Connecticut Gilbert & Sullivan Society History
The Connecticut Gilbert and Sullivan Society was organized in 1980 with the encouragement of then-Gov. Ella Grasso, a noted admirer of the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Since then, the group has produced a Savoy opera every year. During its first decade, there were occasions when another venue was used but normally, and every year since 1990, all performances have been in Middletown.
CG&SS is dedicated to the preservation and enjoyment of the rich heritage of satire and melody that emerged from the unique partnership of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (between 1870 and 1900). The art form they created together, which was nurtured by impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte at The Savoy Theatre, established the underpinnings which sustain the modern-day musical.
The organization offers an outlet for creativity as people help with productions on stage, behind stage, or as a sponsoring member of the audience. It adds to the quality of life in the Middletown area through performing arts, provides for study and performances of these 14 masterpieces with professional guidance; enriches the historical offerings to area audiences; encourages and supports area youth by including students from Middletown schools. We also have sponsored many benefit performances consisting of excerpts from G&S and occasionally other creators at a variety of venues in the area, along with Sullivan’s cantata “The Golden Legend” with organ and percussion, and a concert of Sullivan songs.
The Connecticut Gilbert & Sullivan Society has received grants from the Middletown Commission on the Arts, the Connecticut Commission of the Arts, and the Middletown Foundation for the Arts. We have also received support through many employer-sponsored donation programs through members of the cast and crew.
CG&SS provides a showcase for talented singers, directors, designers, instrumentalists and stage technicians of professional expertise who make a living at other professions. This is family-oriented historical entertainment for the widest possible audience in the English language.
| 1981 Mikado |
| 1982 Pirates |
| 1983 Gondoliers |
| 1984 Pinafore, Trial |
| 1985 Iolanthe |
| 1986 Mikado |
| 1986 Yeomen |
| 1987 Princess Ida |
| 1988 Patience |
| 1989 Thespis |
| 2000 Ruddigore |
| 2001 Princess Ida |
| 2002 Pirates |
| 2003 Gondoliers |
| 2004 Mikado |
| 2005 Sorcerer |
| 2006 Pinafore |
| 2007 Iolanthe |
| 2008 Patience |
| 2009 Pirates |
| 1990 Pinafore |
| 1991 Pirates |
| 1992 Gondoliers |
| 1993 Trial, Rumpelstiltskin |
| 1994 Mikado |
| 1995 Sorcerer |
| 1996 Patience |
| 1997 Iolanthe |
| 1998 Yeomen |
| 1999 Pinafore |
Edith Hamilton, (1867 – 1964) renowned writer, educator, classicist and admirer of Gilbert &Sullivan, saw in Gilbert’s work a likeness to the Athenian dramatist Aristophanes. Quoted by Stephanie Chidester, she says, “The two men fooled in the same way; they looked at life with the same eyes. In Gilbert’s pages Victorian England lives in miniature just as Athens in Aristophanes’. . . . But the freedom Aristophanes enjoyed was not [Gilbert’s], and his deft, clear-cut pictures of dishonesty and sham and ignorance in high places are very discreet and always nameless. . . . They saw beneath the surface of the passing show. They wrote of the purely ephemeral, and in their hands it became a picture not of the ‘Follies and Foibles’ of a day and nation, but of those that exist in all nations and all ages and belong to the permanent stuff of human nature.”
