Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Every year the Buxton Opera House holds a two week Gilbert and Sullivan festival. This year I was lucky enough to be able to stream eight operettas.

While I think there are certainly problems with this era of streaming, one great thing about it is our ability to experience things that we never would otherwise and from the comfort of our homes. It’s true that there’s a different experience attending an opera in person, but I’m grateful to have streamed The Magic Flute from the Met, El Ultimo Sueno de Frida y Diego and Die Frau ohne Schatten from the San Francisco Opera Company, amongst others. Yes it is more immersive to see the opera in the theater but there are practical reasons to stream them at home. Having seen operas at the Dorothy Chandler, access to my own toilet seems worth it on its own. Then there’s the cost. For the price of one ticket more than one of us can see the opera at home. The cost can add up especially if there are travel costs involved, a two week trip to England to experience the Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in person would be neat, but also hugely expensive.

I’ve been a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan since the fifth or sixth grade when Mr. Williams played the Kevin Klein film version of Pirates of Penzance for the class. Since then I’ve seen several versions of Penzance, HMS Pinafore, and The Mikado. When Netflix disc was a thing, I watched most of the other plays as well. When I was taking History at Cal State Long Beach, I wrote a big paper about their plays for a Victorian England class. I am already, it is fair to say, a fan. That said, for the festival I streamed eight of these in two weeks. That’s a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s been more than a day since I watched the last one and my head still is in a constant state of patter song.

One of the interesting things about the festival were the different troupes performing the light operas. All were good, some were clearly more professional than others, some brought more modern humor into the plays, others performed them more traditionally. One of my favorite things was seeing the Bus Pass Opera production of HMS Pinafore. Bus Pass Opera’s entire cast is composed of retired actors, but they still performed well and when performers are enjoying their work it’s easy for the audience to experience that enjoyment with them.

My favorite of Gilbert’s plays is Iolanthe, and I thought this production was particularly good. My favorite of their songs is the patter trio from Ruddigore, one of two songs from that play to be used in the Kevin Kline version of Penzance I first saw as a child. I got to see Trial By Jury, The Sorcerer, and also Yeomen of the Guard for the first time this festival, and I was surprised by how much fun they all were… Because Pinafore, Penzance, and the Mikado are the ones most often performed, I once worried that some of the others might not be as enjoyable. I’m grateful that the festival gave me the chance to stream and prove this fear unfounded.

I still don’t think I’ve seen Patience, Princess Ida, nor Utopia Limited. During the intermissions they played clips from previous productions, and Utopia Limited looks excellent. Fortunately the back catalog is available on the same streaming service, GSopera.tv. It looks like a month’s subscription is only ten pounds. I’ll likely watch these three there, but probably I’ll give it a month then, assuming the patter songs in my head cease first.