Recently it was announced that we had came across more photographs for our archives. I would like to present two of these for viewing today, both from different productions.
First we have a photograph from our 1966 production of Ruddigore. As with many of our photographs this one features our late, great President, Elizabeth Simpson as Rose Maybud.
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan.
The story is of a town called Rederring, in Cornwall were all of the eligible young men are hopeful of a union with Rose Maybud, the prettiest maiden in the village, yet they are too timid to approach her.
The second Photograph is from the 1965 production of 'The Mikado' an opera performed often back in the day with Whitehaven & District Amateur Operatic Society.
The Mikado is a satire of late 19th century British institutions, society and politics. By setting the opera in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions
