Happy Arcadia

Gilbert and Sullivan later produced a comic opera, Iolanthe, in which two of the characters, Strephon and Phyllis, are "Arcadian" shepherds.

This work is the fifth in a series of six one-act musical plays written by Gilbert for Thomas German Reed and his wife Priscilla between 1869 and 1875.

The German Reeds presented respectable, family-friendly musical entertainments at their Gallery of Illustration beginning in 1855.

The German Reeds did not call their venue a theatre because, at that time, the theatre in Britain had gained a poor reputation as an unsavory institution and was not attended by much of the middle class; Shakespeare was played, but most theatrical entertainments consisted of poorly translated French operettas, risque burlesques and incomprehensible broad farces.

[1] The Gallery of Illustration was a 500-seat theatre with a small stage that only allowed for four or five characters with accompaniment by a piano, harmonium and sometimes a harp.

Arcadia was a legendary site of rural perfection, first described by the Ancient Greeks, that was a popular setting for writers of the 19th century and artists such as Jean-Antoine Watteau.

The magic items cause the sort of transformation that fascinated Gilbert throughout his career and that he used in all his "lozenge plot" works, including The Sorcerer, Foggerty's Fairy and The Mountebanks.

[2] Theatre historian Kurt Gänzl noted that "the highlight of the show was a scene in which, various jealousies having arisen, everyone is simultaneously wishing he were one of the others – and consequently everyone is!

[3] Although Happy Arcadia was one of the later pieces by Gilbert for the German Reeds, it was a step backwards in terms of dramatic development.

Daphne has news: The handsome, wealthy, gifted Lycidas has determined to renounce the vanities of a worldly life and is going to become an Arcadian, and he has taken a fancy to Chloe.