Valley Light Opera has been bringing exceptional productions of Gilbert & Sullivan and other operettas to the Pioneer Valley since 1975. Along the way we've developed some very special traditions -- an adventurous (and slightly irreverent) spirit, an emphasis on fun and community, and a wonderful mixture of newcomers and company veterans working together. Each year nearly a third of the members of our cast and crews are new to the organization. Everyone volunteers his or her time, and everyone works together to create the best show possible. If you like to sing, come to auditions and try out for one of the principal roles or chorus. If you'd like to get involved behind the scenes, give us a call -- there are always plenty of jobs for every level of skill and time commitment. Join us for the VLO's Fall 2012 annual autumn production -- you’ll have a wonderful time!
For our 38th annual fall production (performances on November 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11), the VLO is presenting Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride. Patience, which premiered in 1881, was W. S. Gilbert's very effective satirical jab at the Aesthetic craze in art, dress, and literature, which begat the poetry of Swinburne, the art of Whistler, and velvet suits. This year, we pay affectionate tribute to another and more familiar era of affectation in looks, manners, and feeling as we re-situate Gilbert's satire in Swinging Sixties London, which begat Twiggy, The Who, and, well, velvet suits. In our Patience, the impressionable ladies of Carnaby Street, formerly engaged to a brigade of earnest but square Dragoon Guards, have gone "mod," and passionately pursue Reginald Bunthorne, a "fleshly" pop star, until his mellowed-out challenger Archibald Grosvenor appears and the ladies swoon in his direction instead. Bunthorne and Grosvenor, meanwhile, have eyes only for local shop girl Patience, who prefers Grosvenor, who turns out to have been her childhood sweetheart. Bunthorne, rejected even by the once devoted Lady Jane, must be contented with his own very considerable self-regard. This new production will be, we hope, the liveliest, grooviest, dancing-est Patience imaginable, with new opportunities for movement and humor.
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Academy of Music Theatre
Northampton, MA
United States
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