ABSTRACT
When Bunthorne had been left without a bride at the end of Patience, or Ko-Ko had found himself landed with the unwanted charms of Katisha, the only possible theatrical reaction was laughter. Sullivan relished the musical opportunities it provided. ‘Its composition yielded him more genuine pleasure than he had found in any opera of the topsyturvy type,’ according to Cellier, who also remarked that The Yeomen ‘remained Sullivan’s favourite of all his offsprings given to the stage’. In the context of an action set in the sixteenth century, the Old English’ musical manner re-emerged with direct allusiveness as in Ruddigore, not in exotic parody as in The Mikado. The recurrent musical theme chosen by Sullivan to represent the Tower of London itself is not more prominent than the little tag which had characterized the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe.
