Princess Ida Sullivan Festival. Princess Ida Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. "Princess Ida" opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, for a run of 246 performances. The piece concerns a princess who founds a women's university and teaches that women are superior to men and should rule in their stead. The prince to whom she had been married in infancy sneaks into the university, together with two friends, with the aim of collecting his bride. They disguise
Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Al Goodman and Groucho Marx also released Gilbert and Sullivan recordings. The operas are referred to in other popular media, including video games. For example, in "", a casino is called "Pirates in Men’s Pants", a crude play on "Pirates of Penzance". The 1970s popular music singer Gilbert O'Sullivan adopted his stage name as a pun on "Gilbert and Sullivan" when his manager suggested that it would be good marketing. In the 1950s, the British radio show "Take It From Here" featured parodies of Gilbert and Sullivan songs with lyrics about the buses in London.