Premiere of Thespis
- When
- 26 December 1871
- Where
- Venue disputed: Gaiety Theatre (passage evidence) vs Royalty Theatre (legacy record)
Thespis, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera, premièred in London on 26 December 1871, commissioned by John Hollingshead as a holiday piece.
John Hollingshead commissioned the burlesque-style comic opera at the end of 1871 as a holiday piece for Christmas. The premiere date is given as 26 December 1871 in London. The venue is disputed: the sourced passage states the Gaiety Theatre, while the legacy record names the Royalty Theatre, so no single occurrence site is asserted. The run was later interrupted on 14 February 1872, Ash Wednesday, when London theatres refrained from costumed performances.
Sources
- Thespis (opera) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-07
- Arthur Sullivan Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-01
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.