Template:POTD/2021-12-18
The Contrabandista is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall in London on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed for a run of 72 performances; this poster was produced to advertise the original production. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874 and the United States in 1880. In 1894, it was revised into a new opera, The Chieftain, with a completely different second act. The work was the first of Sullivan's full-length operas to be produced. It was not a great success, with Burnand's libretto coming in for the most criticism, but its music exhibits many of the qualities and techniques that Sullivan would employ in composing his twenty further comic operas, including the famous series of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas produced between 1871 and 1896.Poster credit: Robert Jacob Hamerton; restored by Adam Cuerden