Customer Reviews

Gilbert & Sullivan: The Gondoliers

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There are two strong rivals for this set. The early electric set transferred from 78 rpms onto Pearl CDs is suberb--the closest we will ever get to what Gilbert wanted in articulation and characterization and to what Sullivan wanted in vocal style--but is of course subjected to the sonics state of the art circa 1930. But to understand what this opera is all about, this is the choice of choices! The complete version on Decca has all the dialogue...which might or might not be a Good Thing on repeated hearings. And, no, you cannot program it out since Decca decided to contain it on the same tracks as the music that precedes it. So if all you want is the musical parts and stereo is a must, this Sony/Columbia set is wonderfully paced, well characterized (though not as well as the early electric set) and well conducted. And in case you do not know, this work is even more tuneful than "The Mikado"--which is saying a lot. And by the way, try the "Iolanthe" in this same series, but not "The Mikado" (which is far too rushed).

Sullivan's score to The Gondoliers has been the object of a good deal of tampering over the years, and as is the case with all of the D'Oyly Carte's more recent efforts, an attempt has been made to return to the autograph. What we hear in this set is Sullivan's original introduction, minus the cachuca which was tacked on in the 1930s. The original is vastly more effective. There are other points of interest, such as the almost supernaturally crisp chorus - sample them in the "Thank you gallant gondolieri" in the first act. The cast is, as usual with D'Oyly Carte, first rate, with John Rath and Jill Pert standouts. Rarely have I heard Don Alhambra's arias sung with such panache. Rath even gives Donals Adams and Darrell Fancourt a run for their money.

Well worth the investment, even if you have the excellent 1960 recording.

The Gondoliers was the last Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be a great popular success; listening to this version of the opera as performed by the D'Oyly Carte shows why: it is a highly entertaining score, with warm characters and a lot of humor.

This CD contains excellent performances by John Rath as Don Alhambra, Jill Pert as the Duchess of Plaza-Toto and the usual fine comic performance by Richard Suart as the Duke of Plaza-Toro.

The score is particularly fine, with Sullivan showing his mastery of many musical types, as the liner notes indicate, such as the waltz, the gavotte, the saltarello and the tarantello. It is a very vibrant and upbeat score.

The libretto is very clever, and Gilbert's sense of satire is never sharper than here. There are amusing songs as the democratic Gondoliers make Barataria into a model of social equality, and the Duke and Duchess relate the story of their product endorsements -- like the Mikado, all the satires are really about Victorian England, not about the land in which the stories are staged.

The story's plot relies on a typical Gilbert device -- babies "switched at birth" make one of the two Gondoliers -- no one is sure which one -- the rightful King of Barataria, promised to the Duke's daughter, Casilda. This interferes with the Gondoliers' plan to marry their sweethearts, and provides much of the humor as the Gondoliers attempt to adjust to their new social position. There is, of course, the usual Gilbertian plot twist at the end to resolve everything happily.

This is a very fun opera to listen to; with almost none of the wistfulness that haunts the Mikado, Pinafore, or the Yeomen of the Guard.

This is the best recording of Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" ever recorded! The diction is excellent and the singers are amazing. It has really helped me get ready for the production of "The Gondoliers" I'm in with The Utah Light Opera Company.

If all you know of G&S is the "big three" (i.e., H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado), you are missing much. Patience, Iolanthe, Ruddigore, Trial by Jury: each of these lesser known operas is delightful in its own way, and each has its partisans in the dispute over which is the best G&S creation. As much as I love all of the foregoing, I find Gondoliers to be the most perfect and most enjoyable of all.

Gilbert and Sullivan acknowledged to one another at the time of its first performance that this was a work of lasting value, one that could win them century-long fame. And though their reputation has not hung upon this work, it rightly should have. First of all, the story itself, though typically far-fetched, is more coherent than that of any of the other savoy operas. The ending, for the first and only time in the G&S corpus, is actually believable. Next, the characters are among the most interesting Gilbert created. In particular, the gondolier-king brothers, Marco and Giuseppe and their brides Giunetta and Tessa, though "distinctly dunderheaded," are certainly Gilbert's most sympathetic heroes and heroines. No audience can really care about Ralph and Josephine, or about Frederic and Mabel, much less about Yum-Yum and Nanki Poo. Here at last are characters who win our sympathy even as we laugh at them.

Gilbert's lyrics have seldom, if ever, been wittier. And Sullivan's music is almost uniformly fine. There are a number of songs that can stand alongside the most popular show-stoppers from the better known operas, in fact so many that I hesitate to begin listing them because it will be hard not to include a dozen. The quartet "Then one of us will be a queen" must top the list, followed by the trio "I am a courtier grave and serious" and Marco and Giuseppe's "We're called gondolieri." Among the most brilliantly funny of Gilbert's lyrics matched perfectly by Sullivan's music are Don Alhambra's "There lived a king" and "I stole the prince," along with the Duke of Plaza Toro's "In enterprise of martial kind." There is much beauty here too, including "List and learn," the opening chorus of maidens, and Tessa's "When a merry maiden marries." However, the few songs that seem to me to be less impressive are of the romantic type, viz., Cassilda and Luiz's Act One duets and Marco's overrated Act Two aria, "Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes."

The greatness of the music, however, goes far beyond the excellence of the individual songs. There is an operatic unity that, while not missing from the other savoy operas, is more perfect in Gondoliers. For example, it has often been noted that the opening of Act One is one of the longest purely musical (i.e., free of spoken dialogue) stretches in all of G&S. This opening constitutes a perfectly unified scene: unified not only dramatically, but also musically, as we realize when its final number, "Thank you, gallant gondelieri," unexpectedly, yet perfectly, turns into a reprise of the opening chorus, "List and learn."

As for this particular recording of The Gondeliers, all the roles are sung by comic opera actors who also have first rate voices. The principal voices are as fine as (or finer than) those in Sir Malcolm Sargent's stereo recording from the late fifties, without the humorlessness of some of the singing in that version. In comparison to the old Doyly Carte stereo recording from 1961, the principals here are, on the whole, far superior, and the Chorus is at least as good. Some specifics: I can accept Regina Hanley's backing off from the high note at the end of "When a merry maiden" in exchange for her superior voice throughout this and all Tessa's numbers. The greatest improvement over the old Doyly Carte is John Rath's Don Alhambra: what a relief to hear Don Alhambra's two great songs adequately sung --Kenneth Sandford could not do them justice. I prefer the old Doyly Carte recording on one number only: John Reed's amazingly slick singing on "In enterprise of marshal kind" (everywhere else Richard Suart is far better than Reed). Those who want the dialogue will need to buy the older recording, but should acquire this new one as well if they want to enjoy the music.

This "Gondoliers" was one of my very first G&S recordings. I paid I-don't-know-how-much for it, and it called up only 'modified rapture'. Yes, it was nice to have, but I can't say I enjoyed it much. The orchestra was particularly good - no discernable mistakes, the tempos were good and consistent, the soloists were very good. But the diction was very peculiar. In places it's so good that I hear other words instead of what they actually said. Or things that made no sense whatever. I just did not enjoy it.
I might also point out an error in the booklet. Why is Casilda assigned to the last bit of the Act 1 Finale when she clearly has no reason to be there? I couldn't say if she was actually present on that track, but why was this mistake in the book?

Even though this is a used product, it's in great shape and I feel confortable gifting it to someone else! Thanks!