Product Details

• Actors: William Conrad, Clive Revill, Kate Flowers, John Stewart, Anne Collins
• Directors: Barrie Gavin, Dave Heather, Peter Wood, Rodney Greenberg
• Writers: William S. Gilbert
• Producers: Edward Simons, George Walker, Judith de Paul
• Format: Box set, Classical, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 10
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: AcornMedia
• DVD Release Date: October 22, 2002
• Run Time: 1140 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006JU6K
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,544 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Gilbert & Sullivan - Master Collection Opera World" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

GILBERT & SULLIVAN:MASTER COLLECTION - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Less than hoped for, February 12, 2003

By 

Walter P. Sheppard (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - Master Collection Opera World (DVD)

For many (most?) of us, this set provides the first chance to see as well as hear all of the principal G & S operas except "Trial by Jury," in all their "innocent merriment." That said, I have to observe that the set is not a source of "unalloyed pleasure." The individual productions range from very good to unmitigated disasters. At the same time, I must acknowledge that it is something of a miracle that any of them are even acceptable because they were produced under conditions that virtually guaranteed that excellence was impossible: the principals apparently worked under the handicap of singing to pre-recorded accompaniment, allowing them no flexibility of phrasing for expression. In addition, each production was rehearsed for only a week and then taped in a week. All are plagued by generally poor diction, especially from the chorus, and by lots of busy, pointless moving around, especially by the chorus. When the chorus has to brandish swords, staffs, lilies, etc., the members rarely are together. Dancing, choreographed by Terry Gilbert (no relation, I'm sure!), is at best passable. Finally, the scenery and costumes mostly look low budget.

Casting is odd. The producers apparently didn't trust the material, so they brought in a "name" performer or two to "star" in each production whether or not they could contribute anything but their names. Some of them are very good, others are disasters. Clive Revill gives excellent performances as John Wellington Wells ("Patience") and Ko-Ko ("Mikado"), and Joel Grey is a wonderful Jack Point ("Yeomen"). Peter Allen brings nothing special to the Pirate King, but he does not disgrace himself or spoil the production. William Conrad as the Mikado can't sing, and he delivers his lines in a strange, falsetto-like voice at odds with the character. Vincent Price can't really sing, either, but he manages to bring off Despard ("Ruddigore") with credit through canny professionalism. Frank Gorshin brings nothing but monotony to King Gama ("Princess Ida").

Peter Marshall and Frankie Howerd combine to utterly destroy "Pinafore." By his own account, Marshall decided to play Captain Corcoran as a song-and-dance man, which has no connection with the character created by Gilbert & Sullivan. Howerd included bits of his standard comic shtick, even though they are totally unrelated to the character of Sir Joseph. Gilbert would have keel-hauled both of them, along with staging director Michael Geliot for letting them get away with it.

"Princess Ida" is staged as a kind of charade or show at some posh estate. This conceit makes the piece mostly unintelligible.

Several distinguished opera singers make substantial contributions in the roles they play. Derek Hammond-Stroud is a superb Bunthorne ("Patience"), but his Lord Chancellor ("Iolanthe") is vitiated by David Pountney's staging, which puts most of the action in the House of Lords, contrary to the libretto; the recognition scene with Iolanthe goes for nothing, when it should be touching. Anne Collins gives enjoyable performances as Jane ("Patience"), the Queen of the Fairies ("Iolanthe"; also compromised by the staging), Lady Blanche ("Princess Ida"), Katisha ("Mikado"), and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro ("Gondoliers"). Elizabeth Bainbridge is a solid Dame Carruthers ("Yeomen"). Stafford Dean is a decent Pooh-Bah ("Mikado"). Richard Van Allan sings Private Willis ("Iolanthe") strongly, but his impact is diminished by Pountney's staging.

One puzzle of the casting is why only two D'Oyly Carte veterans were used. Donald Adams shows his clear mastery of the style in "The Sorcerer" (Sir Marmaduke), "Patience" (Col. Calverly), and "Ruddigore" (Sir Roderic), as does Gillian Knight (Ruth) in "The Pirates of Penzance." Both have exemplary diction and project the characters they are playing while they sing and move. They would have been welcome in many more roles, along with other members of the company.

Each act of each opera is introduced by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., in stilted, uncomfortable fashion; your DVD player will let you skip him. The booklets with each set have cast lists (including a few errors and omissions) and texts of the musical numbers. Some familiarity with the librettos is certainly useful. In this connection, the ideal companion would be Ian Bradley's "Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan" (Oxford University Press).

In spite of the problems and disappointments, we're not apt to have any alternative to these productions if we want the G & S canon for our home screens. Acquisition of this set should certainly be supplemented by the 1939 film of "The Mikado." It has some peculiarities as a production, but it also has the matchless Ko-Ko of Martyn Green and the first-class Pooh-Bah of Sydney Granville, plus a surprisingly winning Nanki-Poo from Kenny Baker.

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Where's Trial by Jury?, November 18, 2002

By 

Paul - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - Master Collection Opera World (DVD)

This is the "Brent Walker" series, noticeably missing from home video for some time. The set makes up the bulk of the G&S popular canon. Recorded but missing are "Trial by Jury" and "Cox & Box" (more on that in a minute).

I saw the series on PBS when it was originally aired about twenty years ago and enjoyed it very much. Bootleg off-air copies and a short-lived VHS release of the series have been all that's available of the Brent/George Walker set until now. I hear that copyright fights over the videos have resulted in years of delays. There must still be a problem with what would be the 11th DVD in the set: "Trial by Jury", coupled with "Cox & Box", which had been released on the the VHS tapes. Perhaps someone else has the facts about this omission.

Over the years aficionados have argued the videos' production values which seem to vary somewhat from opera to opera. However, the use of close-ups and conventional television effects make for good television, and these are definitely not videos of live stage performances and should not be judged as such.

-True, it's not D'Oyly Carte.
-True, each opera has had some trimming - lines of dialog here and there, a dropped verse or even a song now and then, but they still flow nicely over all.
-True, the choice of comic and romantic lead singers seem strange at times (William Conrad as "The Mikado"!).
-True, these DVDs do have the annoying introduction and intermission lectures by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. which no one I know has ever thought necessary.
-True, optional subtitles might have been nice to have, especially for the some of the rapidunintelligiblepatter songs.

BUT - This is probably the best we're going to get of (almost) everything under one roof.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Great Disappointment, April 6, 2006

By 

Ranger243 (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - Master Collection Opera World (DVD)

I purchased the Favorites Collection from the same series, which contains most of the DVDs included in the Master Collection. Let me start by saying I love Gilbert and Sullivan, but the productions in this series are so bad I winced watching them. When Captain Corcoran first appeared on deck, I furrowed by brow and said out loud, "No, it can't be." But sure enough, a check of the credits revealed that the hardy captain of the H.M.S. Pinafore actually was game show icon Peter Marshall. That claim to fame and his constant horse-toothed grin were distracting enough, but his terrible performance made watching this version of Pinafore almost unbearable. Pete should have stuck to the likes of Yahtzee! and Hollywood Squares. Frankie Howerd speaks most of his lines as Sir Joseph. That may have worked fine for Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, but it was a deep disappointment to a diehard G&S fan waiting to hear some of his favorite songs actually sung. The cast includes a plain-looking Josephine and downright ugly (and aging) Ralph Rackstraw. I focus here on Pinafore because it is usually my favorite and was so horribly wrecked here. But the other productions in the series are no better. The choreography is consistently overwrought to the point of being downright silly. The singing, while at times good, is generally uneven. Spoken lines often are poorly delivered. The series was taped in 1982. It shows its age, and not only from the silly looking, big 70s-80s hair on all the men. The camera work is awkward, the sets invariably cheesy. In one scene in Pirates of Penzance, the camera rises from behind a potted plant in an effect reminiscent of early public access cable television. I could go on, and really I'd like to find something positive to say, but I do so love G&S, whose work here is turned into something so bad it's difficult to watch. I was going to sell my boxed set and the extra DVDs I purchased, but I would not inflict them on someone else. Save your money and invest in some of the excellent audio versions that are out there.