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by Arthur Sullivan, directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin

Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto

December 27, 30 & 31, 2016, January 6, 7 & 8, 2017

Mabel and Frederic: “Oh, here is love, and here is truth”

Toronto Operetta Theatre’s new production of The Pirates of Penzance is on its way to becoming one of the company’s most successful holiday shows ever.  This is likely due in no small part to Guillermo Silva-Marin’s insightful direction which always puts the music and clarity of storytelling first and to the starry cast that includes Colin Ainsworth and Curtis Sullivan, two singers best known from their performances with Opera Atelier, plus Elizabeth Beeler, a former Cosette (from Toronto’s Les Misérables), who has become a great favourite with TOT audiences.  With its overabundance of catchy tunes, its pirates, policemen and doughty maidens, Pirates also makes an ideal holiday outing for families.

Though the TOT last presented Pirates in 2011, Silva-Marin’s direction has become even more focussed than before.  Of the numerous productions of Pirates that I have seen, this is the first time the work’s subtitle “The Slave of Duty” (referring to Frederic) has been so clearly made the through-line for the operetta.  Pirates can often seem like a series of pleasant distractions with its set-pieces for the pirates and policemen and its comic Major General and his daughters.  Yet, despite all these delights, the centre of the whole story, one of Gilbert’s best-ever plots, is Frederic, who, as the first chorus tells us is now “out of his indentures”.  His addled nursemaid Ruth had mistakenly apprenticed Frederic to a “pirate” rather than the “pilot” Frederic’s father had intended and now Frederic, a self-confessed slave to his sense of duty, feels he must turn on the fellows who were once his comrades.

Silva-Marin keeps us conscious of this point all the way through the operetta and as a result the thrust of the story in satirizing the traditional motivation for heroes has never been made clearer or funnier.  In this Silva-Marin is aided by Colin Ainsworth’s magnetic presence and superb acting ability.  Ainsworth may be a master of baroque style, but it is clear he also has a great love of comedy and knows how to speak Gilbert’s dialogue and exactly how to pitch Frederic’s stunning naïveté for the maximum amount of humour.  Ainsworth, of course, also has a wonderfully pure tenor, ideally suited to the English repertoire.  I have never heard Frederick’s music so beautifully sung.  Ainsworth sings “Oh! is there not one maiden breast?” as a real operatic aria, passionately soaring on its concluding words, “I’ll love you!”  In his duet with Vania Chan’s Mabel, “Ah, leave me not to pine”, his floated high notes are heavenly. 

Since Gilbert and Sullivan give Ruth no solos after “When Fred’ric was a little lad” in Act 1, conductor Silva-Marin and Derek Bate give Ruth Mad Margaret’s melancholy song “To a garden full of posies” from Ruddigore (1887) to begin Act 2.  This is a very astute choice since the lyrics exactly reflect Ruth’s situation of being rejected for younger, prettier women.  The song also allows Ruth to explain that she is “love-lonely” and to acknowledge that this has led her to the brink of madness.  Beeler sings this song with such great feeling it is one of the high points of the production.  Sullivan used to chide Gilbert over his irrational satire of middle-aged women (Ruth is 47), and including this song helps to make Ruth much more than a mere caricature.  It also leads in well to the gloomy atmosphere of the ruined chapel where Act 2 is set.

As Mabel, Vania Chan has a light coloratura soprano that hits all the runs that Sullivan throws her way with precision and panache.  Most directors want to delay Mabel’s entrance until her first notes, but this always makes one wonder how she heard Frederic’s pleas unless she were eavesdropping, which would not suit her character.  Instead, Silva-Marin has Mabel enter with the rest of Major-General Stanley’s daughters and react with surprise throughout Frederic’s song “Oh! is there not one maiden breast?” at her sisters’ inhospitality.  Chan gives a lovely account of “Poor wand’ring one”.  To showcase Chan’s coloratura even more Silva-Marin has Mabel drawn to the stage apron by the sound of the flute where she first sings Sullivan’s imitation Donizetti, then an except from the Mad Scene of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) followed by a stunning section of the Bell Song from Delibes’s Lakmé (1883) which won Chan tumultuous applause.     

As the Major-General, Curtis Sullivan relied on no shtick to try to make the already comic figure funnier than he is.  In fact, the humour of this character derives from his not knowing that what he says is comic.  In the Major-General’s famous entrance song, “I am the very model of a modern Major-General”, Sullivan sang clearly and with excellent diction, though the night I attended (January 30) he did skip from the middle of the first verse to the middle of the second.  The quick-witted chorus followed his lead to cover the error.  Some compensation was forthcoming with a specially written fourth verse referring to the new American president-elect and his potential for driving some fellow citizens to emigrate to Canada.  In Act 2 Sullivan displayed his smooth bass-baritone to fine effect in his ballad “Sighing softly to the river”.  He also got the most out of the character’s comic debate with Frederic about his newly purchased ancestors.

Janaka Welihinda (who alternates with Nicholas Borg) makes a dashing Pirate King and tossed off “Oh, better far to live and die” with aplomb.  Welihinda showed such dignified bearing throughout that it was quite believable that he was in fact a nobleman who had “gone wrong”.  Anthony Rodrigues (who alternates with Austin Larusson) sings well but was strangely bland as the Chief of Police.  Edward Larocque, who substituted for Adam Norrad partway through Act 1, gives much more life to the character of Samuel than is usually the case.  Both Eugenia Dermentzis and Meagan Larios impress in the roles of Edith and Kate.

As usual Silva-Marin’s set design was minimalist consisting of five wide steps and a white backdrop on which projections indicate change of scene from the pirate ship, to the seashore to the ruined chapel.  The plain background only served to set off Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s gorgeous costumes which tended to place the action in the late 18th century. 

Of the show’s many pleasures is the playing of the 11-member TOT Orchestra under conductor Derek Bate.  The reduced orchestra does not require a keyboard to fill out the sound and thus creates the effect of a expert chamber band.  The ensemble combined liveliness and precision to brilliant effect.  Bate does not forget that while much of the music is satirical, much of it is also beautiful.  The a cappella chorus “Hail, Poetry” is reverently sung like an excerpt of one of Sullivan’s greatest oratorios.  And Bate brings out the pathos of Ruth interpolated song in Act 2 and of Frederic and Mabel’s duet “Ah, leave me not to pine”.  Such sensitivity to the shifting moods of the music only makes the experience of the operetta richer.

You may think you know Pirates, but there are so many insights in performance, direction and conducting in the current TOT production that longtime fans of G&S as well as newcomers should make a point of seeing this delightful show this holiday season.                             

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive. 

Photos: (from top) Colin Ainsworth as Frederic, Brittany Stewart, Astrid Atherly, Lydia Harper, Curtis Sullivan as Major-General Stanley, Meagan Larios, Vania Chan as Mabel, Carla-Grace Colaguori and Eugenia Dermentzis; Vania Chan as Mabel and Colin Ainsworth as Frederic; Elizabeth Beeler as Ruth; Austin Larusson, Brian Dearden, Joseph Wong, Nicholas Borg, Janaka Welihinda as the Pirate King, Edward Larocque, Adam Norrad, Yervant Khatchadourian, Anthony Rodrigues and Mikhail Shemet. ©2016 Emily Ding.

For tickets, visit www.torontooperetta.com.