RADIO Sullivan's “Utopia”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30576, 20 October 1964, Page 6

RADIO Sullivan's “Utopia”

There Is a new Gilbert and Sullivan operetta out —Chat is, new to records. It is called “Utopia Unlimited" and some excerpts can be heard from the YA stations on Sunday afternoon In Brian Salkeld's programme, “Introduelng New Records.”

“Utopia Unlimited" was the second last of the Savov partnership and was first pro duced in 1893. It was received with the usual enthusiasm and had a good run, but its 245 performances was regarded, by Savoy standards, as a virtual failure. The operetta has not been revived professionally since, although a number of amateur companies have tried it. In the story Gilbert satirised many English things, including prudery, conventions, the party system, company promotion, the Cabinet, Admiralty and War Office. He poked fun at everyone's desire to live in a Utopian land with no crime, no illness no war and poverty. The King of the South Sea Islands sends his daughter to Cambridge to be educated and to find out what reforms should be undertaken in the island. The idea works, but everyone is bored to tears with the Utopian existence. The Princess remembers that she has forgotten one thingparty government. With its introduction normality comes back to the island. This revival on record is almost accidental. The “Utopia” pieces are a bonus fill-up on a new recording of “Trial By Jury” (Decca stereo and mono SLKM./LKM 4579, 39s fid) by the D’Oyly Carte Company with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducted by Isidore Godfrey. The singers are Anne Hood, Thomas Round, John Reed, Donald Adams, Anthony Raffell, Jean Allister, and Kenneth Sandford.

German Operetta On Mondays one can usually rely on hearing a German operetta from 3YC. There was a Hungarian composer who was adopted by the people of Vienna about 1902 as the legitimate successor of Johann Strauss 11. His operettas combined elegance, a little sentimentality and romance and today are regarded as classics in Austria and Germany. On Monday 3YC will broadcast Franz Lehar's “The Count of Luxembourg." Oldest British Organ On Friday 3YC will begin a weekly series of recitals by Geraint Jones on various British organs. The first comes from Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight where the castle museum contains what is claimed to be the oldest organ in England still in playing order. Built in 1602 by the Flemish organbuilder, Hoffheimer, for the Eairl of Montrose, it was designed for domestic use and bears a quotation in Flemish from Psalm 150, “Praise the Lord with stringed instrument and organ.”

Revue Reaches Broadway Most New York critics have praised the British revue, “Cambridge Circus,” which opened on Broadway this month after its New Zealand tour. John Chapman of the “Daily News” said it was “frisky, funny, whimsical, cheerful and not the slightest bit self-important.” Walter Kerr of the “New York Herald-Tribune” said: "I hope they’ll promise to stay around for two years or so until they are glorious sneaks, these half ■ made hatters from Britain.” But Howard Taubman of the “New York Times” likened the show to a “wandering politician's speech” tied together only by the high spirits of its performers.