“Loudly let the trumpet bray!
Tantantara!
Proudly bang the sounding brasses!
Tzing! Boom!
As upon its lordly way
This unique procession passes,
Tantantara! Tzing! Boom!”

—The Chorus of Peers
Iolanthe
The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company's Production of

Iolanthe or The Peer and the Peri

March 6 to 15, 1981

Photo Gallery

Iolanthe Program

Directors: 

Stage Director: Jean Mickelson Black
Music Director: James Hart

Iolanthe was the sixth happy collaboration … seventh, if you count the lost Thespis … between William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.  And, like its predecessors, it was an instant and resounding success.  Gilbert’s delightful mixture of fantasy, absurdity and politics (one could perhaps argue they are one and the same) when joined with Sullivan’s equally adroit amalgam of Mendelssohnian gossamer (Midsummer Night’s Dream) and his own rollicking musical idiom has kept the operetta forever green.

Two excellent internet resources for information about Iolanthe:

Wikipedia – Iolanthe

The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive – Iolanthe

Iolanthe 1981 Show Poster

Show Poster

“When Britain really ruled the waves,
In good Queen Bess’s time
The House of Peers made no pretense
To intellectual eminence,
Or scholarship sublime.”

—Lord Mountararat
Iolanthe