{"id":1052,"date":"2015-05-12T17:05:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2015-05-12T17:05:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T17:05:20","slug":"mike-leighs-piratical-sense-of-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2015\/05\/mike-leighs-piratical-sense-of-duty.html","title":{"rendered":"Mike Leigh\u2019s Piratical Sense of Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pirates\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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We know from Topsy-Turvy<\/em> that Mike Leigh loves Gilbert and Sullivan, so he was the obvious choice to mount the production of The Pirates of Penzance or the Slave of Duty<\/em> that the English National Opera is counting on to rescue its shaky finances. In his programme essay he makes a good case for seeing Gilbert as a surrealist and a subversive, but not a satirist —\u00a0 meaning that the point of the Savoy Operas \u201cis never to draw specific parallels.\u201d Regarding them as specific attacks is, he thinks, to miss their \u201craw edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an odd way, the thousands of school productions every year of G & S operettas agree with half of Leigh\u2019s thesis, as few of them ever draw specific parallels with events, people or institutions that could have been Gilbert\u2019s historic targets. I admit it was a long time ago, but I have difficulty recalling anything like a raw edge in the school production of Pinafore<\/em> in which I participated (but also cannot remember what role I sang).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s equally hard to spot the raw edges in Leigh\u2019s Pirates<\/em>, except perhaps for the soup\u00e7on of sympathy his direction elicits for the Pirate Apprentice Frederic\u2019s spurning of the (carnal) love of his nanny, now Piratical Maid of All Work, Ruth. In the raw edges league, Leigh\u2019s Pirates<\/em> is left far behind by Sir Jonathan Miller\u2019s ENO-lifesaving production of Mikado<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, this is a terrifically enjoyable production, especially musically and \u2013 full marks to Leigh \u2013 dramatically. Conductor David Parry brings out the complicated textures of Sullivan\u2019s score (except, I thought, in the overture \u2013 is it possible that Sullivan didn\u2019t take enough trouble in it over the orchestration?). The choruses looked absolutely wonderful, pirates, police and Major-General Stanley\u2019s daughters alike. Take a bow, Alison Chitty, whose strongly coloured sets mostly contained a sort of aperture through which we, the audience, saw the action on the stage; and lighting designer Paul Pyant, whose effects greatly enhanced the minimal choreography of Francesca Jaynes.<\/p>\n

Above all the soloists were very good actors indeed, and some of them spectacular vocal performers. Of the veteran singers, I remember with relish Rebecca de Pont Davies\u2019s in Garsington Opera\u2019s production of Strauss\u2019s Daphne<\/em> for her Gaea, a role for a sort of bass-contralto, and even in this G & S mezzo role with its mostly high tessitura her lower register is thrilling. What casting could be more luxurious than to have Andrew Shore, Bayreuth\u2019s Alberich (who was also a notable ENO Beckmesser) to sing the Major-General? Well, here it was matched by having Jonathan Lemalu to sing the Sergeant of Police. (My wife registered some disappointment that the conductor did not, as in am-dram productions, turn to the vast Coliseum audience and invite them to sing along to the final chorus of \u201cA Policeman\u2019s Lot is Not a Happy One.\u201d)<\/p>\n

British tenor Robert Murray\u2019s Frederic deserves high praise, but Irish soprano Claudia Boyle’s Mabel was among the spectaculars, both for her flawless coloratura and for terrific comedy acting. On the last ditto for the flashing-eyed, dashingly handsome Pirate King, Joshua Bloom, the bass born in Australia to an American father.<\/p>\n

Is Pirates<\/em> bankable like Miller\u2019s Mikado<\/em>? Will it do the job it\u2019s meant to do for the ENO? Hard to say, but on leaving, my companion said to me, ominously, \u201cI really enjoyed the whole production. But I wouldn\u2019t want to see it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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  We know from Topsy-Turvy that Mike Leigh loves Gilbert and Sullivan, so he was the obvious choice to mount the production of The Pirates of Penzance or the Slave of Duty that the English National Opera is counting on to rescue its shaky finances. In his programme essay he makes a good case for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1052","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blogroll-2","8":"category-elsewhere","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/pirates-e1431449443833.jpg?fit=371%2C136&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-gY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1053,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}