Sullivan: Ballet Music (CD review)

L’Ile Enchantee; Thespis. Andrew Penny, RTE Concert
Orchestra. Naxos 8.555180.

By John J. Puccio

Many people today probably only know the British composer
Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) from his collaborations with Sir William S.
Gilbert, Sullivan writing the music and Gilbert the lyrics of their many hit
light operas. But Sullivan’s work also includes operas, orchestral works,
incidental music, songs, piano, and chamber pieces. Among them is the ballet
presented here, L’Ile Enchantee (“The Enchanted Isle”), performed by
Andrew Penny and Ireland’s RTE Concert Orchestra.

Sullivan wrote L’Ile Enchantee in 1861, and it was
among his first orchestral compositions. He intended it as a divertissement, a
light entertainment, a diversion, usually used during an interlude in a longer,
more-serious work but here used at the end of Vincenzo Bellini’s opera La sonnambula
at Covent Garden. The public received the music with acclaim, but the full
score was subsequently lost.  We may
consider Penny’s recording, in which Roderick Spencer and Selwyn Tillett have
found and restored some previously lost passages, a world-première event.

The opening Prelude has a serious Mendelssohnian
feeling to it. The music continues with a whole parade of light, melodic, and
wholly delightful tunes. There’s even a brief Strauss-like waltz involved. The
story line of the ballet is negligible, to say the least. A shipwrecked sailor
washes ashore on an enchanted island filled with gnomes and fairies (and thus
the Mendelssohn reference). He falls for the queen, and the rest is...well,
music. I’m surprised this little ballet didn’t catch on the way so much of
Sullivan’s other music has. Whatever, Maestro Penny appears to be on top of
everything--from the rollicking inner sections to the sweetest, most-gentle
ones, and his Irish orchestra seems to be enjoying itself as well.

Accompanying L’Ile Enchantee are some snippets of
ballet music from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Thespis (1871), their first
collaboration together. However, they never published the piece, and most of it
is now lost, except for the fragments of ballet from it we get here.

Producer Murray Khouri made the album at the National
Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland in April 1992. Naxos originally released the disc
in their full-priced Marco Polo line but now offer it at a substantially lower
price (although if you insist on paying more, you can still find it new on the
Marco Polo label). I liked the sound a lot. It’s among the more natural
recordings I’ve heard lately, even though Naxos recorded it some thirty years
ago (or perhaps because they recorded it so long ago). The recording displays
good depth, with more than adequate dynamics and frequency range. And all
without a hint of brightness or edge.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:

Gilbert and Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore (CD review)

John Reed, Jeffrey Skitch, Thomas Round, Donald Adams, Jean Hindmarsh, Gillian Knight; Isidore Godfrey, New Symphony Orchestra of London and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Decca 473 638-2 (2-disc set).



The folks at Decca reissued their famous D'Oyly Carte series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas in 2003, and this time they included the original cover art and record labels. The sound in all of them is better than ever, the looks are better than ever, and no one has ever equalled the performances. The recordings include the complete operas and, as far as I can see, the dialogue.



Decca's recording of H.M.S. Pinafore, recorded in 1959, has long been one of my Desert Island favorites, so I found myself more than delighted to listen to it again and again. The performance conveys all of the humorous, deadpan zest this music requires, with singer-actors born to the roles. It is, of course, the story of a poor seaman who falls in love with a Captain's daughter, but they cannot marry because he is low born and she is of the upper classes. The plot allowed the Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan to poke fun at the British aristocratic caste system of the late nineteenth century as well as lampoon certain character types.



Thomas Round is ideal as the fresh-faced Able Seaman Ralph Rackstraw; John Reed as the pompous Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty; Jean Hindmarsh as Josephine, the Captain's daughter; Jeffrey Skitch as Captain Corcoran, the commander of the Pinafore; Gillian Knight as Little Buttercup, a "Bumboat Woman"; and Donald Adams as the villainous Dick Deadeye. They and the rest of the cast are a pleasure all the way around, as are Isidore Godfrey's conducting (he was the musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company at the time), the New Symphony Orchestra playing, and the performances of the rest of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Chorus. They produce some of the best Gilbert and Sullivan you'll find anywhere at any price.



The sound is still excellent by any standards, too, and remains one of my audiophile choices. Moreover, with this rerelease the Decca engineers appear to have remastered the sonics to even smoother effect. High notes and voice sibilants do not seem as hard-edged as in the earlier, 1989 CD's but closer to what I remember from the old vinyl LP days. Add in a more-flowing treble, a magnificently realistic bass, a wonderfully transparent midrange, and plenty of stage dimensionality, and you get a formidable package. And since this is a vintage Decca operetta, expect to hear the characters' voices and bodies actually moving around the stage. This is no mere vocal recital, but a complete performance with depth and breadth.



Other recordings in Decca's reissued Gilbert and Sullivan series include The Gondoliers (473 632), The Grand Duke and Henry VIII incidental music (473 635), Iolanthe (473 641), Patience (473 647), Princess Ida and Pineapple Poll (473 653), Ruddigore (473 656), The Sorcerer and The Zoo (473 659), Utopia Limited, the Macbeth overture, and Victoria and Merrie England (473 662), and The Yeoman of the Guard and Trial by Jury (473 665); plus, everyone's other favorites, The Mikado (473 644) and The Pirates of Penzance (473 650). These are splendid sets, released as mid-price bargains and hard to resist.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

Gilbert and Sullivan: HMS Pinafore (CD review)

Also, Trial by Jury. George Baker, John Cameron, Richard Lewis, Elsie Morison, Marjorie Thomas, Monica Sinclair. Sir Malcolm Sargent, Pro Arte Orchestra and Glyndebourne Festival Chorus. EMI 50999 0 95087 2 9 (2-disc set).



When you're one of the oldest record companies in the world, you ought to trot out some of your best material for rerelease from time to time. People expect it, especially people who haven't heard of it before or couldn't afford it the first time(s) around. Such is the case with this 2011 two-disc reissue from EMI of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore and Trial by Jury, originally recorded in 1958 and 1960 respectively. They've been around on LP, tape, and CD before, and I suspect we still haven't heard the last of them.



The show horse, naturally, is HMS Pinafore, the comic opera that librettist Sir W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) premiered in 1878. It is, of course, the satiric tale of a poor seaman who falls in love with a sea captain's daughter, but they cannot marry because he is low born and she is of the upper classes. The plot allowed the composers to poke fun at the British aristocratic caste system of the late nineteenth century as well as lampoon various character types. Tenor Richard Lewis sings the part of the fresh-faced able seaman Ralph Rackstraw; baritone George Baker is the pompous Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, KCB (First Lord of the Admiralty); bass Owen Brannigan is the nefarious able seaman Dick Deadeye; baritone John Cameron is the commander of the Pinafore, Captain Corcoran; and soprano Elsie Morison is the captain's daughter, Josephine. They and the rest of the cast are a pleasure as well.



Sir Malcolm Sargent's EMI recording came around at about the same time as Decca's stereo recording with conductor Isidore Godfrey, the New Symphony Orchestra of London, and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which, with its zest and enthusiasm, tended to overshadow Sargent's version. Alongside Godfrey's reading, Sargent's interpretation does take the music a tad more seriously, yet it manages to convey most of the humorous, deadpan liveliness the music requires, too. Not that Sargent presents the tunes in any high-handed or weighty style, you understand; he simply presents them as genuinely thoughtful, entertaining melodies, not just lightweight music-hall ditties. In fact, the knock I've heard against Sargent's presentation of the work has sometimes been that he offers it in too operatic, too somber, a manner. Maybe so, at least measured against Godfrey's more rollicking, freewheeling presentation. Nevertheless, while Sargent's reading may not project all the vitality of Godfrey's performance, his rendering still bubbles over with joy and enthusiasm.



The coupling on disc two is Gilbert's and Sullivan's first major success, Trial by Jury, from 1875.  It's a brief, tidy piece spoofing the British legal system. Here, Sargent uses essentially the same singers, with the addition of baritone Bernard Turgeon as the foreman of the jury. George Baker is a delight as a wholly corrupt judge, and the entire cast seem to be having a good time. If you've never heard it before, just don't expect another Pinafore. It's good, but it's not that good.



The sound in both operettas, recorded over fifty years ago, defies its age, appearing every bit as good as almost anything recorded today. It has an excellent sense of presence, with a realistic acoustic of moderate breadth and superior depth. The frequency response remains well balanced, the high end sparkling and the bass at least sufficient. The transient response is quick and vital, impact is modest, and voices are perfectly natural. One can understand every word of the soloists and chorus, without their being too bright or too forward. Compared to Decca's Godfrey recording of the same vintage, EMI's sound is a tad more veiled; still, if you didn't directly compare them, you wouldn't notice.



The two EMI discs come housed in a Digipak container, with downloadable synopses and librettos in a PDF format on disc two.



JJP