On Friday, Gilbert and Sullivan are filling that gap of years without English opera. And perhaps the most operatic of all their operettas is Ruddigore, their splendid spoof on Victorian Gothic melodramas .
What other opera can boast a witch’s curse, a committee of ghastly ghosts stepping down from their ancient portraits, a serious stack of moral dilemmas, and two (2) tragic love stories with happy endings?
Not to mention the patter song that named them all:
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter!
It's an interesting G&S, imperfect but incomparably complex! Take time to read these thoughtful notes before you take on the task of producing Ruddigore. Author is Peter Hilliard, who's done G&S a bit.
We'll be viewing the 1982 film with Vincent Price as the wicked Sir Despard Murgatroyd (as in the clip above!). You can read of this role for the famous baddie - and see the extracts where he stars - here.
Reviews here and here.
What about the words?
As you'll have gathered from the extracts above, the film is beautifully enunciated. No subtitles needed!
But if you wish to read Gilbert's gloriously nonsensical libretto first - or better still, have it beside you as you watch the opera, it's here in full.
And if you want to see a version with subtitles before or after, this 2013 production from the Lyric Theatre of San Jose is pretty good!!
Flashback to last year, when we kept laughs going with a G&S festival over the U3a break. On our blog post then, there's readings and links to information about this extraordinary explosion of humour in English music.
"And thus with sinning cloy'd", so to speak, we end our term. (Full text of that song, explaining the curse, is here.)
And with our spring vacation we win time to get the cobwebs off our portrait gallery...
Coming up: the operas of Benjamin Britten, our topic next term.