Gilbert and Sullivan
alexandra.coghlan
At 25 years old, Jonathan Miller’s Mikado may be more Grande Dame than ingénue, but it still has a Charleston kick in its step and a shimmy in its pearls. Styled and stylised, chic and slick, it's as far from the operetta’s ubiquitous am-dram incarnations as from the Japan of the original. Yet just as the Minimalist decor and monochrome palette of an Art Deco interior prove unforgiving to the smallest hint of dust or casual clutter, so the sharp lines of this production provide little cover for the relaxed paunch or middle-aged spreadings of a revival.Bathed in a lava flow of white Read more ...
David Nice
Hot on the heels of our feature celebrating 25 years of Jonathan Miller's Mikado at English National Opera, the latest revival of which opens tonight, veteran Savoyard Richard Suart sent through the most recent candidates for the Lord High Executioner's chop as he will be delivering them onstage (with no doubt a twist or two as the run proceeds).Understandably he didn't want me to spill all the beans, but gave his gracious consent to the preview of a few victims in the latest of his now celebrated spins on Gilbert's lyrics. They include - no prizes for having guessed this one -
The Read more ...
josh.spero
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first: if a law firm is going to put on an opera, it should probably be Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. Instead, having progressed through G&S’s Mikado and Pirates of Penzance in previous years, Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy last weekend staged The Magic Flute, and not just anywhere, but at Glyndebourne. The house which has resounded to Peter Pears and Felicity Lott this time was filled by tax lawyers and legal secretaries.It has no shortage of talent behind (and in front of) it. The director was Andrew Leveson, who has worked at Read more ...
graham.rickson
The plot of this rarely performed Gilbert and Sullivan spoof melodrama is gloriously amusing. The male heirs of the Murgatroyd family suffer under a witch’s curse which forces them to commit a crime each day, or suffer an agonising death. Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd has fled the ancestral home and now lives under a pseudonym, meaning that his younger brother Despard has had to assume both the baronetcy and the duty to commit the daily crime. Unlike his older brother's dastardly penchant for stealing babies and robbing banks, he finds it hard to progress beyond forging cheques and fiddling expenses Read more ...
edward.seckerson
Gilbert & Sullivan's audacious parody of Victorian melodrama, Ruddigore, is as spirited a piece of topsy-turvy confection as the celebrated Savoyards ever produced. It arrives at Opera North in a brand-new production directed by Jo Davies and conducted by John Wilson, whose loving restorations of MGM musicals proved such a sensation at last year's BBC Proms season. Edward Seckerson went behind the scenes to meet them both and his exclusive podcast whets the appetite for an evening of cunning disguises, dastardly deeds, and an abundance of cracking good tunes.Click here to listen to The Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
Endure this bafflingly pointless, sparsely staged and hopelessly dated musical, and you might find that the prospect of bloody death in the jaws of an enraged tiger somewhat loses its sting; you certainly won’t care whether that’s the fate in store for the show’s bland balladeer hero. A curious concoction of forgettable chirpy ditties, half-hearted satire and lots of twee larking about that is reminiscent of children’s television from 40 years ago, The Lady or the Tiger's downright weirdness doesn’t make it any less unrewarding.Apparently the original 1975 production, at the Orange Tree’ Read more ...