Ruddigore

Usually, Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are supposed to be light, funny, witty, ironic, and entertaining. But this production is none of those things. Even Vincent Price can't save it. There's a lot of bad singing, heavy-footed dancing, and people sort of standing around doing nothing. The costumes are uninteresting. The sets are dull. Characters that should be fun and silly and memorable are flat and tired.

There's a lack of joy and fun. Plodding, that's the word. Plodding. I couldn't wait for it to be over. If you showed this DVD to someone unfamiliar with Gilbert & Sullivan, they would never go see another operetta during the whole rest of their lives.

I gave it a 4 out of 10 on the strength of some of the participants but this is a classic example of a lack of trust in the material. The relentlessly jokey approach undermines our sympathy and the casting of Vincent Price and Keith Michell is beyond belief. Vincent was cast, I suppose, because of his star power and association with horror films.

It's not so much his voice (the George Grossmith parts in G&S do not require wonderful voices.) but his lack of style. Keith is not as bad but this is not a recommendation. There are some much better entries in the series like Princess Ida and Iolanthe and even Patience.

Also on the debit side is the abridged overture and the so-called "improvements" in many of the songs.

Do yourself a favor and give it a miss!

Ruddigore is rarely performed anymore, but I don't know why because it's a lot of fun. A spoof on Gothic melodramas, it also contains some wonderful music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

The story (in case you didn't already know) is about the Bad Baronets of Ruddigore, who because of a witch's curse must commit a crime a day or else perish in agony themselves. To avoid the curse, the current Baronet faked his own death and has lived in hiding for 10 years. Now he wants to marry, but on his wedding-day the truth comes out.

His younger brother (the character played so delightfully by Vincent Price) was left holding the title, so to speak. He has been bad for the past decade, and is relieved to be able to give up his wicked ways and live respectably, while the hitherto blameless Robin must now assume the handlebar mustache and opera cape of the Victorian stage villain.

I thoroughly enjoyed this production--very energetic and lively performances. Vincent Price was a hoot as Sir Despard Murgatroyd, and his performance alone was enough to make this a keeper. The whole cast was great, including Keith Mitchell as Robin/Sir Ruthven, Sandra Dugdale was a charming Rose Maybud, and Donald Adams was terrific, as usual.

Following the great success of their masterpiece THE MIKADO (see TOPSY - TURVEY) William Schwenck Gilbert and Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan had time on their hands - THE MIKADO ran for almost two years, their longest hit. It was not until 1887 that Richard D'Oyly Carte felt it necessary to discuss their next production. He and Sir Arthur were dismayed to see that Gilbert was all for pushing his old stand-by, the magic lozenge plot on them. You may recall that this was a lozenge that when ingested allowed the user to change personality and character to whomever they wanted. But Gilbert again met with a decisive "NO!" from both partners. So he went back to his study.

The operetta libretto he came up with was a spoof on Victorian melodramas: set in a seaside village called Rederring, the story is about how young Robin Oakapple is interested in marrying fair Rose Maybud, but faces two major obstacles. First he is not Robin Oakapple, but the missing and presumed dead "Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd", baronet of Ruddygore (the name later was changed, but it is slowly returning to the original spelling). Robin did not want to be baronet - there is a curse that the baronet has to commit one crime a day for every day of his life or perish in agony. Only his foster brother, the Georgian navy sailor Richard Dauntless knows the truth about Robin's birth. Unfortunately, Richard is also in love with Rose Maybud. That is the second major obstacle.

Gilbert had fun with stereotypes from Victorian melodrama here. Richard Dauntless has to be truthful and good - but his use of truthfulness here certainly is good only for Richard, as he uses his knowledge of Robin's real identity to push his own advantage.

Robin's younger brother, Sir Despard, gets rid of his evil obligation early in the morning, and then spends the rest of the day using his money to do only deeds. One of Despard's evil acts was to desert Margaret, a young woman who loved him. She goes mad, and pursues everyone with her mad but inane behavior. Later, when Robin reluctantly returns to his role as Baronet, Despard marries Margaret. To control her he keeps repeating the name of a notorious insane asylum: "Basingstoke". It works!

Rosa's sweet aunt Dame Hannah, recites the song that tells about the "witch's curse" on the bad Baronets of Ruddygore. Later she is kidnapped but turns out to be fully armed with a battle-ax. She happened to be in love with Ruthven's predecessor to the title, Sir Roderick Murgatroyd. It later turns out their pet names for each other were "Roddy - Doddy" and "Little Nanikins!".

The highpoint of the operetta was when Ruthven had to give his daily accounting of crime to his ancestors. Led by Sir Roderick, they descend from their portraits in the gallery and surround him. Gilbert probably heard of a similar idea in a French production, but he used one in a one act musical he wrote called AGES AGO in the 1870s.

RUDDYGORE attracted acceptance by Sullivan and Carte, and was put on. It met with several problems. The title turned off people because it reminded people of the taboo word (in Victorian England) "bloody". That is why a disgusted Gilbert changed the "y" to "i". Then Richard Dauntless' opening song about a naval fight in the Napoleonic Wars ended when the French apparently fought indifferently. This led to criticism from France and it's government about the insult. In the end RUDDYGORE ran only eight months, and then was replaced by repeats of THE MIKADO and other productions. Fortunately, in 1888, Gilbert and Sullivan produced THE YEOMAN OF THE GUARD, which ran for over a year (followed by THE GONDOLIERS, which also ran for over a year).

RUDDYGORE (or RUDDIGORE) has had a mixed reception ever since it's first production. A cartoon that was in a biography of it's two creators suggested it is a bore. It really is not, having some really effective tunes in it, one of which, the patter trio in Act II, was transposed to THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE in the film with Kevin Kline. Also Gilbert did have some fun with that curse (Ruthven decides to wickedly disinherit his only son - only to be reminded he has no son). But it is usually not considered one of the top tier operettas of the pair.

This production was done in the early 1980s, as part of a series of the operettas from TRIAL BY JURY through THE GONDOLIERS. The series had some prominent performers in it, such as Clive Revill in THE SORCERER as John Wellington Wells. Here the role of Despard was played by Vincent Price, and that of Robin/Ruthven was played by Keith Mitchell. They did well with their dialog but both were mediocre in singing (or in Price's case "talk-singing"). Donald Adams, who had been with the D'Oyly Carte Company, was far more effective as Sir Roderick, in particular in singing one of the saddest ballads in Gilbert & Sullivan, his second act duet with Dame Hannah, "There grew a little flower 'neath a great oak tree." It was nice to see any kind of attempt at producing this rarely shown work by Gilbert & Sullivan, and so I will say it was definitely worth a "6" on our scale.

I've always loved Gilbert and Sullivan. The stories of their operettas are on the silly side, but that has always been part of the fun to me. Besides the lyrics and dialogue are delightfully witty and the music itself is just lovely. I have seen better productions of Gilbert and Sullivan before such as the Eric Idle version of The Mikado and as far as this particular series of G&S operettas go this Ruddigore is not as good as Iolanthe, The Sorcerer or Patience but not as dull as (disappointingly as it is my personal favourite operetta of theirs) Pirates of Penzanze. This production of Ruddigore is not perfect by all means. Any fans of the score(not my absolute favourite but as I am with all G&S I am very fond of it) will be disappointed by the abridging of the Overture and numbers such as I Shipped D'Ye See in a Revenue Sloop are omitted. The production leaves something to be desired technically, I liked the Gothic yet charming look of the costumes and sets but thought the picture quality seemed rather grainy(then again my copy, I have the complete series on video, is very old), and the sound could have been clearer. Also, some of the humour does fall flat sadly, due to some badly overdone mugging from the chorus especially. However, it is wonderful musically, with sprightly orchestral playing and a vocally well-balanced chorus. The principals are generally great. Vincent Price's singing is by no means great, in fact it is rather rudimentary(though not as problematic as Peter Allen in Penzanze or Joel Grey in Yeomen), but judging from his acting he looks as though he is having the time of his life. Keith Michell aside from the music was the only outstanding asset about Penzanze, and his entertaining performance as Robin Oakapple is no exception. John Treleaven is suitably oily in his role of Dick Dauntless, Donald Adams really shines in the gloriously creepy When the Night Wind Howls, Sandra Dugdale is lovely as Rose and Ann Howard is delightful as Mad Margaret especially in the patter trio It Really Doesn't Matter. The staging does have its contrived moments like with When Sailing O'er Life's Ocean Wide, but there are several delightful scenes such as the superbly done Ghost Scene and the start of Act 2 between Sir Ruthven and Old Adam. All in all, has a lot of problems but not a bad Ruddigore. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox