Ruddigore

Ruddigore opened on 22 January 1887 at the Savoy Theatre to a mixed reaction from the audience..   Act 1 was well received, ending with an ovation.   Act 2 seemed to drag, with some dissatisfaction being shown in the last twenty minutes.   In the scene in which the portraits come to life two of the frames in the gallery crashed to the stage.   On the following day Gilbert and Sullivan called a meeting of the whole company.   Gilbert made several cuts.   Ruddigore ran for  288 performances, a low run by the standards of Gilbert and Sullivan , but longer than Princess Ida, which ran for 246 performances.   

 

Ruddigore was revived in 1920 at the King’s Theatre, Glasgow.   Several further cuts were made in both Acts 1 and 2 and a new overture by Geoffrey Toye was added, replacing Arthur Sullivan’s original, which contained some tunes which were no longer included in the opera..