Savoy It While It Lasts: The Seventh Great Gilbert and Sullivan Sing Out

Only one of the best things to ever happen to humans

There comes a time in every Gilbert and Sullivan fanatic’s life when she no longer needs to hide the fact that she prefers music from the 1880s and can commune with her own tribe. This happened on Labor Day Weekend, September first through third, at the Seventh Great Gilbert and Sullivan Sing Out. Hundreds of G&S obsessives from throughout the United States descended upon the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre in Rockville, Maryland, not far from Washington DC, to do an epic sing along of all of Gilbert and Sullivan’s thirteen existing comic operas.

In short, it was heaven for people like me, Savoyards as we’re called, named after The Savoy Theatre that impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte made to showcase English opera, and his star duo in particular. What are often called The Savoy Operas were loved here as almost nowhere else on earth. Where else do people sing from The Gondoliers in the bathroom? Where else do people say “what never? hardly ever!” to each other all the time? Where else do people sing Gilbert and Sullivan all weekend while wearing Gilbert and Sullivan opera T-shirts and watching parts of other G&S shows during lunch? While some of these exciting things may happen at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England, for a few weeks in the summer, it’s not easy for all of us Americans to cross the pond, and there, performances have been rehearsed for months. At the Sing Out, which is essentially a large sing-along, anyone of any vocal ability can join the ensemble and sing their favorite Savoy hits. This meant that I could participate after a grand total of two classical voice lessons! I was great. The others weren’t bad, either.

The event, created by the Victorian Lyric Opera Company in 1992, and now on its seventh iteration, started as usual with a hearty group rendition of “Hail, Poetry!” from The Pirates of Penzance. With its church-like sound and beautiful harmonies, this song has become a sort of anthem for many Gilbert and Sullivan groups. As is the case for most G&S, its beauty is laced with absurdity — this song creates an odd pause in the act one finale of Pirates where all the characters take a break from their conflicts and pre-occupations to praise a literary form. Poetry is called a “heav’n-born maid,” a “divine emollient” that “gildest e’en the pirates’ trade.” Gilbert’s poetry and Sullivan’s music were the divine emollients for the weekend, softening and improving the lives of the participants, giving us a space separate from, and funnier than, the day to day.

The Sing Out started with a little rendition of “Little Maid of Arcadee.” This was a sweet inclusion since it is one of only two remaining songs from Gilbert and Sullivan’s first-ever collaboration, Thespis of 1871, whose music is lost. This song survives because it became a popular ballad with slightly altered lyrics. It was a smart way for the Sing Out to include Gilbert and Sullivan’s first opera, and that meant that at least something from every piece the two men wrote together was performed over the weekend. I admire that comprehensiveness, not only due to my obsessive nature that craves the simplicity and satisfaction of completion in an ambiguous universe, but because it is so rare to encounter all of Gilbert and Sullivan in such a short time-frame, or ever. Certain operas are by far the most famous and most performed — Pirates of Penzance, of course, HMS Pinafore — while others are completely left behind. (In her exquisite parody called “How to write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan opera,” comedian Anna Russell says they should have written more, but the issue is really that only a handful of their pieces are performed over and over.) One could easily go a lifetime without seeing G&S’s final collaboration, The Grand Duke, or their penultimate opera, Utopia, Limited — both witty, beautiful and delightful despite being too long — but here each piece was given equal attention, its own moment of love. That is special.

After these introductory moments, Friday night was devoted to Trial by Jury, Ruddigore, and The Mikado in that order. Trial by Jury was a wonderful way to begin. Written in 1875, it is Gilbert and Sullivan’s second collaboration and the first to survive in its entirety. It was a great opening choice because, unlike the other operas, it is entirely sung, so it could be performed all the way through without having to skip over dialogue and sacrifice continuity. It is also unusually short at around forty-five minutes, a breezy romp of topsy turviness in which the corrupt judge — guilty of the crime he is trying — ends up marrying the gorgeous plaintiff. One of its highlights is the sextet, “A Nice Dilemma,” in which the major characters harmonize about how hard the case is and how it is impossible to solve, just before solving it. The show’s zany charisma not only appeals to seasoned Savoyards such as myself but to more casual (yet enthusiastic) Friday night viewers like my parents. My parents, unlike me, are inveterate Morning People, so they were able to enjoy the short Trial and call it a night. Somehow these two Morning People gave birth to a complete Night Owl, so I kept singing. Ruddigore and The Mikado were also excellent first night choices since both are well-known, at least among aficionados, and deeply loved; the obscure pieces were wisely saved for later into the proceedings. The Victorian Lyric Opera Company, also called VLOC, smartly provided some alternate lyrics for parts of The Mikado that use culturally appropriative, dubious words and phrases.

The Sing Out had a wonderful atmosphere of collegiality and egalitarianism. Singers who signed up for solo parts in advance tended to be more experienced and professional, but people’s vocal level varied, and no one cared. There were singers with multiple degrees in vocal performance, choral directors, opera company personnel, longtime fans with able voices, and G&S obsessed mostly-non-singers-winging-it-in-the-chorus, like me. I felt a little shy singing next to accomplished contralti like New York performer, and impressive Mad Margaret in Friday night’s Ruddigore, Casey Keeler, and vocal instructor and interfaith minister, the Reverend Jenellen Fischer, who excelled as Dame Hannah in Ruddigore and Little Buttercup in HMS Pinafore. But their beautiful, perfectly on pitch voices served as great examples and instructions for me, and they were as friendly as could be, seemingly oblivious to my vocal ineptitude. Singers fluidly took up leading roles, found creative ways to interact with one another (even when they hadn’t met before), and then return to the ensemble like waves rising and receding into the tide. There was no snobbery or superiority, just a shared love of Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire. As a little obsessive, but loving community, we often ate together downstairs in the Social Hall, with free breakfasts and optional lunches from Panera and Saturday night dinner by Chipotle. Our world consisted of singing two or three operas in a row punctuated by lunch and dinner breaks. As Tessa exclaims in The Gondoliers, “O, it’s too much happiness!”

There was also a wonderful fluidity between performers and audience. Since this was a big sing-along of almost two hundred Gilbert and Sullivan devotees, most people were performers sitting on stage. The accompanists and conductors would vary depending on the opera being performed and would take their usual places at the piano and in front of the group respectively. The lead singers sat in the front with the ensemble behind. The audience was sparse, yet present. And chorus members could become audience members at any time, and vice versa. Instead of sitting on stage behind the lead singers, I could quietly exit and sit in the theater for a better view. I could still sing along from my theatre seat if I wished. I could flow from audience member to chorus member at any moment as long as I wasn’t too disruptive. Sometimes I would spend one act singing in the chorus and one act in the audience recording a friend’s solo. Many participants and I took pictures and made recordings with our phones from our positions on stage. It was also fine to leave the theatre quietly; there was no obligation to attend the entirety of every opera singalong. VLOC sold opera scores, CD’s, shirts, and charming pins with Gilbert and Sullivan phrases on them, and participants could peruse and buy these at any time. This permissiveness strengthened the sense of fun and community. The performances were not as polished as professional ones — there were no rehearsals and, in fact, the whole Sing Out was a rehearsal in a way — but the singers were still extremely good, and the casual, communal atmosphere had benefits far beyond the rules imposed my more traditional performance structures. And yet, all the good qualities of a rehearsed performance were present, too, because the Victorian Lyric Opera Company’s concert production of The Sorcerer was on Saturday night. The best of all Gilbert and Sullivan worlds was on offer.

On Saturday, the morning sing-along section was dedicated to Patience, The Grand Duke and HMS Pinafore; Yeomen of the Guard and Princess Ida were done after lunch. Patience, with its send-up of pretentious poets and Aestheticism, and its exploration of the theme of true love, is my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan opera, so this was an ideal way for me to emerge from my tiredness. Bob Gudauskas was a suitably, delightfully flamboyant sham-poet Bunthorne. He wore a laurel wreath and when he sang “am I alone and unobserved? I am!” he looked pointedly at the Sing Out chorus! Stephen P. Yednock wore a velvet hat and curly wig to play that “apostle of simplicity,” Archibald Grosvenor, and his red converse shoes suited the role. In HMS Pinafore, Robert Moreen wore a smart naval hat for his role as Captain Corcoran. The opera company even projected a dark blue night sky with a full evening moon on a back screen while Moreen crooned Corcoran’s ballad, “Fair Moon to thee I sing.” It was wonderful to see the flare singers put into their costumes and performances. Yet even without costuming, New York comic baritone Vince Gover stole the show singing “When you’re a broken-down critter” from The Grand Duke, emphasizing Rudolph’s sickly symptoms, falling and writhing around on the floor.

One of the highlights of the festival was Michael Beder in Princess Ida, who sang one of my favorite songs from the Gilbert and Sullivan canon, “This Helmet I Suppose.” This Handelian parody has idiotic warrior Arac prepare for battle not by putting on his armor but by taking it off. Beder wore fake armor and another singer took off each piece of armor as he sang, as happens in the show. He didn’t have leg pieces to take off, so as he sang he jumped around and took off his shoes! I wanted him to throw his shoes into the audience, but it was probably smarter that he did not.

That night, Sing Out members got to be in the audience for the second concert performance of the Victorian Lyric Opera Company’s production of The Sorcerer, Gilbert and Sullivan’s third opera. While some Sing Out participants were able to join the chorus, this was a more polished and rehearsed production than the rest of the festival. VLOC cleverly put together their existing show with the energy and crowd of The Sing Out. I consider The Sorcerer, in which sorcerer-entrepreneur John Wellington Wells puts a love potion in the villagers’ tea, to be a bit mild and slow-paced, not as uproariously funny as better-known operas in the canon. But this concert production — with characters in costumes and an orchestra but not full staging — proved me wrong. This was by far the funniest Sorcerer I have ever seen. The show made the inspired decision not to cast an older man to play melancholic vicar Dr. Daly, as is normally done, but fresh-faced twenty-two year old Josh Bates. His anachronistic presence as a sprightly young gun singing sorrowfully about missing the days of his youth was absolutely hilarious. His over-the-top facial acting — his exaggerated fear when Wells was performing magic and his deep frustration at the rest of the village getting married while he was alone — was endlessly funny. Andy Boggs did a superb job as idealistic and uncompromising aristocrat Alexis Pointdextre. This role is a major challenge for any actor because Alexis, who insists that even his beloved new-wife, Aline, take the love potion he requires everyone to imbibe, is an incredibly unlikeable character, but Boggs made his adoration of Aline so child-like, and the rest of his behavior so impetuous and immature, that Alexis became too entertaining to hate! Another stand out was Jillian Wiley as Constance, who expertly went back and forth between beautiful singing and ugly-crying over her love of the supposedly too old Dr. Daly. Everyone in the cast was absolutely top-notch — Daniel Fleming as Alexis’ old-fashioned father, Sir Marmaduke, Rachel Steelman as Alexis’ love, Aline, Kisara Garalde as Aline’s mother, the dignified Lady Sangazure (blue blood in French — sang azure), Joshua Milton as sorcerer-entrepreneur John Wellington Wells, Don Mitchell was a very old and deaf notary, and Alix Evans as Constance’s mother, Mrs. Partlett.

On Sunday morning, participants sang the criminally underrated satire of colonialism, Utopia, Limited, and the delightful parody of English parliament with powerful fairies, Iolanthe. Will Remmers conducted Utopia, which he has done brilliantly in New York (and you can read my review of that!). He even brought out a tambourine for the fantastic number, “Society has quite forsaken all her wicked courses” in which the Flowers of Progress brag about England’s putative perfection. (England supposedly had no housing or divorce issues.) Iolanthe was one of the highlights of the Sing Out with Chicago performers shining: Mary Nora Maloof Wolf was stunning in the title role, and wore lovely fairy wings, and nonbinary singer and drag performer Beck Buechel was a formidable, yet still very funny fairy queen, wearing a blue and purple scarf to accentuate their role. Sam Silvers, my colleague at the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of New York, played a very expressive Lord Chancellor and admirably sang the Chancellor’s several patter songs.

The Sing Out ended with two of the most joyous operas, the sunny Gondoliers and swashbuckling Pirates of Penzance. Married Savoyards Gina and Josh Leichtung were splendid as the Duchess and Duke of Plaza-Toro respectively. Gina was wonderfully commanding as the duchess while Josh deferred to her, the “insignificant progenitor.” Lovers Casilda and Luiz, played by Denise Young and Will Remmers respectively, were at least a foot apart in height, which added an absurd charm to their duets. In Penzance, Beck Buechel was again an incredible performer with a gorgeous, commanding voice, this time showing their range singing tenor as Frederic. They wore a white, ruffled pirate-like shirt for the role. Keely Borland brought a stunning virtuosity and cheeky humor to her performance as Mabel. It was such a pleasure to hear the ensemble sing the chorus numbers with power and precision. They say “head-banging” applies more to 1980s metal, but I was rocking out and shaking my head to the girls exploring the Cornish coast in “Climbing over rocky mountain.”

And with that, The Seventh Great Gilbert and Sullivan Sing Out came to an end. I had to leave a little early — during the song, “Away, Away” — to catch my bus back to New York. Like the Aesthetic Maidens in Patience pining for poet Reginald Bunthorne’s love, I’ve been a bit melancholic, yearning for all the magic to happen once again. Pirates of Penzance, with its characters’ odd love of poetry, provides wisdom: “though the moments quickly die, greet them gaily as they fly.” My wife was also on hand to give me the Gilbert and Sullivan style wisdom I needed: she instructed me to Savoy it while it lasts. Indeed I did.