"THE GONDOLIERS"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22866, 28 April 1936, Page 4

"THE GONDOLIERS"

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERAS The box plans will be opened at the D.I.C. to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock for the approaching season of the J. C. Williamson Ltd. Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera season, which is to be inaugurated on Saturday night next with, a brilliant production of the deliriously tuneful, colourful and humorous i comio opera "The Gondoliers." This is one of the most popular of the works of the famous collaborators. Only one representation can be staged of "The Gondoliers," and it will be followed by " The Pirates of Penzance," "The Yeoman of the Guard," "H.M.S. Pinafore," "lolanthe," "The Mikado," and " Patience." The following was written by a critic recently of the first appearance of the present company in "The Gondoliers":—"Young playgoers who yawn —if they do not protest' emphatically —when their elders prate of this or that play and may and ought to be forgiven. For 'the good old days' cannot have great interest for youth which knows all about the present, is eager to discover the future, and is not interested in the past. Yet youth and age can and do meet on ground in the theatre when it is occupied by Gilbert and Sullivan operas. In both on such occasions that strange something called enthusiasm is generated and brought to a white heat. So much was strikingly apparent on Saturday night, when the Williamson organisation opened its Gilbert and Sullivan season with ' The Gondoliers.' It was a brilliant perform-

ance, and curiously enough had all the freshness and spontaneity of a new production. Notwithstanding the frequency with which this particular company has been playing it, there was never a moment in its performance in which there was a suspicion of the contempt for details bred by familiarity. This may seem a small matter, but it was an "important feature of the performance. Why does the popularity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas endure t Why is the advent of their revival in any and every place where English is spoken regarded as an event of artistic importance, not only for maturity, but also for youth? Many answers might be furnished to these questions, but one may suffice: The operas are classics iii the sense that, like the classics of music and literature, they never grow old. Their undoubted popularity testifies to their brilliancy in music, wit and humour and construction. They afford full opportunity of bringing forward the best that is within him (and her) to the artist, the singer, actor, dancer, musician, costumier, scene painter and mechanican, and the electric light specialist. Those old enough to have acquired and treasured memories of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas when they were first performed in Australia and New Zealand under the Williamson management could hardly be expected to refrain from measuring the "performance of ' The Gondoliers' on Saturday with the exalted standard set by that company, which created a genuine artistio sensation in the early 'nineties. In many respects tlicVe was no difference to be seen ill Saturday's performance of theopera; certainly none in the warmth and heartiness of its reception by the audience and its accomplished and incomparable cast. Not ever, in those far-off but much more tranquil days than these was more interest shown in the opera, its humour more quickly discerned, its music UKve thoroughly enjoyed, nor demands for repetitious of particular musical numbers more clamant." Those who have previously delighted by the'.r characterisations in Gilbert and Sullivan operas and who will again appear in them arc Ivan Menzies, Gregory Stroud, Evelyn Gardiner and Bernard Manning, and new English artists are Miss Winifred Lawson, Godfrey Stirling, Richard Watson, Helen Langton, Eileen Kelly, Clifford Cowley, Julie Russell, Phyllis Dickinson, Nina,Robin? . nd Tommy Jay. The company includes a full operatio chorus and orchestra and a talented Australian ballet. The season is for seven days only.