne
proposes to the joyful Jane. But the Colonel, Major, and Duke return and the Duke
picks a bridenobly choosing the least forward of the Maidens, Jane. She accepts
with rapture, and deserts Bunthorne.

The Maidens pair off with the Dragoons. Led by the Duke, all express their joy
except for Bunthorne, who has to be 'content with a tulip or lily' (it rhymes with
die!). Thus 'Each of us will wed the other, nobody be Bunthorne's bride!'
Adapted from the original sleeve notes by Arthur Jacob