Iolanthe – Fall 2025

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present Iolanthe, for four weekends, from Friday, October 31 to Sunday, November 23, 2025.

Iolanthe lampoons the House of Lords as a bastion of the ineffective, privileged and dim-witted. Gilbert also takes satiric aim at the legal profession, the political party system and other British institutions. Yet, the criticism is couched in such bouncy, amiable absurdities that it is all received as good fun.

Strephon, an Arcadian shepherd, wants to marry Phyllis, a Ward of Chancery. Phyllis does not know that Strephon is half fairy and when she sees him kissing a seemingly young woman, she assumes the worst. But her “rival” turns out to be none other than Strephon’s own mother, Iolanthe, a fairy … fairies, of course, never grow old. Phyllis’ guardian, the Lord Chancellor, however, and half the peers in the House of Lords are sighing after her. Soon the peers and the fairies are virtually at war, and long friendships are nearly torn asunder. But all is happily sorted out, thanks to the “subtleties of the legal mind” and a bit of fairy magic!

Both Gilbert and Sullivan were at the height of their creative powers in 1882, when Iolanthe premiered, and many feel this operetta is their most beautiful and represents the zenith of their collaboration.

The Yeomen of the Guard – Spring 2026

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present The Yeomen of the Guard, for four weekends, from March 6 through March 29, 2026.

The Yeomen of the Guard is set in the Tower of London during the reign of King Henry VIII. The plot concerns Colonel Fairfax, a gentleman, soldier and scientist, who has been sentenced to be beheaded in an hour on a false charge of sorcery. To avoid leaving his estate to his accuser, and with the help of the Lieutenant of the Tower, Fairfax secretly marries Elsie Maynard, a strolling singer. The bride agrees to be blindfolded during the ceremony and expects to be a well-paid widow in an hour. With the help of the Meryll family, Fairfax escapes, throwing the Tower into confusion and the astonished Elsie and Jack Point, a jester who loves her, into despair. But Fairfax, disguised as Leonard Meryll, woos Elsie, and after a number of plot complications are worked out, she unknowingly falls in love with her husband, but leaves Jack Point broken-hearted.

The Yeomen of the Guard has been described as Gilbert and Sullivan’s most emotionally engaging operetta, more serious in character, with none of Gilbert’s typical satire of British institutions. While the libretto does contain considerable humor, Gilbert’s trademark satire and topsy-turvy plot complications are subdued in comparison with the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Musically, the operetta is considered to be one of Sullivan’s finest, most musically ambitious.

All performances will be at the Conn Theater, at Plymouth Congregational Church, located at 1900 Nicollet Avenue South, in Minneapolis. Friday and Saturday evening performances are at 7:30 pm. The Saturday and Sunday matinees are at 2:00 pm.

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