Ensemble

A Stellar Night

FRANCES FORBES-CARBINES, in her first feature for Classical Music Daily, gives English National Opera's revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance' an enthusiastic thumbs up

 

Ideally when you go to see an opera, you want to come away humming the tunes. This is almost always occasioned by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan: in The Pirates of Penzance are so many memorable songs that they are only matched by, in this ENO production, the brilliance of director Mike Leigh's choice of period costumes, particularly that of the swashbuckling Pirate King, performed admirably in this by bass-baritone John Savournin.

John Savournin as The Pirate King with members of the English National Opera Chorus in ENO's revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance' at the London Coliseum. Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller
John Savournin as The Pirate King with members of the English National Opera Chorus in ENO's revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'The Pirates of Penzance' at the London Coliseum. Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller

Sitting with my editor in the audience, we noticed that we were not alone in laughing uproariously at the libretto's jokes, puns and wordplay: the audience was moved to mirth throughout the performance. We then remarked that the piece had not lost its power over the audience since its London debut in 1880: human nature, perhaps, does not change over centuries to the extent that we would expect it to. Some of the scenes in Pirates would not be created today: the capture of the ladies by the pirate crew, for example, recalling the plight of the Sabine women, sits rather uncomfortably in the Me Too era, but the language and behaviours otherwise depicted are all too recognisable. When the ladies feel awkward at the sight of the pirate apprentice Frederic, they panic, get flustered and resolve to sit and talk pointedly about the weather: what could be more English, even these days? The humour translates very well from the Victorian age to our own, which really is remarkable when you consider that over 120 years have passed since the opera's composition and first performance.

The songs are, quite simply, marvellous. The Major-General's famous song, 'I am The Very Model of a Modern Major General', is surely one of the fastest Gilbert and Sullivan songs, with its speedy patter and deluge of information. It references the battle of Marathon, fought between the Persians and the Greeks in 490 BC; it speaks of the Major-General's knowledge of 'equations, both simple and quadratical'. Gilbert, ever the joker, in this song rhymes 'lot of news' to 'square of the hypotenuse' (this was received with an uproar of laughter from the audience); it also rhymes 'integral and differential calculus' with 'beings animalculous,' with the latter referring to microscopic life forms. References follow to 'Caractacus' uniform': Caractacus was the British leader who resisted Roman occupation after the Romans landed in 43 AD; his 'uniform' was in fact his naked body covered in war paint; to Babylonic cuneiform, a writing system used from the close of the fourth millennium BC; to Roman emperor Heliogabalus and to Greek playwright Aristophanes' play The Frogs, in which the chorus of frogs croak 'breke-ke-ke, ko-ax ko-ax.' Major-General jokingly refers to 'that infernal nonsense Pinafore', referring, of course, to the Gilbert & Sullivan opera HMS Pinafore, and showing that Gilbert was a man of good humour and not averse to comic self-deprecation. HMS Pinafore, far from being 'infernal nonsense,' had, a few years previously, been an astounding success for Gilbert and Sullivan.

Richard Suart as The Major General with members of the English National Opera Chorus in ENO's 'The Pirates of Penzance', photo © 2024 Craig Fuller (left) and 'I am the very model of a modern Major General' - a drawing from the programme of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's 1884 children's production
Richard Suart as The Major General with members of the English National Opera Chorus in ENO's The Pirates of Penzance, photo © 2024 Craig Fuller (left) and 'I am the very model of a modern Major General' - a drawing from the programme of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's 1884 children's production

Composer Arthur Sullivan was a household name in his age: born in 1842, his father was sergeant bandmaster of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and by the age of ten Sullivan had learned to play every wind instrument. He went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music: he met W S Gilbert in 1868, they decided to collaborate and in 1875 their work Trial by Jury was commissioned by the impressario Richard D'Oyly Carte. HMS Pinafore would follow in 1878: it enjoyed phenomenal success, putting on over seven hundred performances due to its incredible popularity. (Pirates, by way of contrast, ran for 363 performances in Britain.) In Pirates of Penzance, Sullivan shows off his encyclopedic musical education by parodying a number of opera composers, notably Verdi, whose 'Anvil Chorus' from Il trovatore can be heard in the pirates' song 'Come, friends who plough the sea'. Equally, Gounod's operatic waltz-songs in Faust can be spotted in leading lady Mabel's 'Poor wandr'ing one!' and the programme notes state that the cadenza of this song is lifted from Verdi's La traviata. Sullivan, therefore, was communicating with his audience: 'you'll recognise this one!' as he satirises popular pieces for humorous effect. My favourite song has to be 'With Cat-like Tread' which is a burlesque of Verdi's Il trovatore: here, as throughout the score, the pirates sang with much gusto and vigour.

The London Coliseum really is a spectacular venue: originally it opened on Christmas Eve of 1904 as the largest 'people's palace of entertainment' of the time. The building was designed by renowned theatre architect Frank Matcham, with a Roman-inspired Baroque interior and exterior: it cost GBP 250,000 to build, which is around £33 million in today's money. It is the largest theatre in London's West End, with 2,359 seats, and was one of the first of two places in Britain to sell Coca-Cola, the other being Selfridges. The recipe for Coca-Cola has, of course, changed since Victorian times, no longer containing quantities of cocaine ...!

Conducted by Natalie Murray Beale, the orchestra were on top form and sounded absolutely splendid. Baritone Richard Suart makes a sterling Major-General Stanley, acting the part with a good balance of humour and gravitas, while former ENO Harewood Artist William Morgan is terrific as the protagonist and leading man Frederic: bold, with youthful exuberance and a wide capacity for expressing emotion, he is a stellar pirate apprentice.

Current ENO Harewood artist Isabelle Peters is magnificent as Mabel, Frederic's love interest: in good voice, her beautiful tones soared through the auditorium, and her acting skills were top notch - you could see her eyes sparkle as she fell in love with Frederic.

Isabelle Peters as Mabel and William Morgan as Frederic in English National Opera's 'The Pirates of Penzance' at the London Coliseum. Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller
Isabelle Peters as Mabel and William Morgan as Frederic in English National Opera's The Pirates of Penzance at the London Coliseum.
Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller

Mezzo-soprano Gaynor Keeble was brilliant as Ruth, the 'piratical maid of all work': her role assumes much of the comedic weight of the piece, and Keeble carried it with aplomb.

Gaynor Keeble as Ruth in English National Opera's 'The Pirates of Penzance' at the London Coliseum. Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller
Gaynor Keeble as Ruth in English National Opera's The Pirates of Penzance at the London Coliseum. Photo © 2024 Craig Fuller

My face ached from laughing and there was a general feeling of bonhomie that comes from an evening enjoyed thoroughly by all. I very much hope that the cast congratulated themselves on a stellar night. Bravi tutti.

Copyright © 29 January 2025 Frances Forbes-Carbines,
London UK

-------

 

 

 

 

 << Home              Next review >>