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2003>>
And our saucy ship's a beauty… |
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| HMS
Pinafore |
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The
Stage Review
Paul Gubbins is convinced that Gilbert &
Sullivan's HMS Pinafore is as good as anything you might find at Milan's
La Scala! |
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This
production of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore was a must, even
for those misguided souls who, for reasons best known to themselves,
persist in their crazy belief that G&S is beneath them / above them
/ old-fashioned / not proper opera / in English so it can't be any
good / funny and there is no such thing as funny opera (delete as
appropriate).
The Carl Rosa Company's HMS Pinafore is traditional G&S at its very
best - well-sung, well-staged, pacey and plucky and with a rich and
mellifluous orchestra which brings out the nuances in Sullivan's catchy
and melodic music.
Both main and supporting characters are superb: watch a convincing
Sir Joseph (Colin Baker) and listen to a dulcet Captain Corcoran (David
Stephenson), a belting bosun (Bruce Graham) and a sonorous Dick Deadeye
(Peter Grant).
It was almost impossible to find a favourite, but I adored Anne Bourne's
agonised Josephine, who was able not only to 'ring the merry bells
on board ship' but also to wring the emotions from the conflict in
her soul which threatens to split this tortured character asunder.
Some 'comic' opera, this, with her lover Ralph Rackstraw (Richard
Coxon) 'a living ganglion of irreconcilable antagonisms', which neatly
captures Gilbert's talent for leavening the gloom and doom - never
far away in these so-called 'comic' operas - with wit and verbal dexterity.
Okay, resolution of the plot hangs on a corny and entirely implausible
device … no more implausible, it should be said, than the tricks employed
by the masters of so-called grand opera.
Gilbert, of course, made one ghastly error. He chose to write in his
native language, in English, which, as any 'intellectual chap' such
as Private Willis in Iolanthe might have told him, is not the language
of opera.
Indeed, he preferred not to be 'a Roosian, a French, or Turk, or Proosian,
or perhaps Italian' but to be English.
Yet had he adopted as his language German, Italian, or even French,
his words and Sullivan's music would doubtless be heard regularly
in the leading opera houses of Europe and G&S would rank with, indeed
surpass, the Verdis, Rossinis and Puccinis of this world.
You'll not hear better at La Scala, Milan. As I heard a lady say on
leaving the theatre: 'I could watch that again'. To which I can only
add: Hear, hear.
Paul Gubbins |
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