The Nautch Girl

[1] The cast included several players familiar to the Savoy's audiences: Courtice Pounds (Indru), Frank Thornton (Pyjama), W. H. Denny (Bumbo), Frank Wyatt (Baboo Currie) and Rutland Barrington (Punka, replaced by W. S. Penley, when Barrington left the company for several months to tour in a series of "musical duologues" with Jessie Bond).

[4] The Nautch Girl received its only known North American performances on 7 and 8 August 2004, in an incomplete version by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois.

[5] When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was forced to find new works to present at the Savoy Theatre.

Dance was the younger collaborator, and later he was responsible for the phenomenally successful musical A Chinese Honeymoon, which ran for more than a thousand performances at the turn of the century.

[7] Nellie Stewart was originally cast as Hollee Beebee, the title character, but she "resigned" the role a month before the show opened.

His life is beset by many problems, including the love of his son, Indru, for the nautch dancer Hollee Beebee; Punka's sponging relatives, especially the scheming Vizier Pyjama; and a missing diamond that serves as the national idol's right eye.

Pyjama, scheming to become the rajah, has put an anonymous letter on the idol's shrine informing Punka that Indru is a condemned man.

Beebee returns from a personally triumphant European tour, carrying a curious gem on her necklace that had been left for her at a stage door by an admirer, and looks for her Indru.

The Daily News gave the show a good review, though noting that Solomon did not aspire to Sullivan's "refined melodic inspiration and delicately-finished orchestration", and commenting on a certain monotony in the score caused by an excess of drawing room songs and waltzes.

[11] The Morning Post was not greatly impressed by the score, and referred the opera's "ghastly attempt at humour", but praised the staging and the cast.