Customer Reviews

Gilbert & Sullivan: Princess Ida

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There is a lot more to Gilbert & Sullivan than "I'm called Little Buttercup." Some of the most beautiful music penned by Sullivan or some of the wittiest dialogue invented by Gilbert lie in the lesser produced works, especially "The Sorcerer" and "Princess Ida," both of which might be given new life after being shown in part in "Topsy Turvy."

"Princess Ida" appeared four times on recordings--acoustic (1925), electric (1932), mono LP (1955), and stereo (1965)--all featuring the D'Oyly Carte Company and all of them very good, but none of them absolutely complete. Only the first contains "Come, mighty Must" but drops the last stanza of "Whom thou has chained" to make room for it. The second restores that stanza but in abbreviated form. And none of them contain the dialogue.

To cut to the chase, there is at last a professional recording that is absolutely complete, down to the last line of dialogue and with reasonably good voices to boot! <Princess Ida> is now available on the Newport Classic label (NPD 85675/2) and joins its Ohio Light Opera companions ("Eileen," "The Arcadians," "The Chocolate Soldier," and "Veronique") on my operetta-in-English shelf.

First the quibbles. I spotted three tiny flubs in the lyrics (you listen and see if you can find more), which are doubtless a function of this being a live performance (without any obtrusive applause until the very end). In the first act, Hildebrand (Daniel Neer) tends to read his dialogue in that lilting voice that implies "this is supposed to be terribly funny." But he does remind me a bit of Leo Sheffield, who plays the part on the acoustic recording, and that is a good thing. John Bernard's Hilarion is a bit strident at times--indeed in his stanza of the Act III finale, he seems on the verge of being in trouble--and one misses the creamy tenor of Derek Oldham on the first two recordings. Still in all, he is serviceable and not at all bad.

Lady Blanche (Elaine Fox) has a nice mezzo, but when she speaks she sounds as young as her daughter Melissa (Sandra Piques Eddy). And finally the chorus sounds a little too thin to me after having grown used to D'Oyly Carte sets. But none of these factors detract very much from the general excellence of the production.

It is good to hear a King Gama (Ted Christopher) without the grating "old man" voice that John Reed so overdoes on the first stereo version. And while Peter Castaldi's Arac is not quite in the class of the earlier interpreters of that role--Darrell Fancourt and Donald Adams--he is just fine on his own terms. Of course any production of this play rests heavily on the title role. Here Julie Wright does nothing very wrong vocally (although no one will ever replace Winifred Lawson on the acoustic recording)--and I do wish that the other characters emulated her slightly upper-class British nasalized "O"; but I have to get used to American accents in G&S and stop being such an Anglophile.

Finally a good word about the orchestra and Resident Professional Company of The College of Wooster under the baton of J. Lynn Thompson. I did not expect the sonic impact of the Decca stereo recording, but what I heard was good enough. Perhaps I have never heard "Expressive glances" taken at quite so slow a tempo, but it is beautiful enough to linger over a bit longer than usual.

The dialogue is given separate cut-numbers and can be programmed out. However, for some reason much of the dialogue begins as the last notes of the music before are fading away (to discourage applause during the performance?); so such programming might make for a slight musical messiness.

All things considered, I am going to give this a 4-star rating and urge you to get a copy to enjoy once and many times after. It will not replace either of the earlier two recordings in style and polish, but it is fine on its own terms--and it does have the dialogue.

At long last - a new recording of Princess Ida, about 30 years overdue, but better late than never. The dialogue, which is painfully slow and labored, overshadows everything that I like about the singing on this recording. Why is dialogue included at all? Quite easily, all the music could have fit on one CD, but instead the opera is dragged out and the producers ask me to pay an inordinate price for two CDs rather than one (as with The Arcadians). Still this is the best recording from Ohio Light Opera, the foot scuffling from the cast and applause from the audience kept to the barest minimum, though one could live without a scream or two from the women's chorus. There are some awful tempos: the "triolet" trio crawls, as does the opening number of act two and the duet for Melissa and Lady Blanche. The latter's solo "Come, might Must" is included but is also sung slow; however, at this pace, it plainly shines as a parody of all those "olde school" songs we associate with academia - it fairly invokes ivied walls and stuffy lecture halls, appropriate to this opera set at a woman's university. Of the recordings of Princess Ida, this one has the best performance of "I built upon a rock." Ted Christopher's King Gama demonstrates none of the crotchetyness usually associated with the character, and is the low vocal point in what is otherwise a pretty good solo cast. The orchestra is first-rate.

When I was a lad it was the custom of high schools and junior high schools to record their annual musicals and produce privately pressed records for the principals and their families. The results were always amateur beyond belief, but nobody expected professional results. After all, these recordings were made primarily as keepsakes for everyone involved with the show.

Well, this recording of "Princess Ida" by Ohio Light Opera is kind of like those old homemade school recordings. Granted the orchestral playing is professional, and many of the voices passable - but more often than not the principals seldom rise to the occasion; the King Gama here being as miscast as when Sir Malcolm Sargent thought it would be a good idea to put Sir Geraint Evans into the patter roles for his first three EMI G&S recordings.

All of this might be forgivable if a die-hard Savoyard would be willing to take this recording of "Ida" as a curio, but at a premium price such as this the investment is hardly worth it - even as a lark. Buyers are advised to check out any of the D'Oyly Carte recordings available or the charming DVD production if they really want to hear the score.

This is the first ever recording of PRINCESS IDA to include the complete dialogue and the first modern recording to include Lady Blanche's song "Come mighty must".

Sad to say this is a missed opportunity. Firstly the strong american accent displayed by several of the performers grates badly on the British ear. This is strange as the same company's brilliant recording of UTOPIA LTD does not suffer in this way.

Secondly the overall direction, both musical and stage, is somewhat laid back - there is a lack of excitement in most of the musical numbers and the dialogue (although admittedly written in blank verse) is delivered in an unusually stilted style.

Worst is the totally missed opportunity to give a 'performance' of Lady Blanche's "Come Mighty Must". The only previous recording of this number was by the legendary Bertha Lewis on the first complete D'Oyly Carte recording made way back in the early twenties and proving, despite all the surface noise, just what an impressive number this can be. Sadly Elaine Fox does not have the depth of voice or the full G & S contralto tone to give this number the power it deserves and she is further hindered by the incredibly slow pace at which the piece is taken.

So sad that one of Sullivan's most beautiful scores, the second act of which is often referred to as the "string of pearls" does not receive the performance it deserves here.

This is fairly good recording of "PRINCESS IDA", but Julie Wright as the Princess is absolutely horrible. She keeps the rating down to three stars. Her singing is much too forced and too operatic for light opera, and her dialogue is much too slow. The passion in her dialogue is forced and is a big turn off. This recording includes all the dialogue, but as separate tracks, so it can be programmed out. Melanie Melcher as Lady Psyche and John Bernard as Hilarion are superb and sing especially well. Daniel Neer is an average Hildebrand, as is Ted Christopher an average Gama (he sounds much too pleasant). Elaine Fox is a very sub-par Lady Blanche. The tempi of many songs is slower than I would have liked, but appropriately fast where it needs to be. Personally, I would have preferred less stacatto singing (as in the opening number and in the three brothers' first two trios) and more legato, but this seems to be the unfortunate trend these days. Some high points: The Act II Quintet, "A Lady Fair", "This Helmet I Suppose", "Whene'er I Poke Sarcastic Joke", and the dialog in the luncheon scene when Cyril gets drunk and also Cyril's kissing song. Don't buy this just because it's got recorded dialog -- you'll be disappointed. The blank verse is taken MUCH TOO SLOWLY by all characters to be anything more than a bore.

This was my first IDA recording and I wasn't disappointed. The music is adequate, if a little less crisp than most professional modern G&S recordings. I don't find the singing in this performance to be significantly below the level of most of that of the Reed-era 1960's D'Oyly Carte, at least as preserved on CD.

What makes this Ida stand out particuarly for me is the dialogue; usually I prefer my G&S CD's music-only; CD's are good for music, and I'm inclined to want to skip dialogue tracks. But this Ida is almost enough to make me change my position; the dialogue is delivered in an actual lively way; it's not the Reverand-Lovejoy-style glacial incantation that we so often find in Gilbert & Sullivan. These are people with decent acting skills, reading G&S dialogue as if it's a modern theatrical production. Amazing idea.

The main claim this recording has to fame is its presentation of the dialogue; therefore, it probably can claim to be the first complete recording. However, as in past CD issues, Ohio Light Opera have done it again with a truly dreadful rendition of the spoken words. When will they ever engage a dialogue coach, let alone a dialect coach? Musically, things are only marginally better - the women fairing better than the men, the Hildebrand and the Gama being particularly ghastly. I must say that I quite enjoyed Julie Wright as the Princess even though she really is not in the same league as Elizabeth Harwood on Decca, but nevertheless a very commendable performance of a very difficult role. J. Lynn Thompson as the maestro conducts acceptably but certainly considers an allegretto to be a long way removed from an allegro (the ends of Acts 1 and 3 are notoriously slow). Ohio do splendid work in their choice of repertoire in this genre, but it's time to raise the standard a bit more for even as a document of a live performance, they don't exactly inspire you to get on a plane to see one of their productions. Any one of the D'Oyly Carte recordings is to be preferred to this one, even without dialogue.

This is, quite simply, the WORST Gilbert and Sullivan recording I've ever heard. I respect the attempt to present a "complete" recording of the work - it is rare for anyone to record Gilbert's wonderful dialog, in any opera - yet even here, it is not complete; there are small snippets missing here and there (in Act 3, for example, the reprise of "Death to the Invader" and the music that accompnaies the Chorus' re-entrance after Ida's solo are absent).

But that is not the main point of my dismay. The "singers" are, uniformily, TERRIBLE. There is little acting whatsoever, whether in song or dialog, the diction is nearly non-existant, the chorus can't sing together, and all the singers seem to have been trained to sing loud and full, with no regard to sound quality, or even pitch. Sometimes I can't even tell if a singer has in fact hit the desired note, because her vibrato is so strong it immediately takes her off the note. None of the cast sound like they have any business in professional singing, let alone Gilbert and Sullivan.

I fully realize that there is a disparaging shortage of "Pricess Ida" recordings in existance, let alone available, but buying this for that reason is the musical equivalent to relieving aching hunger with a bowl of prunes. I'm serious, this album is worse the the "Trial by Jury" from the late '40's. DON'T BUY IT!!!