Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride

All of the maidens in the village are besotted with Reginald Bunthorne, a moody and handsome poet, but he has eyes only for the simple milkmaid, Patience. The problem? Bunthorne’s artistic ways are all just an act to attract women to him--he doesn’t even like poetry! Besides, Patience is in love with her childhood sweetheart, who happens to be a real poet named Archibald Grosvenor, but feels she cannot marry him because he is just too perfect. In the meantime, the serious (and decidedly non-poetic) platoon of Heavy Dragoon Guards that were meant to marry the village maidens find themselves dismayed and perplexed by their sudden loss of prospects. One of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most successful shows, Patience is a rollicking satire that pits the straight-laced ideals of the Victorian era against the passions and indulgences of the 1870s Aesthetic Movement, ridiculing each side of the spectrum.

Overture

Act I

• 1. "Twenty love-sick maidens we" (Angela, Ella and Chorus of Maidens)
• 2. "Still brooding on their mad infatuation" (Patience, Saphir, Angela, and Chorus)
• 2a. "I cannot tell what this love may be" (Patience and Chorus)
• 2b. "Twenty love-sick maidens we" (Chorus of Maidens - Exit)
• 3. "The soldiers of our Queen" (Chorus of Dragoons)
• 3a. "If you want a receipt for that popular mystery" (Colonel and Chorus)
• 4. "In a doleful train two and two we walk" (Angela, Ella, Saphir, Bunthorne, and Chorus of Maidens and Dragoons)
• 4a. "Twenty love-sick maidens we" (Chorus of Maidens - Exit)
• 5. "When I first put this uniform on" (Colonel and Chorus of Dragoons)
• 6. "Am I alone and unobserved?" (Bunthorne)
• 7. "Long years ago, fourteen maybe" (Patience and Angela)
• 8. "Prithee, pretty maiden" (Patience and Grosvenor)
• 8a. "Though to marry you would very selfish be" (Patience and Grosvenor)
• 9. "Let the merry cymbals sound" (Ensemble)

Act II

• 10. "On such eyes as maidens cherish" (Chorus of Maidens)
• 11. "Sad is that woman's lot" (Jane)
• 12. "Turn, oh turn, in this direction" (Chorus of Maidens)
• 13. "A magnet hung in a hardware shop" (Grosvenor and Chorus of Maidens)
• 14. "Love is a plaintive song" (Patience)
• 15. "So go to him, and say to him" (Jane and Bunthorne)
• 16. "It's clear that mediaeval art" (Duke, Major, and Colonel)
• 17. "If Saphir I choose to marry" (Angela, Saphir, Duke, Major, and Colonel)
• 18. "When I go out of door" (Bunthorne and Grosvenor)
• 19. "I'm a Waterloo House young man" (Grosvenor and Chorus of Maidens)
• 20. "After much debate internal" (Ensemble)