Comments on: Are Gilbert and Sullivan growing on me or is it my obsession with pirates? https://wolfiewolfgang.com/gilbert-and-sullivan-my-prejudice-over/ Check in for my regular blogs and reviews Tue, 28 May 2013 11:37:08 +0000 hourly 1 By: WolfieWolfgang (Colin Bell) https://wolfiewolfgang.com/gilbert-and-sullivan-my-prejudice-over/#comment-1186 Tue, 28 May 2013 11:37:08 +0000 https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=418#comment-1186 I get where you're coming from Bren. The pasticche is more effective if it's done in the same kind of voice. I enjoyed the way Australian opera use big operatic voices in their G & S – it makes all the difference. I also think Charles Mackerras' Telarc recordings have some great voices.

]]> By: Bren https://wolfiewolfgang.com/gilbert-and-sullivan-my-prejudice-over/#comment-1185 Sat, 25 May 2013 18:33:57 +0000 https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=418#comment-1185 And I just have to add – imagine if Little Buttercup's waltz was sung more like Musetta than a jolly sing-a-long. If a mezzo more used to Carmen's Habanera sang the song, how sexy they could make it sound. Seriously:

"I've treacle and toffee, I've tea and I've coffee,
Soft tommy and succulent chops."

The sales pitch should be seductive.

]]> By: WolfieWolfgang (Colin Bell) https://wolfiewolfgang.com/gilbert-and-sullivan-my-prejudice-over/#comment-1184 Thu, 23 May 2013 17:17:38 +0000 https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=418#comment-1184 I agree with you Bren, I was quoting one of my many adolescent prejudices. I particularly like the Verdi pastiches but I'm also a great fan of Gilbert's wonderfully qualified exclamations like then the pirates sing about the Major General: "Tonight he dies! Yes, or early tomorrow." I love all those inane chorus repetitions too. Such English humour.

]]> By: Bren https://wolfiewolfgang.com/gilbert-and-sullivan-my-prejudice-over/#comment-1183 Thu, 23 May 2013 17:08:33 +0000 https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=418#comment-1183 Gilbert and Sullivan is the iron fist in the velvet glove. You'll already have passed 'HMS Pinafore' – but if you listen to Josephine's Act 2 song there is the perfect piss-take of 'O don fatale'. If you don't know Verdi (which I didn't when I first saw it)you'll miss the joke completely. And – also 'HMS Pinafore' – both 'For He Is An Englishman' and 'When I Was A Lad' put two fingers up at the Establishment, but the Establishment doesn't notice.

And for a real little gem look at 'Trial by Jury' – a perfect miniature highlighting lots of flaws in the law.

The Savoy opera aren't cosy – their skill is that they appear to be. It is rumoured that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote a really filthy – and I mean really filthy – opera; oh, how I wish somebody would find that!

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