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This video is one of the Opera World series of 12 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas produced for television in 1982. Aiming for a broad public, the series' producers assembled crossover casts of Savoyards, comedians, song-and-dance types, and Americans affecting British accents. The results are erratic, and H.M.S. Pinafore is as mixed as they come. Musically, it is of generally high quality (the opera singer Della Jones as Buttercup, for instance). It is full of energetic dance numbers, and there's a hefty dose of music-hall comedy. It just doesn't add up.

Peter Marshall, best known as the host of Hollywood Squares, turns out to be a credible singer and dancer. But his performance is bizarre. With his prancing movements and incessant grin, he's a Victorian cartoon that scarcely resembles the genial but upright Captain Corcoran. It's similar with the British TV comedian Frankie Howerd, who, in the role of Sir Joseph, plays himself. Expertly drawing on a large stock of mannerisms, he hoists his eyebrows, purses his lips, levitates his voice an octave in surprise. Howerd's speak-singing is more effective than you might think; he tramples on Gilbert's dialogue, however. Adlibbing many of his lines, he is sometimes visibly at a loss for what to say next.

The number of such wobbly moments suggests that the production was taped in a hurry. Things are further constrained by the shipboard set, which is too cramped for all those sailors, sisters, cousins, and aunts. During the dance segments, you can observe them bumping into the scenery and each other. --David Olivenbaum ... Read more

Reviews (14)

An enjoyable performance
I know that some Gilbert and Sullivan fanatics may complain loudly about tis video, but I am going to say how fantastic this production of Pinafore really is. Peter Marshal, despite some small imperfections in his role of Captain Corcoran, is a well-versed singer-actor. Equally up to his calibre is Frankie Howerd's Sir Joseph Porter. Howerd in his part ad-libs his dialogue not because he didn't learn his lines, but because he brings out the character of Sir Joseph perfectly well. He makes the character feel like a person with scrambled eggs in his brain, and I'm sure that his portrayal can spark off a laugh or two. The two lovers and Little Buttercup, excellently played, help to match those two principals, and the choruses of sailors and female relatives are very supportive. Alexander Faris's musical direction is a sheer delight form first bar to last. The only minor quibble is about the sound-quality. It seems so low-quality and the mixing is not well done. However, this does not detract from such an outstanding performance of this G&S great and this will be sure to find a happy fome in any classical video library.

A disappointment to G&S fans
As a Gilbert & Sullivan fan (and a member of the Pittsburgh Savoyards G&S company), I was thrilled to learn that there is a series of videos of most G&S shows. But the series is very disappointing, and Pinafore is a good example of the series. Peter Marshall is a poor choice for Captain Corcoran, and Frankie Howerd is an incomprehensible choice for Sir Joseph Porter, KCB. Howerd appears to be making up the role as he goes along. The singing is credible (although far from the best I've heard), and the dancing is very good. But the staging is poor, and the entire effect is that the fun of a good Gilbert & Sullivan show is lost.

An Absurd Attempt
A video only a mother could love.

I've heard the original D'Oyly Carte records of most G&S operettas and seen the D'Oyly Carte videotape of "The Mikado". I was hoping to get a better look at the stagings of these operettas by looking in the "Opera World" series.

Bad idea. The staging for this is just absurd and the captain is overplayed while Sir Joseph Porter doesn't even sing. Everybody's dancing around the stage like a fool and destroying what little is left of G&S these days.

Sullivan would be pleased because his music is performed beautifully. With the exception of Sir Joseph, the vocal aspect of the video is great. If only it came on CD...

Gilbert would be astonished, ashamed, and confounded at how horrible his clever production became in the hands of these hacks. If you're a true G&S fan, you'll wince at this ridiculous staging.

Brilliant rendition--Could hardly be better!
This is the best presentation of Pinafore and of Gilbert and Sullivan that my family has ever seen. The casting is a work of genius, with a felicitous mixing of singers (for the operatic parts),comedians (for the comic parts) and dancers. The London Symphony Orchestra's music is excellent, as is the singing of the Ambrosian Opera Chorus. The choreography is fast-paced, creative, and amusing. Dick Deadeye, Buttercup, lord of the admiralty, captain, lovers, crew, and "cousins and aunts" all come colorfully and hilariously to life. There is never a dull moment. Entertaining, delightful, and fast-moving from beginning to end. We watch it over and over. We recommend it wholeheartedly and without reservation. There is no better introduction to Gilbert and Sullivan.

LIVELY!!!!
I have watched this tape four times and liked it better and better each time. Lucretia Grindle is right but not enthusiastic enough! The production works! I showed it to a group of 60 seniors and they all loved it. ... Read more

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An uneasy cross between a movie and a theater production, this version of Gilbert and Sullivan's masterpiece The Mikado is on the clumsy side. Obviously taped on a stage (there are just two settings, a town square and a landscape) but without an audience, it lacks the spark of live performance and the versatility of film. The action is weighed down by jejune attempts at comedy. When Nanki-Poo (disguised as a musician) receives the devastating news that the woman he loves is promised to another man, he doesn't react at all, but instead plays trombone accompaniment. And after he describes his catalog of musical offerings, the court gentlemen--for no reason except that the song's final word is "lullaby"--drop to the ground and fall asleep. Besides not being funny, these gags are unconnected to anything in the story.

A couple of performances partly redeem things. Kate Flowers sings very well and, even better, actually creates a character. Her Yum-Yum is mischievous, blunt, sarcastic--just the kind of person who would compare herself to the sun and the moon. And as Ko-Ko, Clive Revill is a terrific combination of wily and sympathetic. Slightly hunched and wearing a jester's costume, Revill is a nervous little schemer who's vividly believable. William Conrad's bland Mikado doesn't have much impact. This is one of the less distinguished entries in the Opera World series of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. --David Olivenbaum ... Read more

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Performances of La Traviata stand or fall to an unusual extent on their principal soprano; the first thing that needs saying about this Glyndebourne performance is that Marie McLaughlin has all of the attributes needed for a role that is fundamentally a virtuoso one, no matter how emotionally involving it is as well. The point about Violetta is that she is, with absolute authenticity, all of the things she becomes in the course of the opera--the febrile socialite and yearning love of Act One, the quiet domesticated woman of Act Two who sacrifices her love for Alfredo to precisely the family values he has talked her into espousing, the dying penitent of Act Three. Walter McNeil is an impressive poetic Alfredo in whose successful courtship we can believe. He is also unusually good in Act Two, Scene Two where for once his public humiliation of Violetta is actually painful, which makes his repentance at her deathbed far more moving. Brent Ellis is solid and powerful as his father Germont--the duet in which he talks Violetta into renouncing Alfredo and yet comes to value what he is destroying is one of the high points here, as it should be. Bernard Haitink conducts impressively. --Roz Kaveney ... Read more

Reviews (1)

VG Picture-No Subtitles
I had the old VHS Version of this Glyndenbourne performance. compare to that the picture quality of the Dvd is a huge improvement. However the VHS Version had English subtitles; the DVD does not. In these days of everything in Opera having subtitles it seems very strange thatthis DVD does not. Maybe Image would have to pay extra. I do not see in the Opera listings in Amazon any consistent listing for subtitles. For me I would not want to have this if without subtitles so I seek some way of getting a refund. I do not want DVD with no subtitles ... Read more