ABSTRACT
Characteristically going abroad for diversion as soon as possible after launching a major work, Sullivan left for Paris on 3 January 1883. A pleasant irony placed Sullivan’s knighthood in the period when lolanthe, with its reduction of the peerage to lovelorn boobies, was running at the Savoy. The Leeds Festival, to which the committee had renominated Sullivan as conductor did not present him in 1883 with the excessive labour of 1880. Electric star lights in the hair are worn by the Principals and the whole of the chorus ladies in the last scene.’ Iolanthe reached its 323rd performance on 13 October, when Sullivan was conducting the final concert of the Leeds Festival, and was preceded by Private Wire, with words by A. Felix and F. Desprez. Sullivan’s diary records the failure to turn up for rehearsal and Gilbert’s subsequent remark: ‘I won’t speak to her and she shan’t play in any piece of mine’.
