20:15 The Pirate King working the words "scene change" into his Shakespearean antics is so fantastically extra I love it! Brent Carter will always be the perfect Pirate King in my heart
This is one of the best productions of this Operetta ever. Douglas Chamberlain, for instance, captures MG Stanley in a way that even some who are in movies and on TV regularly cannot.
God bless you Brent Carver - He became best known on Broadway for playing shy and/or repressed, usually tragic characters. At least we have this as a reminder that he could also ham it up with the greatest of them.
yeah. I wish more productions out there would hire more than one cameraman to record the performance. editing them together to give the audience at home the perfect focus is an art in it's own right. I wish this group performed ruddigore back in the 80s.
Canada Day 1985 the year I graduated from high school this was the best ever Canadian production of the Pirates of Penzance with Jeff Hyslop and Brent Carver.
Agreed! Much to like about ditching the marble-mouthed English diction wh sounds so out of place in North American mouths. Just plain Canadian speech, please.
This is incredible! I was so wowed by the Kevin Kline original theater production I watched on RU-vid, I didn't think I could be equally impressed by another. But this is a totally different, more whimsical take that's equally as marvelous.
Their rendition of the Major General's lullaby has turned into a lullaby of my own, I put it on right before I go to sleep many nights. It's super cool of you to be uploading these old Stratford performances, the local G&S troupe here puts on one show a year so RU-vid is my recourse finding new G&S plays that I haven't been able to see. These old Stratford ones have yet to disappoint. It really would have been such a shame for them to be lost to time.
Thanks for uploading Brian Macdonald's Stratford G&S cycle. I videotaped them on betamax from the CBC telecasts in the eighties, then copied them to VHS when the technology changed, then copied them to DVD when the technology changed AGAIN. It's nice to have them stored safely on my hard drive now. I only wish Macdonald and his team didn't kill Gilbert's greatest lyric, the Lord Chancellor's 'Nightmare Song' in Act II of Iolanthe, by replacing it with a load of senseless gibberish.
THANK YOU! I watched this in high school (long time already) and it is my favorite production. I could not find it anywhere for years. Great performances all around. Thank you, sir.
Thank you so much! It's amazing. I've never been much into musical theatre but this is great. The only downside is the lack of subtitles (I had to read the script on the other screen because I couldn't make out all the words).
@@adambrannon8934 yeah, I started having a go at it myself, and it's a pain in the arse. The parts that stick to the libretto are easy enough, it's this specific version's additions that are hard to figure out by ear sometimes.
Jeff Hyslop went on star in the Canadian nat company of Phantom of the Opera and Brent Carver was the star of the Broadway production of Kiss of The Spider woman.
This version is great but I do wish Frederic would just slow down like 10-15%. He just talks too fast. Like he's in a rush to get somewhere. Like, please take a breath my boy lol I absolutely love Jim White as Samuel though. I don't even know why, he's just really charming. The way he's always screaming. Brent Carver is fantastic too. RIP.
if you think this production was great you should check out the others I posted from the same theater group. the gondoliers I think turned out the best in its filming.
Pirate King time stamps @11:38 dialogue @16:31 Oh, better far to live and die @46:25 Too late! Ha ha! … Here’s a first-rate opportunity @52:43 dialogue @1:01:38 Yes yes remember Ruth … Pray, observe the magnaminity @1:16:44 With some ridiculous reason… @1:37:26 A rollicking band of pirates @1:43:05 Yes, the trees for very love @1:53:44 With base deceit
This production is ok but bears no comparison with Joseph Papp's Central Park version starring Kevin Kline...which is easily the greatest and most stylish version, ever. Papp was a genius. And his cast was absolutely brilliant.
Is it common/normal for the production of this opera to have such a display of athleticism -so much. Only the second production of "Pirates" that I have seen and both seem to sacrifice music/lyrics for action? Just asking, not complaining.
I have the box set at hand, and to my knowledge they only did Iolanthe, Gondoliers, Pirates, Pinafore, and their truly-excellent Mikado. At the least, those were the five that were tagged for CBC broadcast. (The box set also has a 1950s Trial by Jury from a CBC broadcast, the link being that Norman Campbell, the TV-director fo these productions, also directed that.)
As much as I enjoy these Stratford productions, I regret that the original orchestration is not kept. It completely changes the 19th century operatic character of the piece. The reduced orchestra makes it sound more like a low budget provincial production.
I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing some of the others but . . . a lot of the tempos are way too fast and the rubato passages too slow . . . and tempo-wise it's a mess. Major General Stanley's numbers hit the mark and it strikes me the gentleman has played the role a number of times. Marvelous performance. As a writer I'm not a fan of the liberties taken to add material to a rather perfect operetta. Sometimes it felt like it was very rushed to accommodate added verses and orchestra extensions. I'm a purist jerk so don't think too ill of me. Just my opinions. G & S strove to present the very best and sometimes is good to leave well enough alone.
I agree, Fredricks role feels rushed so you don't really feel his reverence to his Duty, It could be because they had to squeeze a lot in for the TV special, perhaps the performance was different when cameras were not involved.
What’s with all the lyric and dialogue changes? I’ve not heard any change them as much as this before… and that insanely long attack on Tremorden Castle… extended dance numbers… bizarre!
@@adambrannon8934 Splendid work, very much appreciated. If I could help in any way, I'd be glad to do so. I am also willing to translate subtitles, I am a native Filipino fluent in Tagalog.
pretty sure the high schools trimmed this part down making it even funnier when it was the audacity of removing just their shoes to paddle in the water.
women would never take off their gowns in public in 1870s england. (this premiered at the very end of 1879 in nyc but takes place a few years before.) there is no reason to change gilbert's great lyrics and have the women do something they wouldn't do.
What is the deal with this Miss Blue Stocking ? Fredrick's costume (?) was a tragedy.What self respecting pirate king weilds a whip ? Is there some rational reason that demands deviation from the original G&S version ? Copyright laws ? Seriously, the cast did fine with the G&S material, but the added script, song lyrics, and silliness was distracting.
Good chorus singing, but Mabel's voice is not suited to this sort of opera where it is important to hear her words - she forces too much and does not articulate, spoiling the whole performance for me. I will overlook the ludicrous, over-produced choreography which is too distracting.
