The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is a Twin Cities based theatre company dedicated to bringing the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, Britain’s foremost light opera collaborators, to life for modern audiences: from life-long Gilbert and Sullivan fans to those who are seeing their operettas for the first time.
The company’s primary annual offering is a fully staged production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. The company challenges itself to present productions of the highest artistry, authenticity, and impressive production values. Productions are performed with a full orchestra and casts of over thirty members. Actors are drawn from an established group of performers with long-term commitments to the company, as well as new performers drawn from the Twin Cities theatre community and selected through open auditions.
Additional productions can be found on longtime company member Richard Rames' RU-vid account (@RichardRames).
I find the Pirates all wearing kilts (Well, nearly all) quite questionable, but I really appreciate the Lifesaver bit, both as a clever visual gag, and reference to HMS Pinafore.
I confess to amazement when an american theater take on a Gilbert & Sullivan opera and get it all as right as this troupe do who clearly take the piece seriously. Outstanding songs to stay for are: "Poor Wandering One" and "Oh Leave Me not to Pine".
Nice production. Very good voices and a novel staging approach. My only quibble is that Alexis' and other officer's uniforms were missing belts, which tend to make them look like sloppy bouses or tunics. Still a fine production.
I only recently became interested in seeing the operettas, and Yeomen least of all, because I was not interested in a tragedy. This version of the story is by far the best I've found available, in terms of its characters and the more humorous presentation of the story. Elsie and Phoebe were perfect, and I liked Wilfred, a very charismatic jailer. While not everyone gets the happy ending that Fairfax and Elsie get, I can believe that there is hope for them. I hope all the actors went on to their own versions of success, whatever they were. I could only wish that the actual video quality was better, and all the voices captured equally. If there is a cleaner version of this production available tell me where it is. Many thanks for posting this.
Thank you for your kind words! Unfortunately, this is the only recorded version of our production. Nevertheless, we thank you for your enthusiasm towards our company and our production!
