A re-mounting of our COVID-canceled 2020 production, with a few changes. The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Co. of Minneapolis produced this in March, 2022. For more info, see gsvloc.org
My favorite production of Ruddigore! I was going to single out that this Sir Despard is my favorite rendition of that character, and then I thought about it and realized it's also my favorite Mad Margaret, my favorite Richard, my favorite Robin, my favorite Roderic, my favorite Adam, Rose, and Hannah, and my favorite Bridesmaids too! (Ohio Light Opera has a better Hornpipe Dance and a better ancestor portraits entrance, though.) But there is a lightness and a spark of life in this that no other production I've seen has. (At least of those on RU-vid.)
Resetting "Ruddigore" from early 19th century to 1948 is a bold experiment but to unclear advantage here except perhaps to simplify the costuming (or to excuse a "magical" slide projector on stage?). Attempts to improve William Gilbert's topsyturvy comedies tend to be a losing proposition but this troupe of Connecticut yankees show enough enthusiasm to win the day. I am encouraged by Dame Hannah's delivery of the legend "Sir Rupert Murgatroyd" with its challenging complexity, well helped by the lighting and choreography. Alas that boasting Dick Dauntless' defiance of a french frigate would be an anachronism in 1948, and his confusing hornpipe dance has vast scope for improvement. There are rewordings here that would make Gilbert turn in his grave (and I spare him the introductory advertisements that are actually clever and entertaining, especially with their subtexts that will delight the G&S fans who can spot them). Clearly this show is put together by enthusiasts who intend to have fun with an opera they cherish. Someone please provide correct subtitles because the autogenerated ones are poor. Sullivan at least would appreciate the orchestra's faithfulness to his music that comes through well. Some changes here leave me with nagging questions. Why do the bridesmaids need an on-stage choreographer, is this to save the need for a maid to stick out her tongue at the depressed Robin Oakapple? I am not local to Connecticut so I'm unsure whether Sir Despard Murgatroyd gave his ancestors' portraits to "Walker": a gallery in Minneapolis or to a frame shop in Westport. Old Adam surely has no business meeting the ghosts on stage. Poor Mad Margaret has potentially a rich (if politically incorrect today) character that need owe nothing to Shirley Temple / Rudolph Valentino /Edward G. Robinson etc. because G&S must predate anything Hollywood has to offer. Indeed this sort of thing is calculated to cause remark so Margaret, I beg you eschew it, "Basingstoke" remember BASINGSTOKE! Make it so! I end with my special mentions of the delightful chorus of "Hail the Bride of 17 Summers" and the following Madrigal that gets so rudely upset by Sir Despard, and of the novel ballet dancers adding life to "There grew a little flower" in Act 2. This opera opened in 1887 and I wonder how well after 135 years its strange "moral lesson" survives that no good could come of the initial engagement of the equally perfidious and shallow creatures Rose M. and Dick. D., the latter possibly fated to rebirth as a sickly Dick Deadeye in an entirely different, infernally nonsensical naval opera (hinting at "H.M.S. Pinafore").
Setting it in the world of old 40s Hollywood did give this production a few good things: the funniest Mad Margaret/Rose scene I can recall seeing. It also allowed the delightfully refreshing take on Sir Despard as a movie gangster rather than a villain from a Victorian melodrama.
