It's over!

The G&S Opera Victoria production of Patience is over!
We played to a very enthusiastic and responsive full house (910). The Opera House is a magnificent place to work, with 8 dressing rooms, good flies, large orchestra pit and lots of amenities.
The show was really very good, and the adjudicator agreed. She praised all the things Robert Ray does well: the cast interacting and being involved the whole time, and praised the chorus and the smart-looking Dragoons as well as our spectacular Lady Jane (Lynlee Williams) who deserves an award for best voice for her performance of Silvered is the Raven Hair. The audience was thrilled.
She even praised the "guest artists" who "came and joined the company a few days ago and worked so hard to make it a success."
The only real negative was that she caught the fact that one or two times the chorus and orchestra were not quite together. It is very difficult to see the conductor if you are not in the front line on stage and this was probably inevitable.
Our show started with a curtain speech by "Richard D'Oyly Carte," welcoming the audience to the new Savoy theater with its all new electric lighting, and a brief demonstration of why it was perfectly safe. There was also an interpolated bit with 2 small children representing young Grosvenor and young Patience, while the real Patience sang "Long yeas ago." There was also some clowning near the end when Bunthorne and Grosvenor slipped into deep Australian accents.
I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it was to perform with a company this good and to be made to feel so welcome. They thanked me for coming, including the music director.

Today several of us are going to visit Haddon Hall.