The Yeomen of the Guard

'When our gallant Norman foes'	'Alas! I waver to and fro'	'I have a song to sing, o'	'How say you, maiden?'
'Were I thy bride'	'O Sergeant Meryll, is it true?'	'Hereupon we're both agreed'	'Strange adventure'
'Comes a pretty young bride'	'Leonard!'	The full company

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The Producer's View

"Yeomen of the Guard" is different from all the other G&S operas, in that it is a 'real story' rather than one of Gilbert's topsy-turvy plots. It was written to satisfy Sullivan's yearning to get away from what he called the 'lozenge plots'. So it has to be treated rather differently from the other operas, as we are dealing with real people rather than stock comic opera characters. I think it should be played traditionally, though that doesn't mean that it shouldn't have pace, movement and some slight alterations to the text, also a little dancing in two or three places where that is appropriate.

The plot has some inconsistencies which, in performance, pass the average member of the audience by, such is Gilbert's genius. Why is Colonel Fairfax marrying if the marriage is to be kept secret? Gilbert tells us it is to stop his kinsman inheriting his estate; how will that be prevented if the wife is not produced? Wilfred Shadbolt is arrested at the end of Act One but walks on, completely free, at the beginning of Act Two, without any explanation of why he has been released.

Dame Carruthers apparently cannot count; she quotes "a dozen poor prisoners" then proceeds to name four plus half a score more, making 14! Sergeant Meryll says to Leonard "Get thee hence at once" (twice!) which is followed by more dialogue and a trio. Hence three of my cuts in dialogue.

I make no apology for these cuts (and I have the permission of the Committee and Musical Director to make them). Gilbert was always cutting and altering and, if he had been alive today, he would still be doing it, especially with the pace of modern shows and the reputed diminishing attention spans of audiences.

I have made slight cuts in the somewhat wordy dialogue of the two Merylls, Phoebe, Fairfax and Elsie, and have also cut the scene between Meryll and Carruthers at the end of Act Two. In my opinion Gilbert only put the scene in to allow time for Elsie to change her dress; there is time for that without it, as has been proved in other productions. The scene itself is rather twee, if not embarrassing, and the bouncing vulgarity of "Rapture, rapture" totally ruins what has gone before and what follows. The D'Oyly Carte left in the dialogue but cut the duet for many years. To my way of thinking that left an unsatisfactory end to the scene and so one must either include it all or remove it all; I have chosen to do the latter.

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