Editing Ruddigore (section)

===Subsequent reviews and reception===
[[File:Geraldine Ulmar.jpg|right|thumb|[[Geraldine Ulmar]] as Rose in New York]]

Subsequent reviews, written after Gilbert and Sullivan had renamed the show and made other changes, were generally more favourable.  A week after the premiere, the ''[[Illustrated London News]]'' praised the work, the actors and both Gilbert and, especially, Sullivan: "Sir Arthur Sullivan has eminently succeeded alike in the expression of refined sentiment and comic humour.  In the former respect, the charm of graceful melody prevails; while, in the latter, the music of the most grotesque situations is redolent of fun."<ref name=Illustrated/>  On 1 February 1887, ''The Theatre'' wrote, "There can be no doubt that by its admirable production of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan's latest work the Savoy management has scored another of those shining and remunerative successes that its enterprise, intelligence, and good taste have repeatedly achieved – and merited."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/ruddigore/rud3.html |title=''The Theatre'', 1 February 1887 4th series 9: pp. 95–98 |access-date=26 December 2007 |archive-date=8 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070908124300/http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/ruddigore/rud3.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>  A week later, ''The Academy'' reckoned that ''Ruddygore'' (as it was still called in the review) was probably not so good as ''[[Patience (opera)|Patience]]'' or ''The Mikado'', nor as "fresh" as ''[[H.M.S. Pinafore]]'', but "it is better than ... ''[[Princess Ida]]'', the ''[[The Pirates of Penzance|Pirates]]'', and ''[[Iolanthe]]''".<ref>Wedmore, Frederick. [http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/ruddigore/rud2.html Review of ''Ruddigore''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070908124210/http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/ruddigore/rud2.html |date=8 September 2007 }} in ''The Academy'', 12 February 1887 New series 32(771): pp.  118–19</ref>  ''[[The Musical Times]]'' called the work "one of the most brilliant examples which the associated art of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan has brought into existence," and said that Sullivan had "written some of his freshest and most delightful melodies."<ref>''The Musical Times'', 1 February 1887, pp. 86–88</ref> However, in the view of ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'', reviewing the [[Manchester]] premiere in March 1887,  "The weakness of his central idea has led Mr Gilbert into extravagance without wit and parody without point."<ref>''The Manchester Guardian'', 29 March 1887, p. 8</ref>

On 5 February 1887, ''The New York Times'' reported the change of name to ''Ruddigore.''  "In consequence of the criticisms on the piece, the second act has been changed.  The pictures, with the exception of one, no longer come down from their frames.  The houses are packed, as they always are in London, but the opinion is universal that the thing will be a worse failure in the provinces and America than ''Iolanthe''."<ref name=Times3>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/02/06/103134668.pdf ''New York Times'' "A Clean Steal" 2/5/1887]</ref> In a letter cabled to ''The New York Times'' and printed on 18 February, [[Richard D'Oyly Carte]] denied that the piece was a failure, stating that box office receipts were running ahead of the same time period for ''The Mikado'', despite the absence of the ailing Grossmith, who was by then recovering.<ref name=Times4>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/02/13/103136595.pdf ''The New York Times'' Old World News]</ref> He acknowledged that there had been "isolated hisses" on the first night because some audience members did not like the reappearance of the ghosts or a reference to the "Supreme Court" (according to D'Oyly Carte, misunderstood as "Supreme Being") but asserted that both objections had been addressed by the removal of the offending material, and that audience reaction had been otherwise enthusiastic.  He added, "The theatre is crammed nightly."<ref name=Times2>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/02/18/103137394.pdf Richard D'Oyly Carte's letter] to ''The New York Times'', dated 18 February 1887</ref>

The American productions met with mixed success. The demand for tickets for the first night was so great that the management of the [[Fifth Avenue Theatre]] sold them by public auction.<ref>''The Daily News'', 24 January 1887, p. 3</ref> A "large and brilliant" audience assembled for the New York premiere on 21 February 1887.  "After the first half of the first act there was a palpable diminution of interest on the part of the audience, and it must be admitted that there were times during the course of the evening when people were bored."  While the critic had praise for many members of the cast and felt the production would improve once the cast was more familiar with the work, the reviewer concluded that "Gilbert and Sullivan have failed."<ref name=Timesreview>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/02/06/103134668.pdf ''New York Times'' review of the New York premiere]</ref> On the other hand, the American tour, beginning in Philadelphia six days later, met with a much more favourable audience reaction.  "That the opera is a great success here and another "''Mikado''" in prospective popularity there can be no question....  The general verdict is that Sullivan never composed more brilliant music, while Gilbert's keen satire and pungent humor is {{sic}} as brilliant as ever."<ref name=TimesPhila>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1887/02/06/103134668.pdf ''New York Times'' "Philadelphia Likes Ruddigore"]</ref> During the summer of 1886, Braham secretly married J. Duncan Young, previously a principal tenor with the company.  In early 1887, shortly into the run of ''Ruddigore'', Braham informed Carte that she was pregnant with her second child, a daughter, who would be born on 6 May.<ref>''The Times'', 10 May 1887, p. 1</ref> [[Geraldine Ulmar]], the Rose in the New York cast, was summoned to London to take over the role.<ref>[http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/ruddigore/html/timesa.html "Savoy Theatre"]{{Dead link|date=August 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. ''The Times'', 11 May 1887, retrieved 26 August 2010</ref>

[[File:BondMeg.jpg|left|thumb|[[Jessie Bond]] as Margaret]]

Gilbert ranked ''Ruddigore'' along with ''[[The Yeomen of the Guard]]'' and ''[[Utopia, Limited]]'' as one of his three favourite Savoy operas.<ref>Dark and Grey, p. 105</ref> Later assessments have found much merit in the piece.<ref name=Walbrook/>  After it was revived by the D'Oyly Carte Opera company in 1920, the work remained in their regular repertory, and it has generally been given a place in the regular rotation of other Gilbert and Sullivan repertory companies.  By 1920, in a reappraisal of the piece, [[Samuel Langford]] wrote in ''The Manchester Guardian'' that "the gruesome strain is the real Gilbertian element" but "the opera has abundant charm among its more forbidding qualities".<ref>''The Manchester Guardian'', 28 December 1920, p. 9</ref>  In 1934 [[Hesketh Pearson]] rated the libretto among Gilbert's best.<ref>Pearson, p. 135</ref>  In a 1937 review, ''The Manchester Guardian'' declared, 
{{blockquote|text=It is incomprehensible that ''Ruddigore'' should ever have been considered less attractive than the other comic operas in the Savoy series. The libretto gives us Gilbert at his wittiest, and in the music we hear Sullivan not only in his most tuneful vein but also as a master of more subtle rhythms than he commands elsewhere.  Moreover, the parody is one that all can enjoy to the full, for here the satire is not pointed at a coterie, nor at this or that æsthetic movement, but at the absurdities of a melodramatic tradition which is nearly as old as the stage itself.<ref>Hill, Granville. [https://www.gsarchive.net/ruddigore/html/reviews.html Review of ''Ruddigore''] {{dead link|date=February 2019|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} in ''The Manchester Guardian'', 6 November 1937, p. 19 (Hill was the successor to Langford and [[Neville Cardus]] as chief music critic)</ref>}}

In 1984, Arthur Jacobs rated ''Ruddigore'' "One of the weaker of Gilbert's librettos, it was seen (especially after the freshness of invention in ''The Mikado'') to be rather obviously relying on brushed-up ideas....  The plot is supposedly a burlesque of what was 'transpontine' melodrama.... But that brand of melodrama was itself hardly alive enough to be made fun of. As the ''Weekly Dispatch'' put it: 'If stage work of the kind caricatured in ''Ruddygore or The Witch's Curse'' is not extinct, it is relegated to regions unfrequented by the patrons of Mr D'Oyly Carte's theatre'."<ref>Jacobs, p. 248</ref>