H.M.S. Pinafore

I have always loved Gilbert and Sullivan for the witty lyrics and dialogue and also the beautiful melodies. True, the stories of some of their operettas are on the silly side but they are also fun. HMS Pinafore is in my top 3 favourites of theirs alongside The Mikado and especially The Pirates of Penzance, and this is a most entertaining production(that was followed on the DVD by an even better production of Trial By Jury, which I'll review separately), for me just as good as the very lively but not-for-everybody 1996 production and much better than the 1980s D'Oyly Carte performance(arguably the worst of a very hit-and-miss series). The only let down for me was the Buttercup of Collette Mann, who was vocally ill-suited to the role with a very raspy-sounding voice and in her acting I found her too raucous. Everyone else fares much better however, with David Hobson dashing and with a well-proportioned tenor voice and Tiffany Speight beguiling in both looks and voice. Richard Alexander also makes for a wickedly funny Dick DeadEye, and John Bolton-Wood does justice to his patter and proves to be a fine comedian which is a good thing for the character as vital to HMS Pinafore as Sir Joseph. Anthony Warlow, as well as having a wonderful voice, makes a very good impression as Captain Cocoran, it is a straight-forward approach in a way but not in a way that it's bland. The orchestral playing is suitably rousing and stylish, the conducting buoyant and the chorus well blended and not resorting to mugging. The production is updated(to Edwardian era) but it is a gentle updating, with elegant dresses and smart uniforms. The dialogue is also updated, but still witty and funny, nothing offensive whatsoever, while the staging is imaginative especially the opening and thoughtful with the cast assembled on ladders for For He is an Englishman. The editing on the whole for the DVD is decent if sometimes a little choppy, but not enough to completely hinder the performances. Overall, very entertaining and well done. 9/10 Bethany Cox

It is, or should be, easy to create a fetching production when you have such matchless material as Gilbert & Sullivan's 'HMS Pinafore' to work with. This Australian production, which has received rave reviews, is good but falls short of being excellent.

It starts out well with a fine overture and a decent opening number. The first sign of imperfection comes with Buttercup. In terms of appearance and acting skills Colette Mann is quite good as a character type, but her voice is too deep (and a mite nasal), which is not quite right, although it was probably a conscious decision, intended as part and parcel of the character's satirical nature.

It is, of course, difficult to get everything right in the same show - the voices, the delivery, the stage production -, and tastes will of course vary. My opinion of this DVD is that all but a few of the songs lacked that extra oomph that would have done them true justice. And the production itself, visually speaking, was polished to the point of blandness. Everything so tight-fitting, squeaky clean and clear-cut; almost spartan. I longed for a slightly more classical look - a bit dirtier, perhaps -, with looser, more florid costumes.

Of the main characters I really liked Tiffany Speight (certainly the classiest and all-round most impressive member of the cast) and David Hobson. They had the good looks and the proper voices. I was less taken with Anthony Warlow and esp. John Bolton-Wood, whose deliveries of their respective songs, in my estimation, did not approach excellence. Sir Joseph is arguably the single most important character, and any given production tends to revolve around whoever has his part.

So this production receives from me a 8 out of 10 rating. It's very good, but not as good as it might have been.

Edit: I have seen this DVD several times now, and have gained an increasing appreciation of it. It is in fact splendid, delightful and stylish, and I hereby emend my rating from an 8 to a 9.

New edit: I have come to realize now that, for some reason, good versions of Pinafore are extremely rare, and this means that, all things considered, this production actually qualifies for a 10 out of 10. It is almost certainly the best production filmed, and perhaps also the best ever recorded.

The recording at hand is a film of a production of Sullivan and Gilbert's "HMS Pinafore" in Melbourne – in Australia, a land which usually does very well by Arthur Sullivan's comic operas (and the accompanying libretti by W. S. Gilbert). The cover engages in some commentary regarding the restoration of "Trial by Jury" as the traditional companion piece to Pinafore. That may be as may be, although if I remember correctly it would have been an opener rather than follow Pinafore. In this instance, the reversal of position is judicious.

(I should note that going with the Victorian custom of putting the librettist first – as the "bigger" name – is just silly. Whoever heard of Hammerstein and Rodgers? The composer of musical theatre always has pride of place, so let's put Gilbert where he belongs) The chorus works very well and in general the billed cast is excellent. Richard Alexander does extremely well as Dick Deadeye. His excellent make-up adds to this fine effect. The young lovers are played by Tiffany Speight and David Hobson – she a clear, ringing soprano, he a Broadway-style tenor. They're all right. Collette Mann is cast Little Buttercup – not an entirely happy decision. Primarily, she's a mezzo, not a contralto – producing a number of vocal tones one doesn't expect from Buttercup. Her voice also has a street-gritty sound that goes with the character, I suppose, but doesn't fit the S&G sound. Otherwise, she had a good time and mugs well. Captain Corcoran is played rather straightforwardly by Anthony Warlow, who is in good voice, giving the rôle some gravitas as well as a touch of humor now and then. Playing Sir Joseph Porter is a fine comedian, John Bolton-Wood.

The performance goes off without a hitch, and if it isn't exactly the finest Pinafore ever done, it's right up there. Buttercup is well performed but the higher register just doesn't quite work. Rackstraw's voice is fine, but not the kind of tenor usually associated with a Sullivan & Gilbert operation. The set has a couple of imaginative features associated with the opening and with the arrival of Porter and his female entourage. But otherwise the set is fairly pedestrian – although it's hard to imagine Pinafore staged in any significantly different way without using a set that would look silly or compete for our attention with the production it's supposed to support.

The "Trial By Jury" is a modern-dress production that works because the British legal system has evolved almost not at all since Victorian times – so that the satire is just as sharp. There have been a few infelicitous changes to Gilbert's libretto. Luckily they are minor and pass by quickly.

The production is vigorous, virtually slapstick. The judge finds his way to the stage by wandering through the audience. The jurymen vanish into their box when they kneel to take the oath. There is a great deal of unabashed mugging. It's all very good fun if not Gilbertian orthodoxy.

Hobson again has the tenor lead and does it very well. The fact that his voice isn't Savoyard quality works well here and one could hardly imagine a more effective Edwin. He's opposed by a different soprano, Ali McGregor. Her soprano commands more attention than Speight's and she makes a very sexy Angelina. John Bolton-Wood reappears as the Barrister for the Plaintiff, a rôle he invests with a great sense of fun. The big surprise is Anthony Warlow, who plays the judge. He's scarcely recognizable with the make-up and mugs wonderfully. He plays the role with a fine comic Scottish accent and a fine sense of comic timing. The viewer will have to decide for herself or himself whether Warlow's whole shtick is overdone.

The general effect of this Trial is that it's very funny, very entertaining. It ends the evening's program with a bang after the fine but relatively less frothy Pinafore.

Buying this pairing poses a possibly difficult decision. If all you want is this and a few other Sullivan operas (say, Mikado, Penzance, Iolanthe, Gondoliers), this is a no-brainer. Get it! If you want the whole gaggle of at least the major titles – right through to Ruddigore and Ida – your choice is the Opera World set. This set omits, alas, such treasures as Grand Duke and Utopia Ltd. However, its greatest defect is its strikingly inferior performances of some titles, one of which is its infelicitous Pinafore. You can, luckily, buy the Opera World titles individually, which negates the price advantage of the set. And it poses another problem. If you buy this DVD, you have a fine Trial By Jury. Opera World gives you the now-usual pairing of Trial with the Sullivan's (without Gilbert) witty Cox & Box. So now you have 2 Trials. If you like this piece well enough, that's not a bad thing.

This film consists of a double bill of HMS Pinafore and Trial by Jury. IMDb lists them separately but I want to review them together because you need to know that, if you watch this film, you will get a damp squib of a Pinafore together with a firecracker of a Trial by Jury.

The productions are by Opera Australia although they are performed, not as operas but as musicals with the singers wearing radio mikes. This is not of itself particularly intrusive although its does mean that some of the roles are taken by actors with non-operatic voices. The role of Little Buttercup is performed by an actress who is better known in Australian soap operas. Her rasping delivery is painful to the ear.

The film flaunts the fact that it was recorded in front of a live audience but one or two clumsy edits suggest that it has been cobbled together from several performances. I have only ever been to the opera once in Australia (La Périchole in Sydney, if you must know) but I do not recall that they left the houselights on during the performance. This film constantly cuts to shots of the audience applauding or laughing with the lights on. This suggests that it was recorded like a situation comedy with the audience being told to laugh and applaud before the show began and then those shots being intercut with the actual performance.

Pinafore is imaginatively staged. I like the start below decks, the ladies gaily tripping from a container that has been hoist aboard and admiral arriving covered in buoyancy aids. However the singing, by both the chorus and principals is lacklustre and does not match the imaginativeness of the production.

I don't know what they put in the interval drinks but, after this, with many of the same cast, Trial by Jury is a revelation. This is Gilbert and Sullivan's early, one act opera and I had always thought of it as an apprentice piece. But in this production it is revealed to have some of Gilbert's most piercing lyrics and some of Sullivan's best music. Sullivan was a master of pastiche and it is a joy to hear his mock Handel with the judge singing "Let me speak" being drowned by the chorus singing "Let him speak". We move on to mock Offenbach "Tink-a-tank, Tink-a-tank" before a Rossinian pastiche in the sextet "A nice dilemma". Trial by Jury is also the only G&S that I have heard that has recitatives instead of spoken dialogue.

This mischievous production is in modern dress. There is an excellent male chorus of jurymen (this was written in 1875) and a vivacious female chorus of journalists. David Hobson is the defendant, a flash young man in a breach of promise action. The jury give him short shrift, assiduously reading The Sun as he gives his evidence. They are more attentive to the plaintiff, attractively played and sung by Ali McGregor. Only the Judge, played by Anthony Warlow with a fake Scottish accent, is a slight disappointment.

This comes over as a remarkably fresh satire for a piece written 130 years ago. Although we no longer have actions for breach of promise we are still accustomed to judges falling asleep on the bench and being over-impressed by the fragrance of female witnesses. Some of the dialogue has been made more racy "Is this the court of the exchequer? Be firm, be firm my pecker" and some has been toned down so that the defendant's reference to thrashing his fiancée has been changed to "trashing". I think it is also unacceptable to trash your fiancée but with WS Gilbert, as with Wagner, you have to take the good with the bad.

I've just finished watching this on Bravo (in Toronto, Canada) and I stayed with it till the end to learn where this double-bill of "HMS Pinafore" and "Trial by Jury" (an all-musical 45-minute shortie) was produced: Well, it's an Opera Australia Melbourne production and it is simply the best G&S production I have seen in my entire life for sheer energy and general amusement. Even the audience seemed to have talent. The first part was classically elegant while the second part, a spoof of the English jury system, about a breach of promise trial, was simply shock-inducing with a lively chorus of jurymen and journalists whose every movement was choreographed and a talented bunch of idiots as the principals. All the soloists deserve an ovation with particular kudos to Anthony Warlow in a double role as the Captain and the Judge. I also must admit I have never seen such a collection of manly, swarthy, burly, stalwart men who can also sing on a single stage in my life. Makes you feel like booking a cruise to Australia right away. They certainly have a way of updating tradition with class down under. Makes you wonder how they could have come up with a turkey like "Moulin Rouge". Oh well... By the way, I take exception with another commentator's opinion that the line "Be firm, be firm, my pecker" is a new addition to the text. It's been in the original libretto for a hundred years, back in the days when a "pecker" was a nose...