Customer Reviews

The Pirates of Penzance - Gilbert & Sullivan / Australian Opera [Blu-ray]

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

 

 

This is a wonderful production and is the best dvd ever, in my opinion, of Pirates of Penzance, starring award winning Anthony Warlow and La Boheme star David Hobson. I suggest you rent this from Netflix before you offer such outlandish statements. Please,try again.

My only criticism is that the description of the disc indicates that it will NOT have the optional sub-titles. The Australian and British regional dvds have the optional sub-titles which are ESSENTIAL to the understanding and enjoyment of Gilbert and Sullivan. They speak the King's English and still have trouble with the words. Americans will have trouble with understanding the lyrics on this disc. Trust me on that.

Gilbert is considered by the British and many scholars to be a great poet and his words contribute to at least half of the enjoyment of the show.That being said, I can hardly wait to get the blu-ray disc.

I haven't seen the Blu-ray version of this but greatly enjoy the standard DVD version. The Blu-ray is filmed in high def - not made from an inferior conversion of a standard into a high def master, which can never be true high-def - so I am anticipating a super experience. All the Opera Australia G&S have very high quality audio and video; and the performers are of the very highest standard. Seems somehow that G&S should come very naturally to the Aussies.

To diss an unseen film (see review below) because it's not the one you thought is absurd. That's like hating it because it was damaged in the mail; I've seen THAT used as a reason for a one-star review before.

Over the years, I have seen many productions of this magical musical tour de force by the incomparable Gilbert & Sullivan. This production is one of the best. The performers were uniformly strong, with special kudos to Mabel, and the Major General. The Pirate King, although the performance was strong, was a little too Johhny Depp look-alike-sound-alike for my taste. While it is certainly a comic role, this show is not the Pirates of the Caribbean and the imitation of a popular movie screen character, although effective with the audience, was a little too flamboyant for me.
That said, the show was very well sung and very well acted; the sets were effective; and the orchestra excellent. Excellent show!

This was AMAZING! I love it! The best Pirates of Penzance performance I've seen yet. Yes, I am even rating it above the Jon English, Simon Gallagher production from the 80's. The voices are ALL top class, the sets are simple yet effective, and changing of the sets does not distract from the performance. What I especially liked was the acting. There didn't seem to be any 'emptiness', where the singer at the time is just singing into 'space' for the sake of getting through the song, which so often happens on stage in a musical. However, in this show, all the company was engaged in every word, in every song. The Gilbert and Sullivan comedy really comes shining through. Frederick and Edith were especially enjoyable to watch with this, but so were they all. Having said that, I do agree with some of the comments on here, that some of the diction, particularly from the ladies, was difficult to pick up. (I'm Australian, and I have been in a stage performance of Pirates of Penzance, so I know the words of these songs, but I can see how a general audience would have a little difficulty.) As for the comments on David Hobson's (Frederick) age, I think he gives such a sublime performance and such an energetic one, that one forgets he is not actually 21! He is just wonderful! As for Anthony Warlow .... what can you say .... the man in simply a genius!

It's a very good performance, although the Pirate King seems to think he's Captain Jack Sparrow.....

My real complaint is that it's only Dolby Pro Logic (2 channel) and 720P! I have a 1080P 67" set and I can tell the difference with this. Plus, the miking was frequently off.

They should have/could have done better.

In my opinion, this is a superb performance - apart from importing a song from Ruddigore (and it fits quite well so I'm not complaining), there are no great changes to the work, the orchestrations are pretty well as Sullivan wrote them and the performance is fresh, alive and very enjoyable - highly recommended. You'll need to have seen Pirates of the Caribbean to appreciate the pirate king's mannerisms but it's all done in good taste and with real Gilbertian spirit.

The major disappointment is the blu ray. ABC's DVD of the same performance has lots of extras - documentaries and interviews - and gives you the option of stereo or 5.1 surround sound. The blu-ray has no extras and just stereo. I have the DVD which I shall continue to play in preference to the blu-ray because, with a decent sound system, the surround sound track adds greatly to the atmosphere.

Despite what Amazon say, both DVD and blu-ray are 16:9 anamorphic widescreen.

I assume that the extras and second sound track were sacrificed to save a few pennies - maybe so that it would fit on a single layer disc. If so, Kultur, the disc's American publishers, should be ashamed of themselves.

It seems that all the Australian G&S DVD's are not available in region 2 format. Does any one know why this is??
I am sure that the UK G&S market would buy very many if in region 2 format.

Best wishes

Nicholas Cooper. ( UK )

This disc amply illustrates the weaknesses of performances recorded on stage. No producer of a movie version of The Pirates of Penzance would cast a 50-year-old in the role of Frederic, especially now in the era of high definition. Combine Hobson's obvious age with his mature tenor voice, and he comes across as a middle-aged rake instead of the 21-year-old he is supposed to be. Mabel looks younger, but hardly a "maiden." (Her voice, however, is wonderful.) Seen from a theater seat, these casting problems could be ignored; the Blu-ray picture makes them a constant distraction.

Sound quality is a second weakness of stage recordings, and other reviewers' comments about the difficulty of understanding the dialog may simply reflect this. Certainly the sometimes muffled sound of the chorus, especially when they are clumping around on the stage, is a typical---and unfortunate---artifact of stage productions. The uneven balance between singers and orchestra is another. There is, after all, a reason that most CD recordings are made in a studio rather than on a live stage. Some listeners may prefer the vitality(?) of a live performance; I'll accept some obvious lip-syncing for the better sound quality of studio recording. Unfortunately, movie productions of opera and operetta are rare, presumably because they are expensive to produce.

The Bluray highdef is excellent, and the singing, acting, and staging are very good and in the humorous spirit of Gilbert & Sullivan. However, to fully enjoy Gilbert & Sullivan one must be able to understand the lyrics; in this performance it is frequently impossible to understand what the singers and especially the chorus are saying. (I have found that this is frequently a problem when G&S is performed by opera singers.) Because of this, I only give 3 stars to what would otherwise have been a 5 star recording.

First, the stage setting is quite small and sparse for a Gilbert and Sullivan play. The costumes are too improved. The actors mostly mumble their parts. I was surprised to find that even the "Modern Manor General" was mumbled. I know that this is Australian but the whole entourage could use some elocution lesions.

The advantage in a live play is that you can insert local or contemporary jokes. They may be local and contemporary for the Australian audience; however, they were just annoying and distracting by the time they got to the US.

Moreover, the whole Jonny Depp (Jack Sparrow) portrait by Anthony Warlow is so contrived as to lose the original character of the play. David Hobson (46 years old at the time) was excessively ancient and decrepit to play a 21 year old.

I only watched the Blu-ray version so I cannot compare. But you could really see David Hobson's age. The sets were crisp and colorful. The DVD and Blu-ray has lack extras.

The Pirates of Penzance in Full Score