Piracy and an oriental pitch
Two Gilbert and Sullivan operas on stage in London at the same time - The Pirates of Penzance, a large, colourful affair for the English National Opera (ENO) at the Coliseum, and The Mikado boxed into the intimate venue of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond - offered a jolly way to start London's musical new year.
Pirates is a co-production with the Chicago Lyric Opera staged by Elijah Moshinsky. Written in 1878 and performed in New York the next year, it was the fourth of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's operas. With its infectious tunes and witty libretto, it became their first smash hit - a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic, with songs such as Buttercup and He is an Englishman becoming the hits of their day.
Pirates deals with love between people of different social classes. The captain of the Pinafore doesn't realise his daughter has fallen in love with an ordinary sailor and arranges for her to marry the First Lord of the Admiralty. Meanwhile, he is in love with a poor provisions seller.
Visually, the ENO production was a winner with Mohican-haired, pierced and tattooed punk pirates in early Vivienne Westwood-style costumes - a look reminiscent of the 1980s New Romantic movement, with the Pirate King, played by Karl Daymond, a mix of Adam Ant with a campy swaggering overlay of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. But the staging failed to live up to its swashbuckling appearance. Beneath all its surreal frivolity, the opera has a cutting satirical edge that questions the moral validity of hereditary aristocracy and criticises the military and police, something this production failed to convey. The opera's ingredients of buffoonery and satire are best delivered po-faced, whereas Moshinsky allowed his actor-singers to share the jokes with the audience in an annoying way.
Catching a pleasure boat down the Thames to the fashionable suburb of Richmond brought me to a much smaller production of Gilbert and Sullivan, but a more winning one.
Director Chris Monk had the seemingly batty idea of reversing the orientalism of The Mikado by setting it on an English cricket pitch at the Titipu Cricket Club. The logic behind the setting is that cricket, with its ancient laws and rituals, echoes the rigid formalities of the Japanese emperor's court. The sport is as baffling as a Japanese tea ceremony. Once the idea of a group of men in cricketing flannels singing 'We are gentlemen of Japan' was accepted, the rest followed on, with Pooh-Bah as an officious umpire and the emperor consulting with Wisden on the rules and regulations of capital punishment, and cricket bats easily transforming into ceremonial swords.
This production, with its pared-down accompaniment of key-board, percussion and euphonium, proved that a good idea in a ring box is better than a bad idea in a large hat box.
