A sparkling Patience in Harrogate

By Peter Connors, 16 August 2015

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“The peculiarly English phenomenon of Gilbert and Sullivan is alive and well in Harrogate”

Reviewed at Royal Hall, Harrogate on 14 August 2015

Sullivan, Patience

The Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company

David Steadman, Conductor

Donald Maxwell, Director

Rebecca Bottone, Patience

Richard Gauntlett, Reginald Bunthorne

James Cleverton, Archibald Grosvenor

Elinor Jane Moran, Lady Ella

Angela Simkin, Lady Angela

Nichola Jolley, Lady Saphir

Sylvia Clarke, Lady Jane

Steven Page, Colonel Calverley

Matthew Kellett, Major Murgatroyd

Nick Sales, Lieut The Duke of Dunstable

National Festival Orchestra

Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival's remarkable Princess Ida

Andrew H. King, 17th August

Princess Ida holds her court amongst the rarer Gilbert and Sullivan operas; their eighth collaboration, it opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, running for 246 performances.

*****

Iolanthe at the Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Andrew H. King, 3rd August

Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe made history twice over on its opening night of 25 November 1882: in the first instance it was the first G&S production to play at the recently completed Savoy Theatre; and in the second, it was the first to open (almost) simultaneously at the Standard Theatre, New York City, beginning barely an hour after the conclusion of the London performance on the same d

****1

The Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival's Pirates of Penzance

Andrew H. King, 27th July

The Pirates of Penzance is without a doubt one of the most popular and most successful of the G&S canon, containing some of Gilbert’s most amusing lyrics and characterisations, alongside examples of Sullivan’s best music.

****1

The Grand Duke at the Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Andrew H. King, 18th August

One hundred and sixteen years ago, on 7 March 1896, Gilbert and Sullivan presented before the London public their final Savoy Opera: The Grand Duke.

***11

A British tar is a soaring soul: HMS Pinafore at the Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Andrew H. King, 10th August

Few 19th-century operettas exceed HMS Pinafore in style, wit and musical accomplishment; the principal candidates in English are The Mikado, and The Yeoman of the Guard, plus a few offerings by Lionel Monckton and Sidney Jones. Any foreign contender would surely be one of the champagne-soaked Viennese delicacies by the Strauss family or Carl Zeller.

****1

Gilbert and Sullivan's Gondoliers in Buxton

Andrew H. King, 3rd August

Among the fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, it must be acknowledged that there are glimpses of weakness. The Gondoliers maintains one of Gilbert’s typically insane plots, which is best described as ‘topsy-turvy’ until the final scene, when order is restored. Likewise the music is far from Sullivan’s strongest score, but there are moments of inspired vocal writing.

***11

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Peter Connors

Peter has been attending concerts and operas enthusiastically since his parents took him to see The Mikado in Liverpool when he was a boy of ten and to a “family concert” given by the RLPO a year or so later. Peter studied Modern Languages at Worcester College, Oxford and Law in Manchester. After spending twenty years as a pensions lawyer in Manchester, he retrained as a teacher of English as a foreign language, which took him to Germany and to Serbia. With the onset of the pandemic he returned to the UK and now works online and frequents concert halls and theatres in the North West of England.