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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: The case of the disappearing duo

April 15, 2011 by ldemanski

2255817074_6c2ef90951.jpgThe Criterion Collection has just put out superbly produced home-video versions of Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh’s wonderful 1999 movie about the making of The Mikado, and Victor Schertzinger’s fascinating 1939 film version of The Mikado as performed by members of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, for whom the operetta was originally written in 1885. These releases are the subject of my “Sightings” column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt.
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Why are the comic operettas of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan so rarely seen in fully professional productions nowadays? “H.M.S. Pinafore,” “The Gondoliers,” “The Mikado” and “The Pirates of Penzance” are immortal masterpieces whose musicality and stageworthiness have been proven time and again. Opera companies mount them from time to time, most recently when Chicago’s Lyric Opera gave the deluxe treatment to “The Mikado” in December. Yet their popularity has diminished sharply in this country, so much so that I’ve had only one occasion to review a Gilbert and Sullivan revival by an important American theater company, when the Utah Shakespearean Festival did “Pinafore” in 2006.
I can’t tell you why G & S (as they’re known to their fans) have fallen on such hard times, but I’m delighted to report that you can now relish them in your living room….
“Topsy-Turvy” is the smartest backstage movie ever made, a deeply knowing fictional study of how a theatrical production takes shape. The acting, especially that of Jim Broadbent as the irascible, anxiety-ridden Gilbert, is as convincing as it is possible to be….
The 1939 film version of “The Mikado” is noteworthy in part because it, too, is so well sung and played. (The conductor, Geoffrey Toye, had extensive experience performing the G & S operettas in the theater.) But the most remarkable thing about the film is that it preserves a now-dead theatrical tradition. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, which closed its doors in 1982 after a century of continuous activity, prided itself on performing the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan in a manner consistent with the intentions of Gilbert himself, who staged all of their premieres. Though the “Mikado” film is not a literal record of a stage performance, much of it is closely based on the way that the company had been doing “The Mikado” ever since it opened more than a half-century earlier….
* * *
Read the whole thing here.
“Three Little Maids from School Are We,” as performed in the 1939 film of The Mikado:

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

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About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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