Review and Analysis: Haddon Hall by the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
I give a bit of background information about Haddon Hall and its major dramatic issues at the beginning. If you're just here for the production review, you can skip down a few paragraphs. *** The actual Haddon Hall *** The 1892 Sullivan and Grundy opera Haddon Hall is sort of like H.M.S. Pinafore , but on land. Dorothy Vernon is to be engaged to her cousin Rupert, in a generally advantageous match. George Vernon, Dorothy's father, is the Lord of Haddon Hall, and wants the estate to stay in the family. (Rupert, meanwhile, wants the hall all to himself.) But Dorothy is in love with John Manners, a royalist. Rupert shows up, Dorothy refuses him. Dorothy makes plans to elope with Manners. Dorothy elopes with Manners. Parliament grants Rupert lordship over Haddon Hall. Charles II is reinstated to the throne, making Haddon Hall property of the crown, and, at the last second, Manners swoops in with an order from the king restoring George Vernon as the...