The Pretty Druidess (original) (raw)

The Pretty Druidess; Or, The Mother, The Maid, and The Mistletoe Bough is an operatic burlesque by W. S. Gilbert. It was produced at the opening of the new Charing Cross Theatre on 19 June 1869 and ran until September of that year. The work was the last of five such burlesques that Gilbert wrote in the late 1860s. As in his other operatic burlesques, he chose a selection of operatic and popular tunes and wrote new words to fit them. The plot of the piece was loosely based on Vincenzo Bellini's 1831 opera Norma, with dialogue in rhyming couplets full of complicated word-play and dreadful puns.