Summary: Transformed Fairies [Iolanthe]
Anglo-American Operetta and Musical Theater, I - Prof. Steve Gerber
Assignment 3 by Natalie Duchen
- Williams, Carolyn. “Transforming the Fairy Genres: Women on Top in Iolanthe.” Chapter 7 (pp. 187-221) in Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2008.
“Victorian fairies served as a screen for projection, a vehicle of fantasy, a way of imagining” (Williams, page 189).
This particular source was an assigned but unreported chapter for class at the beginning of the semester. However, after I contacted the author, Carolyn Williams, she pointed out this chapter in the book. At the beginning of the chapter she touches on how fairies are portrayed as the higher beings in the production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1882 Iolanthe. She talks about how in Iolanthe that the fairies are ascendant to the Peers: the fairies are “high” and the peers/politics are “low.” Throughout this chapter, she explores the ideas of gender, sexuality, and separating the worlds of reality and non-reality.
Besides fairies standing for the gender differences and equality, Williams also touches on the fact that they stand for a cross-cultural awareness. One example she gives from the show is the act 1 finale, when they jokingly refer to the Latin, French, and Greek “remarks.” This line also touches on the fact that Peers view the fairies, or women, as smart or scholarly and the fairies soon prove them wrong by repeating the same remarks back to them. Willams states, “On several levels, the structure of Iolanthe presents this system and its inversions: the topsy-turvy world of women controlling politics, with Fairies over Peers; the masculine assertiveness of the Fairy Queen; and the structural relation of the Fairy Queen to the Lord Chancellor, her ‘massive’ presence comically relieved by a smaller, capering man.” (215)
Gender and sexuality was also a main theme of fairy culture that Williams touched on. She mentions that in other productions sometimes Victorian children were hired to play the fairies. The fairies in Iolanthe, however, are not ethereal. The power is overtly sexual and portrayed by adult women, who take themselves to be in charge. “That Iolanthe is a genre parody may be seen in this humorous characterization of the Fairies, which supports the opera’s twist on the story of fairy marriage and its complex characterization of the Fairy Queen. Cutting through the tight knot of Victorian gender ideology, Iolanthe provides a sympathetic portrait of a fully substantial, fully sexual ‘strong-minded woman’” (Williams, page 199). She furthers dives into the gender roles at the end of the chapter touching on the finale of the show. She explains that although the fairies have succumbed to “other-worldly” desires, the Peers choose to leave their world to become fairies and go to Fairyland. This comments on the idea that women are not only seen as equal to the men in the production, but as ascendant.
Gilbert also experimented with another fairy genre, the fairy comedy. This blends the supernatural romance with psychological realism. This comments on the kinks of modern life, separating into two words, the sublunary and the mundane. “Iolanthe turns the conventional social parody, it presents women on top who stay on top, assimilating human males into their fairy culture, not vice versa” (Williams, page 203).