I saw maybe 15 minutes worth of this mess, which was broadcast a few days ago on some PBS channel.
It was awful. The first clue was in the opening credits, when it said “additional material by” someone I never heard of. I thought “Oh, they had someone update some of the dated references in the dialog or lyrics; I wonder how well they did it.”
But no. The additional material is some horrible completely out of place music.
The casting was marginal. Of the characters that I saw (the opening chorus of sailors, Little Buttercup, and the Captain) none of them could really sing the way the roles demand. The chorus were hired to dance much more than to sing, and although I enjoyed looking at their tight bottoms in the tight sailor suits, that’s not really why I tuned in. Buttercup and the Captain were clearly actors who could (more or less) carry a tune. Unfortunately, this music calls for a nearly-operatic quality of singing. The way they did it was more like braying.
The directing was ridiculous and the acting was sub-par. Buttercup was played with a supposed Cockney accent that was 'orribly done; the Captain was played as some kind of frantic floppy buffoon, for no discernible reason. That’s all I managed to get through.
But the music, oh, have mercy. In the opening chorus they deleted huge amounts of Sullivan’s music and substituted this moany, groany, pointless non-music that just made no sense. The musical pace of the whole thing was slowed way down, too.
tl;dr - this is painfully bad, don’t bother to watch it if you have any liking for Gilbert and Sullivan at all.
Roddy
This is why I so dislike most of the “updated” G&S versions nowadays. The producers completely ignore the fact that the core of a G&S is the music. Most of the solo roles require competent, trained singers, and some of them need extremely talented singers (Mabel in Penzance is an example that springs to mind).
If you turned it off after 15 minutes, you missed the TAP NUMBER(!!!) and also the arrival of Queen Victoria and her reunion with her former lover, Dick Deadeye (which many of you will realize was NOT a part of the original script – the queen’s procession music was taken from G&S’s Iolanthe).
BOGGLE
The members of my G&S opera company were uniformly appalled by the entire proceedings, but most especially by the liberties taken with the brilliant music of Sir Arthur Sullivan. I have to admit that the tap number was very well done, and that perhaps Gibert & Sullivan might have included such a thing were they writing today, but the rest of the “liberties” taken were cringe-inducing.
All I can say in support of it is that the production values were excellent and the cast are very good dancers and quite amusing actors.
I wonder if anyone else here saw the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Pirates of Penzance this summer. They also worked in different styles of music, but mostly just dipped into another style for a single chorus or half a verse, or floated a recognizable lick such as When I’m Sixty-Four as Mabel considers waiting for Frederick. It helped that the cast could handle the music, too.
I lived on Long Island for a few years, and attended a performance of Der Yiddisher Mikado (yes, performed entirely in Yiddish). I can’t believe that the OP’s performance was worse.
A couple of weeks ago I was with a young friend trying to explain the fun of a G&S show. He was unfamiliar with them, but he was open minded and said he was willing to watch and like if it were enjoyable. When I heard that PBS was going to put on Pinafore, I called him and told him to watch it and have a good time…He now thinks I am totally insane if I could think of anything like that as enjoyable.
During my 15 or so minutes of my trying to watch the program, a loud semi truck rumbled past my house…I was certain it was Gilbert and Sullivan rolling over in their graves.
Watch the trailer for as long as I could stand it. A production like this is the precise reason the D’Oyly Carte company sat on the rights for as long as they could. This is not Gilbert and Sullivan, this is whatshisname and the other guy’s derivative crap, the only worthwhile parts of which were stolen from G&S.
Kevin Kline was The Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance; Linda Ronstadt was the female lead. (She does have a very fine voice.) A few liberties were taken but I like that version a lot…
Reviews are in for the “new” Pinafore. I think I’ll pass.
My first G&S was The Mikado–a TV special with Groucho Marx playing The Lord High Executioner. It was cut for time & other liberties were taken but it was a great introduction. In preparation, our music teacher taught us some of the songs.
It’s sad to lose any of the music but criminal to replace it with something else. Sullivan supplied the lovely tunes & Gilbert the silliness; the combination still works. (Why, yes, I love Topsy Turvy!)
If the standard G&S works are considered old hat in need of modernization, maybe the problem is that hardly anyone seems to perform works other than The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. How many times must they put on just these two? There are other deserving operas by G&S that I’d like to see, but they are never staged, at least not in my area.
Iolanthe? The Yeoman of the Guard? Totally overlooked.
but if you are familiar with and like G&S, I predict you won’t last five minutes.