THE GRAND DUKE

Musical Gossip. The Athenaeum : Journal of English and foreign literature, science, the fine arts, music and the drama 1896 March 14 3568: 353 [unsigned review]

     MR. W. S. GILBERT and Sir Arthur Sullivan are in partnership once more, and their latest fantastic opera ‘The Grand Duke,’ produced at the Savoy Theatre last Saturday evening, may be fairly pronounced of average merit. Neither in libretto or in music is it equal to ‘H.M.S. Pinafore,’ ‘Patience,’ ‘The Mikado,’ or ‘The Yeomen of the Guard,’ but it is not in the least degree unworthy either of the dramatist or the composer, there being a fairly large number of humorous line in the book, and in the score certainly a sufficient measure of Sullivanesque music, bright and piquantly orchestrated. Among those who take part in this latest example of what is generally known as Gilbertian topsy-turvydom the most commendable are Messrs. Walter Passmore, Charles Kenningham, Rutland Barrington, and R. Scott Fishe, Mesdames Ilka von Palmay and Florence Perry, and Miss Rosina Brandram. The scenes and costumes are excellent in a pictorial sense.