New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players: Utopia, Unlimited November 21, 2010

'Utopia, Limited,' or "The Flowers of Progress" is a rarely performed G&S satire concerning the attempts of an island paradise to clone the ways of Victorian England. The score is full of arching melodies, sprightly tunes, and rousing choruses while timely objects of Gilbert's wit include political correctness and governmental gridlock. King Paramount of Utopia has sent his oldest daughter to an English boarding school while importing an English lady to tutor his younger girls. When the elder student returns to her south sea island paradise home from the United Kingdom with seven idealistic "flowers of progress" representing various British institutions (amongst them a dashing young dragoon guard with whom she is in love) the locals adopt their white-washed versions of Victorian ways, with catastrophic results.