Halifax Gilbert & Sullivan Society

Ruddigore or The Witch's Curse
By W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

A fantasy set in a village populated by bridesmaids and a castle with a picture gallery that comes to life. The hero Robin's determination to escape his inherited curse is betrayed by the crafty sailor Dick, and both of them attempt to detach demure Rose Maybud from the principles enshrined in her book of etiquette.

Add a madwoman and her tortured former admirer and you have a Gothic melodrama in which the heart's constancy shifts with the changing wind. Gilbert's ingenious plot is matched with one of Sullivan's most inventive scores, including Rose's Etiquette song, the reformed wrongdoers' "l once was a very abandoned person" and the spectral merriment of the Ghosts' High Noon.