Review: H.M.S. PINAFORE at Winter Opera

Gina Galati’s wonderful Winter Opera has opened it’s eighteenth season with a picture-perfect production of H.M.S. Pinafore.  This was the first great international comic hit by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, and it has remained an audience favorite around the world ever since.

Sullivan’s rollicking music will remain in your head for days, and Gilbert’s sharp wit and clever rhymes remain undimmed by time.  Together these masters spoof the English class system, the Royal Navy, overblown patriotism, and melodramatic theatrical representations of love.  Gilbert’s delicious sense of absurdity infuses the show.

That amazing scene designer Scott Loebl places us on the main deck of the warship, looking aft to the raised quarter-deck with its great ship’s wheel.  A furled sail drapes above and small cannons book-end the set.  It’s realistic, but with a slight flavor of cartoon.  Behind and above is a sky with scattered clouds, and at night a great romantic moon.

Now Gilbert (like Sondheim) is famous for his clever, thick-and-fast lyrics.  Those patter songs zip by like Speedy Gonzales.  Usually, even with supertitles, we miss a joke or two.  But the very comfortable Kirkwood Performing Arts Center has excellent acoustics.  This, together with the remarkably fine diction of the whole cast, makes every word intelligible.  One rarely needs to glance at the titles.  In fact, I’d advise you to restrain the urge to look at titles;  occasionally the title gives away the punch line before the singer has had time to set up the gag.

Jacob Lassetter has a rich baritone voice that often places him in darker, even wicked roles (e.g. Don Giovanni, last year).  But here he is the beloved Captain of the ship—always polite and gentle with his men, and never (well, hardly ever) given to cursing. 

The lovely Bittany Hebel, who was so wonderful last year in the title role of Naughty Marietta, returns to play Josephine, the Captain’s daughter.  She is in love with a mere sailor, but her proper sense of the difference in their classes makes her repress that love.  Ms. Hebel sings every bit as beautifully as she did last season—her voice, rising to those high notes, simply blossoms with purity and power.  And she’s such an actress—gifted with a perfect sense of melodrama, and always light-footed and graceful.

Brian Skoog sings Ralph Rackstraw, foretopman—our romantic hero.  His sweet tenor is a lovely match for Ms. Hebel.  Young, handsome, he too has an adorable innocent sense of melodrama as he struggles with the vicissitudes of love across such a social gap.  They are such a beautiful couple that one really, really hopes they end up together.

Buttercup is a most charming role.  She’s a vendor of notions—tobacco, scissors, ribbons, chickens, rabbits, sausages, candy—plying her trade around all the ships in port.  And she owns A VERY OLD and vital secret!  Emily Harmon sings the role astonishingly well.  She has a wonderful sense of comedy.  Her diction and projection are so utterly perfect that every syllable is distinct and clear.  She makes it so easy for us to harvest all that humor with which Gilbert has richly seeded his lyrics.

Dick Deadeye is a sailor with a difference.  Most of the crew are merry and optimistic.  But Deadeye is a loner and a cynic.  Tyler Putnam plays him with a black eye-patch (hence, of course, his name), a hook hand, and glorious eccentricity—physically gangly and crooked, yet remarkably agile.  And in the happy finale as we anticipate three weddings, Dick Deadeye sprinkles rose petals with all the vivacity of your six-year-old niece.  It’s splendid comic work.

Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., is “the ruler of the Queen’s Navee”—and a colossal British twit.  Gary Moss blesses this role with every ounce of his considerable comic gift.  (He sang that “Modern Major General” for Winter Opera five seasons ago.)

Very strong work is done in supporting roles by Joel Rogier (Bosn’s Mate), Javi Ojeda (Carpenter’s Mate), and Janelle Pierce (Sir Joseph’s cousin Hebe).

Stage Director John Stephens is a long friend of Winter Opera.  This is the sixth production he’s directed (and before that he sang several leading roles).  He is a consummate master in this art.  Every moment, each “stage picture”, the movement, the timing—all meticulous and fresh and theatrical and funny.  Bravo!  (And Founder Gina Galati was his voice pupil in college.)

In the overture Music Director Scott Schoonover sweeps us into the madcap pace of the show, and keeps us blithely sailing with the Pinafore all evening.  He also served as Chorus Master—and I’ve never heard a Winter Opera chorus so sweetly blended and deftly managed.

The fine costumes are by Jen Blum-Tatara.  Michael Sullivan lights the show with unfailing skill.

Mary Pillsbury sponsored this production.  We owe her many, many thanks.

It’s a very happy evening to open Winter Opera’s eighteenth season—H.M.S. Pinafore at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, November 8 and 10.

(Photo by ProPhotoSTL)

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