Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride

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The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present Patience, for four weekends, from Friday, March 14 to Sunday, April 6, 2025.

This production will be directed by Gary Briggle, with music direction by Dr. Randal Buikema.

Patience opens with all the well-born young ladies in the local village, rapturously caught up in aestheticism, and in love with two aesthetic poets. The poets, however, are both in love with Patience, the simple village milkmaid, who cares nothing for poetry. Patience learns that true love must be completely unselfish … it must wither and sting and burn! The young ladies’ military suitors don’t see the point to aestheticism, but they decide to give it a try to win the women’s hearts. It is “touch and go” for a while, but everyone ends up with a suitable partner, even if it is only a tulip or lily.

Patience satirizes the “aesthetic craze” of the 1870s and ’80s, when the output of poets, composers, painters and designers of all kinds was indeed prolific, but, some argued, empty and self-indulgent. This artistic movement was so popular, and so easy to ridicule as a meaningless fad, that it made Patience a big hit in its day. The operetta remains relevant as it can be understood to satirize the adherents to all fads!

The 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 p.m. The Saturday and Sunday matinees are at 2:00 p.m. For a more detailed performance calendar, visit our Tickets page.

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