The Yeomen of the Guard strongly sung

By Peter Connors, 28 July 2016

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Reviewed at Buxton Opera House, Buxton on 26 July 2016

Sullivan, The Yeomen of the Guard

Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company

David Steadman, Conductor

Pauline Birchall, Dame Carruthers

Jane Harrington, Elsie Maynard

Fiona McKay, Phoebe Meryll

Nick Sales, Colonel Fairfax

Brendan Collins, Lt Sir Richard Cholmondeley

Bruce Graham, Wilfred Shadbolt

Richard Gauntlett, Jack Point

Martin Lamb, Sergeant Meryll

National Gilbert and Sullivan Orchestra

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

Marvellous Mikado at the Buxton Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Andrew H. King, 29th July

The Gilbert and Sullivan canon perhaps achieves the pinnacle of its greatness with The Mikado. The ninth of their fourteen collaborations, it was premièred at the Savoy Theatre in 1885 and the gentlemen were rewarded with an extraordinary success.

****1

A sorta fairy tale: Sleepers Awake premieres at Opera Philadelphia

Cameron Kelsall, 22nd April

A new opera by Gregory Spears subverts the Sleeping Beauty trope, with middling results.

**111

Asmik Grigorian strengthens the Met’s revival of Eugene Onegin

Susan Stempleski, 20th April

The Lithuanian soprano’s riveting performance as the central character in Tchaikovsky’s operatic masterpiece lights up Deborah Warner’s mostly bland production.

****1

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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.

The Yeomen of the Guard strongly sung by the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company