Gilbert and Sullivan
The National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
Buxton Opera House
July 28-August 9, 2024: 2 hrs 15 mins
(Further performances on August 3,4 at 7.30pm and August 9 at 2.30pm)
The Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is back in Buxton – the 30th festival – and this production of The Pirates of Penzance is very much a re-run of last year’s, conducted by Murray Hipkin and directed by and starring Simon Butteriss.
He’s an expert in the repertoire and a paragon of the patter song, delivering I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General at incredible speed and with every word crystal-clear, and enjoying the characterisation of a dotty old gent that he does so well.
With the exception of Bruce Graham’s stalwart Sergeant of Police and Gaynor Keeble as Ruth, the principals are a fresh line-up, compared with 2023, and bring both serious operatic experience and youth to their task (as do the chorus – just 16 of them, but pulling their weight bravely and interjecting in one case a display of balletic and acrobatic skill).
It’s a particular joy to see Rebecca Bottone, back on the Buxton stage with her charming demeanour and spot-on high notes as the coloratura-singing heroine Mabel, and the festival has landed a quality tenor soloist in David Webb as Frederic, and an excellent baritone in Charles Rice as the Pirate King.
The highly inventive choreography, by Rae Piper and Paul Chantry, is retained from last year too, and the costumes that set the story firmly in its Victorian period. As I said before, if you do the math you have to conclude that it takes place in 1872, nearly eight years before the show’s premiere (in order for Frederic to attain his 21st leap year birthday in 1940, bearing in mind that 1900 was not to be a leap year).
There is a delicious sense of Victorian values in this performance: the full-throated roar of the complete ensemble for the unaccompanied choral paean of Hail Poetry!, and the sweet sentimentality of Mabel and Frederic’s duet numbers (especially in the sequence following the Paradox Trio) – at least until it comes to the clap-along ending to the whole show. It is as if the world of 19th Century Romantic English opera is being affectionately recreated, as well as sent up, at the same time, and I love it for that.
The National Festival Orchestra plays with real finesse and lyricism, with Murray Hipkin’s direction bringing out many an eloquent detail of Sullivan’s scoring. In short, a treat.
More info and tickets here
