Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta ‘Patience’ at the Salesians’ Theatre

Teatru Manoel, in collaboration with the Valletta 2018 Foundation, will be presenting Teatru Manoel Youth Opera in Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta Patience.

Patience is the gleaming jewel in Gilbert and Sullivan’s vast and incomparable operatic output. One of the funniest and most brilliant pieces of musical theatre ever written, Patience shimmers with all the ebullient wit of Gilbert’s dazzling comic intellect and all the elegance and humour of Sullivan’s remarkable musical genius.

Taking as its subject the overblown affectations of the late 19th century aesthetes, the operetta gleefully dismantles all the pretensions that inspire ideological movements – an approach still relevant 150 years on.

Because of its profoundly penetrating wit, Patience remains an evergreen burlesque of all the ludicrous mores, fashions, manners and pretensions that humans cleave to in the endless attempt to seem fascinating to their fellow- men. Filled with blindingly acerbic wit and beguilingly gorgeous music, Patience is a deeply affectionate lampoon of all that makes us what we are, exposing with gleeful delight the multifarious masks we adopt and the myriad postures we strike, in our unending attempt to be what we wish we were.

Filled with humour, incident, wit, insight and uncontained joy, Patience delights, entrances and surprises from its first moment to its last. One of the great pieces of musical theatre – and far too rarely performed – Patience is an unmissable treat for any theatregoer young or old.

This new and exciting production is directed by Tama Matheson with a set design by Chris Hone and costumes by Maria Muscat.

Patience will take place at the Salesians Theatre, Sliema on Saturday, 30 September and Sunday, 1 October at 8.30pm. For bookings visit www.ticketline.com.mt