Customer Reviews

Gilbert & Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best recording of H.M.S. Pinafore that I have ever heard. Jean Hindmarsh(as Josephine) has a superb voice. It is sung with ethusiasm and is fun to listen to(if not the easiest thing to sing to!) I would recomend this to any G&S lover.

This recording is wonderful! It has the complete dialogue, so you can listen to it and it sounds like you're actually at the theater. I thought the music was so good, I actually saw the operetta! Any G&S fan or non-fan will love this! I even listened to it with a friend who doesn't like opera, and she found it funny.

I really enjoyed this production. It has a different style to the later D'Oyly Carte productions but it still has a great enrgy & the best cast. Jean Hindmarsh is second only to Valerie Masterson as Josephine and John Reid is the only Sir Joseph Porter worth listening to. All in all it is a great recording but make sure you have the libereto to get the most out of the great dialogue

I've heard it said that this may be the "best-ever" CD of any Gilbert & Sullivan recording. I haven't heard them all, but I will cheerfully admit that this is the best G & S recording I've ever encountered. As others have said, the cast is excellent from top to bottom (with extra kudos to Thomas Round, John Reed, Donald Adams, Gillian Knight and Jean Hindmarsh). Having the dialogue is a key advantage and it is extremely well spoken all the way. The chorus sings with the verve and clarity of a perfectly rehearsed first-night performance and the whole thing crackles with an energy and precision that one rarely encounters in the recording studio.

I love Pinafore, but it ranks in my own mind behind five or six other G & S standbys. However, the outstanding qualities of this recording just push it right to the top!

This recording is the D'Oyly Carte's most highly praised recording. That praise is not given in vain. Everything here is fabulous. Fabulous cast, fabulous orchestra, fabulous sound (especially for 1959), and a fabulous price.

John Reed does noticeably better on this recording than he does in the later, 1971 Phase4 Pinafore. He catches the dry humor of Sir Joseph perfectly, and is excellently matched by Jeffery Skitch's flexible Captain Corcoran. Skitch is the only baritone I know of who recorded "Fair moon" in the higher D-major key. Most stick with the C major version.

Thomas Round is a model Ralph ("Rafe") Rackstraw, with Jean Hindmearsh singing well as Josephine opposite him.

My only reservation (though it is hardly even that) is Joyce Wright as Hebe. She does excellently, but does not impart the humor of her part as delightfully as Pauline Wales did in the 1971 recording.

This Pinafore beats all others. It contains dialogue, sounding as though it were performed live. This recording should be the basis to any G&S fan's collection!

This recording is absolutely wonderful! Thomas Round portrays Ralph fantastically and John Reed is a fabulous Joseph Porter. I recommend this to any Gilbert and Sullivan lover and even those who aren't.
This recording is said and considered to be the best recording the D'Oyly Carte have done of any opera, and this certainly is true.

This is an excellent recording of The H.M.S. Pinafore. The recording is listed as having been made in 1959, but this must be a digital re-mastering of the original recording. The signal to noise ratio is superb,the clarity excellent, and the audio response of such high quality that you would never know it was first recorded in 1959! You would've thought it was just recorded in the last few years. I recently saw a production of this by the NY Gilbert & Sullivan Players so that performance was fresh in my mind when I purchased this recording. I thought I was back in the theatre while listening to the recording. The inclusion of the dialogue in the recording is a real plus.

I was given this recording on vinyl "when I was a lad," just before I saw the D'Oyly Carte do Pinafore, and I still have it. Some of the performers I saw were on the records. While the grooves are pretty worn out, I can still sing along to the CD. Great!!

This is a very good performance of one of the most popular Savoy operas. The D'Oyly Carte opera company has been known for its added bits of "bussiness" and overacting, and this performance is not spared them; however, it is still quite serviceable.

The casting was admirably done. John Reed plays Sir Joseph with a pompous self-restraint I had not thought him capable of. Thomas Round is probably the best Ralph I've ever heard, and Jeffrey Skitch, as Captain Corcoran, does wonderful things with his solos. Donald Adams, though not the best Dick Deadeye I've encountered, does his usual enthusiastic job with a minimum (for him) of overacting. Gillian Knight is a loveable Buttercup. Jean Hindmarsh, as Josephine has a lovely voice for the part but I found her acting, when coupled with that of the other singers, to be somewhat lacking.

The performance is dotted with little bits of "bussiness"; a whips cracking at Buttercup's initial recitative, supposedly weilded by her. The act one finale contains the most bussiness out of the entire recording, mostly consisting of cheers and handclaps. I think the purpose might be to make the listener feel as if he were at an actual performance; however, when D'Oyly Carte tends to do this it does detract from the musical performance, at least in my opinion.

Overall, definately a worthwhile buy for the Gilbert and Sullivan fan. Slightly flawed, but true to the spirit of the thing.