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music by Arthur Sullivan, book & lyrics by W.S. Gilbert, directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin

Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto

February 28-March 2, 2025

Chorus: “We leave you with feelings of pleasure!”

Toronto Operetta Theatre is staging Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (1889) live for first time since 2005. (In 2021 during the pandemic TOT presented it online.) G&S fans will know that this is one of the duo’s sunniest scores and most humorous works. TOT gives the piece a minimalist staging which, as always, has the advantage of placing the emphasis on the music itself. Here director Guillermo Silva-Marin has assembled a cast with particularly fine voices who put across Sullivan’s melodies with unfailing verve.

The plot involves many of Gilbert’s favourite devices. In Venice two happy-go-lucky gondoliers marry two happy peasant girls thinking all is well. Then the Duke of Plaza Toro arrives from Spain because news has reached him that Grand Inquisitor of Spain travelled to Venice where he has located the long lost heir to the throne of Barataria. This is important because the daughter of the Duke was married in infancy to the person who is now King of Barataria. Due to a revolution in Barataria, the Grand Inquisitor had a local gondolier raise the heir as his own son along with his natural son of the same age. Those two are the just-married happy-go-lucky gondoliers. Which of the two is the King is not known nor which is the unintentional bigamist. The heir’s foster mother has been sent for to reveal all, if not willingly then under torture. Until the woman’s arrival, the two gondoliers will reign as one individual.

G&S fans will recognize the switched babies plot from H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), the infant marriage plot from Princess Ida (1884) and the problem of how to make two couples out of five people from Patience (1881). Gilbert unites these plots with the utmost cleverness to form a satire of both aristocracy and republicanism (with a small “R”) as forms of government.

TOT’s staging is more minimalist than usual with an all-white set and backdrop for Act 1 using 13 white boxes of differing sizes as furniture. The gondoliers and contadine (female peasants), as Gilbert calls them, are all clad in white with a few colourful accents. The Act 1 set for the outdoors in Venice with waves projected onto the backdrop completely contrasts with the Act 2 set with black drops and wine-red banners for inside the palace in Barataria. There ought to be a major change in costume for the two new kings and their former-gondolier courtiers and for the Spanish delegation whose fortunes have suddenly improved since Act 1, but there is not.

What is most surprising is that director Guillermo Silva-Marin has cut four songs from Act 2. These are the opening chorus “Of happiness the very pith”, the Grand Inquisitor’s delightful song “There lived a king”, the chorus for the entrance of the Duke of Plaza-Toro and suite “With ducal pomp” and the duet for the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro about the Duke’s success in making himself a company limited, “To help unhappy commoners”. Also missing in Act 2 is all dialogue that refer to the gondolier-kings’ abolition of the class system and all discussion of the Duke’s renting himself out for special events. What this means is nearly everything that has to do with Gilbert’s satire of two opposite systems of government is missing. Those unfamiliar with the operetta will not know what’s missing. Those who do know the work will be happy with its frothy story but may miss its cutting elements that still are valid today. Personally, “There lived a king” has always been one of my favourite G&G songs and I often find occasion to quote its final lines: “When everyone is somebody, / Then no one’s anybody”.

This disappointment aside, the operetta is exceedingly well sung. Yanik Gosselin as Marco and Sebastien Belcourt as Giuseppe are well-matched as Marco and Giuseppe, the two gondoliers who briefly become co-monarchs. Tenor Gosselin gives a lovely, full-voiced rendition of “Take a pair of sparkling eyes”, one of G&S’s best-known songs, while Belcourt uses his smooth baritone and perfect diction to mine all the humour in Giuseppe’s account of all the menial labour he does as a republican monarch in “Rising early in the morning”. Gosselin and Belcourt’s voices blend well and they are quite amusing when called on to interrupt each other in “Replying, we sing / As one individual”. Of the entire cast, Belcourt’s is the most natural acting and he the one who seems most at home on stage.

As the gondolier’s beloved contadine, Brooke Mitchell and Lissy Meyerowitz are well chosen as Giannetta and Tessa. Mitchell’s bright, high-lying soprano and sprightly manner bring effervesce to such songs as Giannetta’s plea to the Grand Inquisitor “Kind sir, you cannot have the heart”. Meyerowitz uses her rich, warm mezzo to bring out the deep feeling of contentment in “When a merry maiden marries” and made it one of the highlights of the show. Mitchell and Meyerowitz also sing wonderfully together in the comic duet “After sailing to this island”.

Baritone Gregory Finney and mezzo Meghan Symon avoid any excess in playing Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro. They both give the impression that their characters are so lofty they wouldn’t stoop to anything farcical. Finney gives a good account of the Duke’s main song “In enterprise of martial kind” and Symon displays her full mezzo in the Duchess’s number “On the day when I was wedded” although, unusually for Symon, unclear diction led to a loss in comic effect.

Soprano Alyssa Bartholomew and tenor Marcus Tranquilli are an excellent pair as Casilda and Luiz, their voices blending beautifully in their various duets. Austin Larusson, whose voice seems to have deepened since last I heard him, put over the Grand Inquisitor’s with just the right attitude of a pompous buffoon. All the more pity then that the Inquisitor’s Act 2 number is cut. Contrary to D’Oyly Carte tradition, Silva-Marin does not dress the character as a spymaster all in black but rather has him appear as a bishop ready for high mass in al his red-and-white regalia including a mitre – a look which tends to add an anti-clerical note to the satire not in the original.

The TOT Chorus produces a consistently rich sound despite it small numbers. There are only four contadine, not the four-and-twenty in the lyrics. (To be fair, the original D’Oyly Carte production had only twelve.) The principals excel in the many quartets and quintets Gilbert and Sullivan have devised. Two especially fine examples are extremely clever quartet “In a contemplative fashion” and the lively quintet “Here is a case unprecedented”.

Brazilian conductor Matheus Coelho do Nascimento draws a wonderfully blended tone from the nine-member TOT Orchestra that makes it sound like a much larger ensemble. He does, however, prefers slower tempi than usual. This was most noticeable in the overture which was not as lively as it could be and in “Dance a cachucha” which sounded rather too restrained to be called “the wildest of dances” as the lyrics declare.

Overall, the TOT’s production of The Gondoliers provides a feast of fine singing and a demonstration that the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan are still wittier, more tuneful and more insightful than most modern musicals.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Sebastien Belcourt as Giuseppe and Yanik Gosselin as Marco with male chorus; Lissy Meyerowitz as Tessa and Sebastien Belcourt as Giuseppe; Brooke Mitchell as Giannetta and Yanik Gosselin as Marco. © 2025 Gary Beechey.

For tickets visit: www.torontooperetta.com.