HMS Pinafore (1949 Production) - D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Cast

Advantages: Rousing, jolly, bristling with life and humour
Disadvantages: None

...excepts from five of the tracks. The web address is http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000041Q4/qid=1044787528/sr=2-3/ref=sr233/202-6665252-8755033 THE LIBRETTO. “HMS Pinafore” or “The Lass That Loved A Sailor”. International Music Publications Ltd (1993) THE VIDEO I have a (now rare) film performance staged by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company (1979) starring John Reed on VHS Video. This shows the delightful lengths to which the Company took the adlibs and the staged encours of the major songs and entrances. There is a full series of specially staged productions (originally by the BBC) which is offered as a boxed set of DVDs from Amazon (America). In “HMS Pinafore” Sir Joseph Porter is played by Frankie Howerd. Perhaps an unusual choice (given Gilbert’s qwerky writing of the character and Howerd’s qwerky brand... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: The most popular, the most perfect, the most performed
Disadvantages: None

...Gilbert, Sullivan, D’Oyly Carte! Three great names from the Victorian era of musical drama. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas remain as popular now as they ever were when written over a century ago. They stir the imagination of audiences and performers (professional and amateur) like no other in the dramatic canon. Depending on your definition there are fourteen titles in the catalogue in total (including the now lost “Thespis”). “The Mikado” is probably the most popular of the ‘big five’ (which also includes “HMS Pinafore”, “The Gondoliers”, “Pirates of Penzance” and “Iolanthe”). Themes from any of these operas still have the effect of getting toes tapping and promoting whistling whenever they are played. The name of D’Oyly Carte will be forever linked with Gilbert and Sullivan as will the Savoy Theatre in the Strand, London. We... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: a range of good music, well-known songs and barbed humour.
Disadvantages: Somewhat abstract and distant for a modern audience

...or to put them into context. As an aside I spent the week prior to writing this article in London, staying in an apartment in Craven Street (just around the corner from Charing Cross Station). I did take the opportunity of a stroll though the Victoria Gardens and up Savoy Place to the stage door of the Savoy Theatre (much as Gilbert must have done on those – to him – trying first nights). The back of the Savoy Hotel (and theatre) looks out over the Embankment and Cleopatra’s Needle. I wonder what whimsy he would have made out of the London Eye? OTHER RESOURCES This CD set is a bravura performance by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company – soloists and chorus. The voices are excellent, the diction clear - even in the fastest songs. Donald Adams gets the major ration of patter songs here as Colonel Calverley. John Reed is rather more “straight... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful