Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

of the Amazonian order, grants the wish of her subjects, and commands Iolanthe to come forth
from the pool, from whence she presently emerges, covered with dripping weeds and water,
plants. She admits her guilt in having wedded a mortal, and tells her companions that she has a
son, Strephon, who is half-fairy and half-mortal. When Iolanthe is presently left alone, Strephon
appears in the garb of an Arcadian shepherd, and complains to his mother because he is such a halfand-half
kind of being. He can go through a keyhole as far as his waist, but this is of no advantage,
since his mortals legs are left behind. He is also unhappy because he has been forbidden by the
Lord Chancellor to marry the pretty shepherdess, Phyllis, who is a ward in Chancery. Iolanthe
endeayours to comfort her son by saying that things will right themselves in time; and, as she has a
constituency in her gift, she promises to secure his return to Parliament as a " Liberal-
Conservative." Phyllis enters, and the lovers have a pretty love scene together. As they wander off
the Lord Chancellor and the Peers enter, having met together to decide which of them shall marry
Phyllis, since they have all fallen in love with her. Their chief, though he fancies the lady himself,
since he is "such a susceptible Chancellor," puts his own claim aside, that he may act as arbitrator
of his charming wards fate. Phyllis is sent for, and, upon her declining to wed anyone but her
beloved Strephon, she is at once separated from the latter, who calls the fairies to his aid. Iolanthe
talks to her son in such familiar and affectionate terms that Phyllis becomes jealous; and, refusing
to believe Strephons protestations that the fairy is his mother, she accuses him of infidelity, and
declares she will now choose a husband from amongst the peers. The latter rejoice; but Iolanthe,
indignant at her sons ill-treatment, announces that she will certainly send him to Parliament, where
he shall cause them endless trouble by mixing up their politics into a hopeless muddle.
Act 2 takes place at Westminster, outside the Houses of Parliament, where the fairies congregate
in the moonlight, their Queen being greatly attracted by Private Willis, the burly sentry. Strephon
is in Parliament, where, as the Leader of both Parties, he has wrought considerable confusion, as
prophesied; and Phyllis is engaged to the two Earls, Mountararat and Toleller, and cannot make up
her mind which shall marry her in the end. In order to settle matters, the Lord Chancellor
announces that he will marry his ward himself; whereupon Iolanthe appears, and reveals to him
the fact that she is his wife, he having been the mortal whom she married, and that Strephon is his
son, in whose light he cannot, as a good father, stand. The Lord Chancellor is overcome with
emotion on beholding his fairy wife once more; and Phyllis, now convinced of Strephons fairy
descent and fidelity, makes up her squabble with him, and consents to be his wife, casting off the
two peers, who, however, quickly console themselves with new sweethearts. Iolanthe, having thus
revealed the identity of her mortal husband, has again forfeited her life; but, as all the other fairies
now confess that they have also utilised their sojourn in Westminster by wedding peers, the Fairy
Queen is nonplussed, since she is reluctant to condemn all her subjects to death. She therefore
decides to follow their example, and, leading forth the bashful sentry, Private Willis, she chooses
him as her husband; and the opera closes with a merry dance of the happy peers and their fairy
wives, who provide them with wings to make them more suitable partners.
159. THE MIKADO; OR, "THE TOWN OF TITIPU"
Comic Opera in Two Acts By Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan
Libretto By Sir W. S. Gilbert
First Produced London, March, 1885