The first half of English National Opera’s winter season has come to a close (it’s back in January) with The Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert & Sullivan have now been regulars at ENO for decades and the days are long gone, thankfully, when the very idea of G&S provoked a sneer. Now we can instead rejoice in this company’s hilarious updates on Victoriana.
There have, for instance, been superb recent productions of Iolanthe (featuring a steam locomotive and Boris Johnson banging on the door of the House of Lords), a 1950s Yeomen of the Guard and surely the granddaddy of them all, Jonathan Miller’s wonderful and much-revived black-and-white The Mikado.
It’s interesting then that Mike Leigh’s Pirates is in many ways breaks the mould by being quite traditional. Given his film and television drama output, you might expect a realist spin or a novel setting. That, though, is perhaps before you consider his film Topsy Turvy, a homage to G&S in itself. The film was made in 1999 but Leigh’s first foray into actual opera – this production – was not until 2015 and this is its first revival.
Traditional? This is a Pirates that features young ladies with bustles, policemen with traditional helmets and truncheons and pirates who are all swash-buckle, boots and beards. The only novel element is the set itself (by Alison Chitty) built of blocks of primary colours that open and close around a circular opening – a focusing telescope, perhaps? It seems rather random as a device though it does come into its own when those timid policemen peek round it.
For the rest, it’s sheer, rollicking, musical joy. Even for a G&S plot, this is as silly as they come and that’s saying something. Frederic (William Morgan, full of charm and energy) has come to the end of his accidental apprenticeship as a pirate and he vows to leave for an honest life on land. The pirates, headed by the Pirate King (John Savournin, magnificent as always), are dismayed because they are a kind-hearted bunch with a particular soft spot for orphans. Frederic leaves followed by his nurse-maid, Ruth (Gaynor Keeble on fine comic form) who got him into the whole pirate mess and now wants to marry him. But Frederic has other ideas.
Enter the daughters of the Major-General who all refuse to have anything to do with him – except, of course, Mabel (Isabelle Peters, a new and rising star at ENO and fully in control of all that coloratura). Then comes the ingenious paradox and chaos inevitably ensues. The Major-General (Richard Stuart who gets arguably the best patter song in all of G&S) fibs to the pirates that he’s an orphan, they vow revenge when they learn the truth and the police are called in, though they admit in the marvellous “Tarantara” that they’re “timidly inclined”. Led by their Sergeant (James Creswell, whose rotund bass rolls around the stage to great effect), this is the funniest of many funny set pieces.
The ENO Orchestra, conducted by Natalie Murray Beale, are having a whale of a time. Just the ticket for raising the spirits in dull old January when all the festivities are done.
The Pirates of Penzance runs at the London Coliseum from 24th January until 21st February 2025. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.eno.org.
Photos by Craig Fuller
