Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas continue to enjoy popularity worldwide, in both amateur and professional settings. Their 1884 collaboration Princess Ida¸ however, remains a contested work regarding its representation of women and feminism. In this thesis, I argue that Gilbert and Sullivan were attempting to satirize men’s reactions to feminism, rather than feminism itself. This thesis situates Princess Ida within its Victorian social context to determine to what extent a proto-feminist interpretation of the operetta is valid. Princess Ida is based on, and a parody of, Tennyson’s The Princess (1847). Tracing the chronology of Ida’s story from its beginnings in Tennyson’s poem through to Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta clarifies what Gilbert chose to satirize in his libretto. Victorian masculinity emerges as a central theme in Princess Ida, and the complexities of Gilbert and Sullivan’s representations of men in their operetta informs my discussion of proto-feminism. This thesis historically contextualizes Princess Ida and examines the operetta through the lens of feminist critiques of Western art music.

The operas by playwright W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan have been considered some of the most popular and successful pieces of musical theatre in the English language. While their joint creative output neared perfection, Gilbert and Sullivan's working relationship was fraught with conflict. The two men's opposing personalities led them to favor disparate styles and work towards different goals. However, the ability to balance contrasting tones, such as sarcasm and sympathy, resulted in their overwhelming success. I analyze this "winning formula" by looking at the influence of feminism, especially the "New Woman" literary movement, on the works of Gilbert & Sullivan. Gilbert frequently used common female stereotypes and gave his female characters humorous yet demeaning flaws that kept the audience from fully admiring them. Sullivan, on the other hand, countered Gilbert's derisive attitude by composing sophisticated music for the female characters, granting emotional depth and a certain level of respectability. The struggle between Gilbert's mocking tone and Sullivan's empathetic music led to the men's ultimate success. I examine Gilbert's female characters, explore the counteractive effect of Sullivan's music, and analyze Princess Ida—their opera most directly related to the New Woman—in depth.

My thesis will encompass the completion of the lighting design for W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's opera The Mikado and a post-production written documentation of the entire production process. The thesis will involve the completion of a lighting design with all of its accompanying paperwork generated in AutoCAD and Excel. The design will require lights for a two-act, multi-locational musical. Lights will need to provide a bright environment that can transform to the various locales. The entire design process will involve close communication with the entire design team, the director and the shop crew. As lighting designer, I will have to communicate with the Master Electrician and instruct him or her on the proper hang and circuiting of all instruments and provide detailed paperwork to ensure the light plot is hung correctly. With the Master Electricians help I will focus and gel all instruments. As lighting designer, I will also write cues and any special lighting effects for the show. During technical rehearsal week I will continue to maintain close communication with the director, making any necessary changes to create a better artistic product. The whole process will involve close collaboration with all of the design areas and an open communication so that lights enhance all elements of the show. As lighting designer, I will have to develop a vocabulary to communicate the abstract ideas of light and communicate them well enough so that the final product is both what the director and I imagined. During this process, I will maintain a journal that details the steps throughout the process and will act as a record of the discoveries and setbacks that occur. I will also provide research to support all of my creative decisions. I will also provide a strong informed basis for the design. The written portion of the Thesis will document the design process from early concept discussions through the completion and opening of the show. The thesis will examine the artistic developments and growth, as well as reflect on the overall success and development of the design. The personal journals maintained throughout the process will be edited and included for insight into daily growth of the design. The inclusion of these journals will also provide insight into the working relationship and nature of my collaboration with all the departments.

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Master of Music / Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Amy Underwood / The following report is extended program notes that focus on the expression of love in various ways. These songs were presented on a graduate recital March 31, 2015 in All Faiths Chapel at Kansas State University. It is in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Music degree in vocal performance. The works included are by Bellini, Bernstein, Hahn, Koechlin, Obradors, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, and Sullivan. Below is a detailed description explaining the focus of the report. Many musicians discuss the musical elements including key signatures, time signatures, harmony, rhythm, and melody. They may also discuss the understanding of the music through the viewpoint of the vocal text. The musical elements and how the subject matter connects the two together is important to understand when giving a recital. It makes the music come alive for the audience and it is a true interpretation of how it should be performed. Love is a topic which many composers explore because of the natural emotion people feel about its perception. Different feelings and emotions conjured in the hearts and minds of humankind. Love is a personal feeling, and after studying the poetry and music, I assigned an adjective or verb to each song that describes a more specific facet of love’s emotional spectrum. These adjectives and their portrayal by various composers will comprise the focus of this paper.

The operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, is a classic work by Gilbert and Sullivan, a work that continues to be produced frequently despite its Victorian setting and operatic style. For many years the standard performance style of all the operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan was upheld by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, who attempted to perform the operettas as they had originally been done. Though the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company helped stimulate interest in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, nontraditional productions of G & S operettas produced outside of the company were able to reach larger audiences. When The Pirates of Penzance was produced on Broadway in the 1980's, it was enormously successful. Under the direction of Wilford Leach, the production was more accessible to audiences through its pop-oriented orchestrations, Broadway-style choreography, and cast of rock stars and well-known actors. This significant change in the way The Pirates of Penzance was performed inspired several other major productions of the operetta in that style and has now become the standard interpretation of the piece. It is due to these productions that The Pirates of Penzance continues to be produced and remain culturally relevant. It is interesting to note that, while the performance style of Pirates has changed significantly over the years, the role of Mabel has remained largely unchanged. In that regard, the role of Mabel continues to fulfill the goals and tradition of D'Oyly Carte while The Pirates of Penzance has evolved from an old-fashioned operetta to a popular musical theatre piece.

In the process of carving a new England out of the southern end of Vancouver Island in the later nineteenth century, the population of Victoria, BC sought to forge a British identity for themselves through music and its associated rituals. They did this through the pursuit of purposeful acts of cultural meaning. In the social sphere, concerts, parades, religious services, and theatrical productions heightened and inspired loyalty to Mother England. Victoria’s upper classes could then dominate by excluding those people—including Jewish, Chinese, Indigenous, African-American, and Hawaiian residents—who did not conform to that identity. In late-nineteenth-century Victoria, music became more than just a way to celebrate, worship, and recreate; it defined social life for British and non-British peoples alike and shaped the physical space in which they lived. This dissertation explores late nineteenth-century Victoria’s creation of a British identity through music. Ensuring that their churches had a powerful organ and talented organists, Victoria’s religious community proved that they could undertake Britain’s highest social point of sacred musical performance: the choral festival. Positioning George Frideric Handel’s Messiah—with its strong connotations of Britain and her Empire—as their showstopper, these choral festivals served to cement relationships between those citizens who considered themselves British, while also proclaiming this identity as a mark of superiority to the community at large. Itinerant opera troupes further strengthened these imperial bonds by importing European and British opera to Victoria. Through the performances of these professional travelling musicians, Victorian Victorians were able to experience high art and popular operatic music of the Western world, joining the particularly British Pinafore and Mikado crazes of the 1870s and 1880s. These itinerant singers thoroughly impressed local musicians, who avidly tried to reproduce what they had heard, first in instrumental overtures and medleys in the 1860s and 1870s, then with vocal and instrumental operatic numbers in miscellany concerts in the 1870s and 1880s, and finally with full operatic productions in the 1880s and beyond. As with choral festivals in the religious sphere, taking part in opera productions also helped to create a shared sense of British identity among Victoria’s upper classes, during a time when other defining factors of social placement were not yet secure. Settlers in Victoria removed the Indigenous and natural impediments to the construction of their new metropolis, in effect silencing their cultural “voice.” Besides the Indigenous peoples of Vancouver Island, other recent settlers posed challenges to British hegemony, especially Chinese immigrants and “coloured” people of African origin, many of whom came from the United States. Even the gender demographics in the male-dominated frontier society posed challenges to the civilizing process. The Jews of Victoria, the majority of whom were of German or English origin, present an ambiguous case of a cultural and religious community at the crossroads in mid-nineteenth-century Victoria. The butt of rising anti-Semitism in continental Europe, Victoria’s Jewish minority used music and ritual to establish themselves as members of the dominant class. / Graduate / 0413 / 0334 / 0357 / libby.concord@gmail.com

As a consequence to Gilbert and Sullivan's famed Carpet Quarrel, two operettas with decidedly "exotic" themes, The Nautch Girl; or, The Rajah of Chutneypore, and Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress were presented to London audiences. Neither has been accepted as part of the larger Savoy canon. This thesis considers the conspicuous business atmosphere of their originally performed contexts to understand why this situation arose. Critical social theory makes it possible to read the two documents as overt reflections on British imperialism. Examined more closely, however, the operettas reveal a great deal more about the highly introverted nature of exotic representation and the ambiguous dialogue between race and class hierarchies in late nineteenth-century British society.