Bristol Gilbert & Sullivan
Operatic Society

Iolanthe
 Synopsis

Twenty-five years in the past, Iolanthe, a fairy, had committed the crime of marrying a mortal. The Fairy Queen had commuted her death sentence to banishment for life, on condition that Iolanthe leave her husband without explanation and never see him again. At the beginning of the opera, the fairies convince the Fairy Queen to pardon Iolanthe, who returns to them. Her son Strephon also joins them.

Strephon has grown up as a shepherd and is half fairy, half mortal. Strephon is in love with Phyllis, a shepherdess, who is also a Ward in Chancery. She returns his love, but is unaware he is 'half-a-fairy'. He wishes to marry Phyllis, but her guardian, the Lord Chancellor, refuses to give his permission.

In the meantime, the whole House of Lords are besotted with Phyllis. They appeal to the Lord Chancellor to give her to whichever of them she may choose. The Lord Chancellor is also smitten with her but feels he has no legal right to marry Phyllis himself. Phyllis declines to marry one of the Lords, telling them her heart is already given; Strephon pleads his cause to the Lord Chancellor again, but in vain. Iolanthe enters and comforts her son. Since she, like all fairies, looks like a girl of seventeen, Phyllis and the Peers misinterpret the situation and refuse to believe Strephon's claim that Iolanthe is his mother. Phyllis declares that she will now marry either Lord Mountararat or Lord Tolloller. Strephon, heartbroken, summons the fairies to his aid. The fairies threaten the peers and the peers attempt to defy them.


The Fairies take revenge on the Peers by sending Strephon to Parliament and influencing both Houses to pass any bills he may introduce. This includes a bill to throw the Peerage open to competitive examination. The Peers appeal to the Fairies to stop Strephon from passing this bill. The Fairies have fallen in love with the Peers and would like to help, but it is too late! The Queen expresses her disapproval of the fairies' weakness for the Peers. She acknowledges her own weakness for a sentry, Private Willis, but asserts that she has it under control.

Lord Mountararat and Lord Tolloller ascertain that if either loses Phyllis to the other, family tradition requires that they fight to the death. Both therefore renounce Phyllis in the name of friendship. The Lord Chancellor, convinced by Lord Tolloller and Lord Mountararat, and after much internal debate, vows to marry Phyllis himself.

Meanwhile Strephon makes Phyllis realise that his mother is a fairy, and they are reconciled. They persuade Iolanthe to appeal to the Lord Chancellor to allow them to marry. When he resists her appeal, she reveals her identity to him, as his wife, and thus again incurs the death penalty. The other fairies, however, have married their respective Peers, and announce to the Queen that they all have all therefore incurred the same sentence. The Lord Chancellor suggests a small change to the Fairy law which saves the situation. All is resolved happily, and everyone flies off to Fairyland.