Template:POTD/2023-06-08
Ruddigore is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan, and was first performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the Savoy Theatre in London on 22 January 1887. The first night was not altogether a success, as critics and the audience felt that Ruddygore (as it was originally spelled) did not measure up to its predecessor, The Mikado. However, after it was revived by D'Oyly Carte in 1920, the work was reassessed more positively. This illustration was created by the British illustrator H. M. Brock for the 1921 revival of Ruddigore at the Prince's Theatre in London. Published in the October 29 issue of The Sphere, it depicts a scene from the opera in which the ghosts of Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd's ancestors step out of their picture frames and accuse him of not having committed a crime every day in accordance with the family curse.Poster credit: H. M. Brock; restored by Adam Cuerden