The Willow Pattern

The Willow Pattern is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by Basil Hood and music by Cecil Cook. It was first performed at the Savoy Theatre on 14 November 1901, running for a total of 110 performances until 29 March 1902. It toured thereafter.

The Willow Pattern was a companion piece to Ib and Little Christina (for 16 performances) and later Iolanthe (94 performances). It and was toured in Britain and America. A copy of the printed libretto is in the British Library, at 11778.f.23(5). (1901). The vocal score was published by Chappells, and a copy is in British Library at F.690.j.(2) [1902].

A silent film of the legend was made in 1914, called Story of the Willow Pattern.

When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte and, after his death, his widow Helen Carte, filled the Savoy Theatre with a combination of new works and revivals of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The fashion in the late Victorian era and Edwardian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so Carte preceded his Savoy operas with curtain raisers, such as The Willow Pattern was, when played with Iolanthe.W. J. MacQueen-Pope commented, concerning such curtain raisers:

The libretto follows the familiar legend of the willow pattern, but with the addition of some extra characters, notably a rogue, PingPong, who helps to trick the father into allowing his daughter to marry her lover.

The Legend of the Willow Pattern was invented by the English over 200 years ago to promote pottery sales of a china willow pattern based on an older china pattern. The story runs as follows (with the frequent references to the figures in the plate design omitted):

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