A search for a lost opera by Gilbert and Sullivan has begun with calls going out to people to check shelves and lofts. According to the BBC, the original score of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Utopia Limited” was sold in 1915 at an auction for 50 guineas to Sir Robert Hudson of Hill Hall in Essex. When Hudson died in 1927, {…}
On May 19, 2023, California’s Pacific Opera Project will present Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” at Glendale Forest Lawn. Located between LA and the San Gabriel Mountains, this venue has seen previous POP productions, with audience members invited to dress in costume and picnic on the grounds. Conductor Caleb Glickman will make his company debut, leading a cast {…}
(Photo: Opera Holland Park 2022 © Ali Wright) Following on from last season’s imaginative realization of “The Pirates of Penzance,” Charles Court Opera returned to the Holland Park stage in a co-production of “HMS Pinafore”. W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s satire on class, manners, and buffoonery as directed by John Savournin. Savournin has built quite the reputation in G&S as {…}
(Photo Credit: Tristan Kenton, 2021) Cal McCrystal returns to English National Opera (ENO) for his second Gilbert & Sullivan operetta at the Coliseum, following up 2019’s riotously silly “Iolanthe” with “HMS Pinafore.” His is an interventionist approach that will surely not please G&S traditionalists: not that there seemed to be any disapproving looks from them on opening night! As the {…}
Credit: (OHP Marketing/Opera Holland Park) The last offering from Opera Holland Park’s (OHP) 2021 summer season was another collaboration: W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”, co-produced with Gilbert & Sullivan specialists Charles Court Opera, postponed from last summer. A Playful Production How do we imaginatively enter the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert & Sullivan, with its surreally distended {…}
(Photo: Martha Benedict) The 1912 Ebell Club in Los Angeles’ Highland Park has been the venue for a number of Pacific Opera Project performances. It’s a favorite venue for their popular show “La boheme: AKA: The Hipsters”. And its informal setting worked well for this intimate version of “The Mikado,” in which the audience was able to sit close at {…}
Pacific Opera Project has announced that it will revive its acclaimed 2013 production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta “The Mikado.” Josh Shaw will direct this exciting production, inspired by Tokyo’s hip Harajuku district. It will feature “eye-popping colors, intricate choreography, and zany antics,” along with Harajuku-style costumes designed by Maggie Green. Additionally, lyrics “originally written to take a jab at {…}
Saturday, May 4, 2019, saw the third performance of Bronx Opera’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado.” This cherished comedy featured a current-year setting, taking the fictitious city of Titipu and draping it in all the trappings and references of the Trump Administration. While initially uncertain as to how well the work’s themes, text, and music would translate to {…}
It’s 2017 and the world of classical music is obsessed with our revered classical, romantic and baroque works relevant to today’s millennials. And then there’s Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s not opera. It’s not musical theater. And aside from a production of “Pirates of Penzance” once a decade, few non-musically educated people are wary of the cheeky, British duo. On June {…}
