*GILBERT & SULLIVAN: RARE 1880 HMS PINAFORE TRADE CARD*

Description

A rare original 1880 Gilbert and Sullivan HMS Pinafore trade card made by American Puzzle Cards. Dimensions four and a half by three inches. Light wear, small tear and slight loss to bottom corner otherwise good.  See the story of HMS Pinafore below.
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From Wikipedia:
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor
is a
comic opera
in two acts, with music by
Arthur Sullivan
and a
libretto
by
W. S. Gilbert
. It opened at the
Opera Comique
in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any
musical theatre
piece up to that time.
H.M.S. Pinafore
was
Gilbert and Sullivan
's fourth operatic collaboration and their first international sensation.
The story takes place aboard the
Royal Navy
ship
HMS
Pinafore
. The
captain
's daughter, Josephine, is in love with a lower-class
sailor
, Ralph Rackstraw, although her father intends her to marry Sir Joseph Porter, the
First Lord of the Admiralty
. She abides by her father's wishes at first, but Sir Joseph's advocacy of the equality of humankind encourages Ralph and Josephine to overturn conventional social order. They declare their love for each other and eventually plan to elope. The captain discovers this plan, but, as in many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise disclosure changes things dramatically near the end of the story.
Drawing on several of his earlier "
Bab Ballad
" poems, Gilbert imbued this plot with mirth and silliness. The opera's humour focuses on love between members of different
social classes
and lampoons the British class system in general.
Pinafore
also pokes good-natured fun at
patriotism
, party politics, the Royal Navy, and the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority. The title of the piece comically applies the name of a garment for girls and women, a
pinafore
, to the fearsome symbol of a warship.
Pinafore's
extraordinary popularity in Britain, America and elsewhere was followed by the similar success of a series of Gilbert and Sullivan works, including
The Pirates of Penzance
and
The Mikado
. Their works, later known as the
Savoy operas
, dominated the musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade and continue to be performed today. The structure and style of these operas, particularly
Pinafore
, were much copied and contributed significantly to the
development of modern musical theatre
.