Background

Genesis of the work Princess Ida is based on Tennyson's humorous 1847 narrative poem The Princess: A Medley. Gilbert had written a blank verse musical farce burlesquing the same material, produced in 1870, called The Princess, and he reused a good deal of the dialogue from his earlier play in the libretto. Gilbert had to write entirely new lyrics, since the lyrics to the 1870 farce were written to previously existing music by Jacques Offenbach, Rossini and others. The story focuses on a women's university – an innovative, even radical concept in 1870, but an established concept by 1883. Westfield College in Hampstead, London's first women's college, opened in 1882 and is cited as a model for Gilbert's Castle Adamant.
   Increasingly viewing his work with Gilbert as unimportant, beneath his skills, and repetitious, Sullivan had intended to resign from the partnership with Gilbert and Carte after Iolanthe, but after a recent financial loss, he concluded that his financial needs required him to continue writing Savoy operas. He also gave his consent to Gilbert to continue with the adaptation of The Princess as the basis for their next opera. The musical establishment, and many critics, believed that Sullivan's knighthood should put an end to his career as a composer of comic opera — that a musical knight shouldn't stoop below oratorio or grand opera. Having just signed the five-year agreement, Sullivan suddenly felt trapped.
   By the end of July 1883, Gilbert and Sullivan were revising drafts of the libretto for Ida. Sullivan finished some of the composition by early September, when he'd to begin preparations for his conducting duties at the triennial Leeds Festival, held in October. In late October, Sullivan turned back to Ida, and rehearsals began in November. Gilbert was also producing his one-act drama Comedy and Tragedy, and keeping an eye on a revival of his Pygmalion and Galatea at the Lyceum Theatre by Mary Anderson's company. In mid-December, Sullivan bade farewell to his sister-in-law Charlotte, the widow of his brother Fred, who departed with her young family to America, never to return. Sullivan's oldest nephew, Herbert, stayed behind in England as his uncle's ward, and Sullivan threw himself into the task of orchestrating the score of Princess Ida.

Production Princess Ida is the only Gilbert and Sullivan work with dialogue entirely in blank verse and the only one of their works in three acts (and the longest opera to that date). The piece calls for a larger cast, and the soprano title role requires a more dramatic voice, than the earlier works. The American star Lillian Russell was engaged to create the title role of Princess Ida, but Gilbert didn't believe that she was dedicated enough, and when she missed a rehearsal, she was dismissed. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's usual female lead, Leonora Braham, a light lyric soprano, nevertheless moved up from the part of Lady Psyche to assume the title role. Rosina Brandram got her big break when Alice Barnett became ill and left the company for a time, taking the role of Lady Blanche and becoming the company's principal contralto. The reviewer for the Sunday Times wrote that the score of Ida was "the best in every way that Sir Arthur Sullivan has produced, apart from his serious works.... Humour is almost as strong a point with Sir Arthur... as with his clever collaborator...." The humour of the piece also drew the comment that Gilbert and Sullivan's work "has the great merit of putting everyone in a good temper." The praise for Sullivan's effort was unanimous, though Gilbert's work received some mixed notices.

Aftermath Sullivan's close friend, composer Frederic Clay, had suffered a serious stroke in early December 1883 that ended his career. Sullivan, reflecting on this, on his own precarious health, and on his desire to devote himself to more serious music, informed Richard D'Oyly Carte on 29 January 1884, that he'd determined "not to write any more 'Savoy' pieces." Sullivan fled the London winter to convalesce in Monte Carlo as seven provincial tours (one with a 17 year old Henry Lytton in the chorus) and the U.S. production of Ida set out.
    As Princess Ida began to show signs of flagging early on, Carte sent notice, on 22 March 1884, to both Gilbert and Sullivan under the five-year contract, that a new opera would be required in six months' time. Sullivan replied that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself." Gilbert was surprised to hear of Sullivan's hesitation and had started work on a new opera involving a plot in which people fell in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge – a plot that Sullivan had previously rejected. Gilbert wrote to Sullivan asking him to reconsider, but the composer replied on 2 April that he'd "come to the end of my tether" with the operas: » "...I have been continually keeping down the music in order that not one [syllable] should be lost.... I should like to set a story of human interest & probability where the humorous words would come in a humorous (not serious) situation, & where, if the situation were a tender or dramatic one the words would be of similar character."

Gilbert was much hurt, but Sullivan insisted that he couldn't set the "lozenge plot." In addition to the "improbability" of it, it was too similar to the plot of their 1877 opera, The Sorcerer and was too complex a plot. Sullivan returned to London, and, as April wore on, Gilbert tried to rewrite his plot, but he couldn't satisfy Sullivan. The parties were at a stalemate, and Gilbert wrote, "And so ends a musical & literary association of seven years' standing – an association of exceptional reputation – an association unequalled in its monetary results, and hitherto undisturbed by a single jarring or discordant element." However, by 8 May, Gilbert was ready to back down, writing, "...am I to understand that if I construct another plot in which no supernatural element occurs, you'll undertake to set it? ... a consistent plot, free from anachronisms, constructed in perfect good faith & to the best of my ability." The stalemate was broken, and on 20 May, Gilbert sent Sullivan a sketch of the plot to The Mikado.
   Sullivan's score is majestic, and a sequence of songs in Act II, sometimes known as the "string of pearls", is particularly well loved. Sullivan used chromatic and scalar passages and key modulations throughout the score, and commenters have called the Act II quartet "The World Is But a Broken Toy" one of Sullivan's "most beautiful, plaintive melodies." Although Gilbert's libretto contains many funny lines,
   The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival offers various video recordings of the opera, including its excellent 2003 professional G&S Opera Company video.