Editing Iolanthe (section)

==Musical and textual analysis==
[[File:Iolanthe Programme Inside.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Inside of the programme]]
At the time they wrote ''Iolanthe'', both Gilbert and Sullivan were in their peak creative years, and ''Iolanthe'', their seventh work together, drew the best from both composer and author. Sullivan's biographer, [[Arthur Jacobs]], wrote: "[Sullivan] had composed a brilliant new score (his most subtle yet) to a scintillating libretto. ... ''Iolanthe'' is the work in which Sullivan's operetta style takes a definite step forward, and metamorphosis of musical themes is its characteristic new feature. ... By recurrence and metamorphosis of themes Sullivan made the score more fluid".<ref>Jacobs 1984, pp. 176–179</ref> Sullivan's overture was superior in structure and orchestration to those that his assistants had constructed for the earlier operas.<ref name=Ainger216>Ainger, p. 216</ref> Much of his "fairy" music pays deliberate homage to the [[incidental music]] written by [[Felix Mendelssohn]] for an [[A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn)|1842 production]] of Shakespeare's ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]''. [[Richard Wagner]]'s ''[[Ring of the Nibelung|Ring]]'' cycle premiered in London earlier in 1882.<ref>[[Christopher Fifield|Fifield, Christopher]]. ''[[Ibbs and Tillett]]: The Rise and Fall of a Musical Empire'', Chapter 3, pp. 25–26, London: Ashgate Publishing, 2005. {{ISBN|1-84014-290-1}}</ref> The music for the fairies reflects Wagner's style, and the score uses [[leitmotif]]s, including a distinctive four-note theme associated with the character of Iolanthe. The Fairy Queen's music parodies that of Wagnerian heroines such as [[Brünnhilde]].<ref>Williams, p. 217</ref> The score is wider in range of emotion and style, with innovative use of pizzicato strings, clever and varied underscoring of patter, the tender, sentimental eleventh-hour number for the title character, apt matching of the music to the absurd comedy of the lyrics, and a sustained first act finale with a series of dramatic situations that ends with the confrontation between the fairies and peers.<ref name=Ainger216/>

Gilbert, too, was influenced by earlier works, including ''[[The Mountain Sylph]]'' by [[John Barnett]]. Two characters in ''Iolanthe'', Strephon and Phyllis, are described as ''Arcadian'' shepherds. [[Arcadia (utopia)|Arcadia]] was a legendary site of rural perfection, first described by the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greeks]], that was a popular setting for writers of the 19th century. Gilbert had written an earlier work called ''[[Happy Arcadia]]''. He had also created several "fairy comedies" at the [[Haymarket Theatre]] in the early 1870s. These plays, influenced by the fairy work of [[James Planché]], are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/223/0815.html ''The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes'' (1907–21). Volume XIII. "The Victorian Age", Part One. VIII. Nineteenth-Century Drama, § 15. W. S. Gilbert.]</ref> Several of ''Iolanthe's'' themes are continued from ''Patience'', including the battle between the sexes and the satire on legal and political themes. ''Iolanthe'' is one of several of Gilbert's works, including among others ''[[The Wicked World]]'', ''[[Broken Hearts]]'', ''[[Fallen Fairies]]'' and ''[[Princess Ida]]'', where the introduction of males into a tranquil world of women brings "mortal love" that wreaks havoc with the status quo.<ref>[http://gsarchive.net/gilbert/plays/broken_hearts/intro.html Introduction to ''Broken Hearts''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413153715/http://gsarchive.net/gilbert/plays/broken_hearts/intro.html |date=13 April 2017 }}, ''The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive'', retrieved 10 March 2009</ref>

Gilbert's absurdist style is on full display in ''Iolanthe''. For example, all the members of the House of Lords are in love with Phyllis, a ward of the Lord Chancellor. Gilbert satirically sets up the fantastical fairies as the agents of common sense in contrast with the nonsensical peers, who should be sober parliamentarians, while the most poetically romantic of the fairies, the "Arcadian" shepherd, Strephon, is chosen to lead both houses of Parliament.<ref name=Crowther158/><ref>Ainger, pp. 205–206</ref> One of Gilbert's biographers, Andrew Crowther wrote: "The things that make [the opera] memorable as a work of art [include] the peers entering in the full pomp of their formal robes, magnificent and ridiculous."<ref name=Crowther158/> Among many pot-shots that Gilbert takes at lawyers in this opera, the Lord Chancellor sings that, as a young lawyer, he decided to "work on a new and original plan" similar to the practice in other professions, that diligence, honesty, honour and merit should lead to promotion. Gilbert uses the "fairy law" as a proxy for mortal law, in which an "equity draughtsman" can, with "the insertion of a single word", change the entire meaning of the law. Crowther notes: "All kinds of tone ... mingle in this opera: whimsy, fantasy, romance, wit and political satire."