For me, it’s The Pirates of Penzance. I find the story very funny (ridiculous, yet effective, plot device). And I like the way every group represented has their interesting foibles and flaws (the pirates are soft-hearted, the police are cowards), and how they all fit the story.
Some of my favorite lines are from this show. “Always act in accordance to the dictates of your conscience, my boy. And chance the consequences.”
“General Stanley…is no orphan!”
“What!”
“More than that, he never was one.”
“I bought the chapel and it’s contents. I don’t know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are, and I shudder to think that their descendant by purchase, if I may so describe myself, has brought shame on what I have no doubt was an unstained escutcheon.”
And the diversity of the music! I think the music may be the most mature, with more varied styles, that I’ve heard in Sullivan’s Savoy repertoire. Beautiful melodies, rich harmonies, and delicious orchestrations.
I agree with Pirates, and I particularly like the Joseph Papp version (the movie with Kevin Kline, or however he spells it.)
OTOH, I’m also fond of the Mikado. How can you not love a play that gave the world the word “poo-bah”, who could trace his ancestry back to a primordial blob of protoplasm?
Pirates, followed by The Mikado, Ruddigore, and Pinafore.
The last set of vinyl recordings by D’oyly Carte featured John Reed (as “the little man who prances around, singing the patter song”) and Valerie Masterson and were wonderful. Easily my favorite “set” of D’Oyly Carte recordings. However, their version of Pinafore was done in some early '70s horror called “Phase Four Stereo” which has to be heard to be believed.
In addition, to give it an air of authenticity, they recorded “authentic ocean noises” under (or more accurately OVER) the performers. This led to a seagull having several solos and sloshy water sounds over the dialogue.
But any of the Reed/Masterson recordings are fantastic!
As a die-hard Savoyard since my teens, I have always adored the The Mikado **. Who cannot wiggle with delight on hearing “The Sun Whose Rays” or “The Criminal Cried”? I have never cared for the D’oyly Carte Company’s recordings because they hew too closely to the original vocla orchestrations, which sound odd and stilted to my 20th century ear.
In the 70s, PBS and the BBC produced the entire G&S canon using well-known actors in the leads. so they used Vincent Price in “Ruddigore,” Peter Marshall of “Hollywood Squares” fame in “The Pirates of Penzance,” and so on.
Never mind the handle – my favorite is either Yeomen of the Guard or Iolanthe, depending on my mood, with (of course) Mikado a very close second. (I just performed in it a couple of weeks ago, actually, and had a complete blast. :D)
I’ve heard of those Walker videos – actually, I’ve heard most of them aren’t particularly good. Ah, well.
Fenris, I’ve got the 1960 DOC recording of Iolanthe (doesn’t have Masterton but does have Reed) and it’s terrific. Gillian Knight rocks my world.
I have the Reed/Masterson Pirates and Mikado on CD sets. Magnificent! And they contain the dialogue as well.
I also have a video of Mikado performed by the English National Opera, with Eric Idle as Ko-Ko. Performed live. They set it in an English seaside resort in the 20s/30s. And it works magnificently! An excellent production. I recommend it highly.
Unfortunately, Dex, I disagree with you on the Ronstadt/Kline Pirates film. I felt they weren’t taking the original humor seriously (if that makes sense). In other words, I got the feeling they were trying to compensate for the fact that it’s Victorian, so they sort of do some “updating” with sexual innuendos and a bit of smirking at the “old-fashioned”-ness of it, almost an attempt to make it appealing to a late 20th Century audience. I may rent it this weekend and take another look at it, though. But I recall being disappointed in it when I saw it.
Katisha, his performance is in no way Pythonesque. And he has a fine singing voice, and obviously impeccable comic timing. He makes a very fine Ko-Ko. And the other cast members are excellent as well, especially the woman who plays…Katisha! A kind of operatic Margaret Dumont. Excellent.
And whoever does Pooh-Bah is, perhaps, the best Pooh-bah ever. His reactions and expressions in the “So please you sir, we much regret” number are priceless.
I also have an old recording of Grouch Marx (as Ko-Ko), Stanley Holloway (Eliza Doolittle’s Dad in My Fair Lady: “Get Me to the Church On Time”) as Pooh-Bah and Robert Roundsville as Nanki-Poo etc, in a made-for-TV Mikado.
It’s not nearly as good as you’d want it to be. (You can see a picture of it here along with some commentary. This is a GREAT site for reviews of every G&S production ever recorded!)
Oh, I’m sure he’s wonderful, and I’d love to see it. Just wanted to share that…
I checked the G&S Discography, and it said the actress who plays Katisha (this is quickly becoming awkward ;)) is Felicity Palmer. She’s also on the recording I have, and I agree, she’s wonderful.
The recording I have, incidentally, is the 1992 Mackerras/Telarc, featuring Donald Adams in the title role, Richard Suart as Ko-Ko, and a lot of grand opera singers as the rest of the principals. Quite a good recording, albeit a little compressed (not too badly – it’s missing the overture, the second verse of the Little List, the second verse of “The threatened cloud has passed away” in the Act I finale, and half of the introduction to “Miya sama”). My only real quibble with it is that the Three Little Maids sound way too old. Especially Pitti-Sing. :eek:
(And that G&S Discography can be a real timesuck…there’s tons of stuff there!)
Ah, dysfractionation! And both posts link to the Discography, too.
As it turns out, the Pooh-Bah from the ENO production is also on the Mackerras/Telarc recording.
I just don’t have enough experience of weird G&S productions, beyond the Muppet Show version of “Tit-Willow” (sung by Rolf and Sam the Eagle).
(I’m told that UMGASS [the G&S group at the University of Michigan, a wonderful organization and I don’t just say that because I’m an alumna] once staged a Brechtian version of Ruddigore. I’d really love to know how this was done.)
The Mikado, followed closely by
The Gondoliers, then
Pinafore
Pirates is next, but I’ve never felt it stood out amazingly above the rest.
Isn’t it odd, considering how popular G&S has been for 125 years, that no artists have produced anything remotely as good in their style?
There certainly are improbable things about human creativity and culture.
Reminds me of a sci-fi story where a publisher travelled back in time to Shakespeare and handed him a copy of his own complete works in 1590. Then he went returned years later to collect a harvest of wholly new Shakespearian plays.
The Mikado, because it was the first, and because it seems to offer new richness as I age. As a youngster, I found Katisha’s “Living I” song very tedious, and now I find it one of the highlights.
I love the weird G&S stuff. One of the neatest is the D’Oyly Carte “Last Night” recording: apparently they had goofed around on stage each year as they ended the season. In 1982, they went bankrupt and had a party to end all parties. (it’s in the archives)
Anyway: so what’s your favorite G&S song?
I can narrow it down to just a few, but I’d be hard pressed to pick one.
The Madness Song (“It really doesn’t matter”) from Ruddigore
“When the Foeman Bares His Steel” from Penzance
“The Little List” from the Mikado
“I Have a Song to Sing, O” from Yeoman
And possibly my favorite (at least at the moment)
The ‘How To Make A Heavy Dragoon’ song (“Take all of these elements, all that is fusible/melt them all down in a pipkin or crucible/set them to simmer and skim off the scum/and a Heavy Dragoon is the resiudum”) from…urk…um…Patience?
