Patience / Mikado / HMS Pinafore / Trial By Jury / Gondoliers [4 DVD set]

During their long and successful partnership, William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan collaborated on fourteen operas, many of which are still regularly performed throughout the English speaking world today.

Running time 8 hours 56 mins approx

Region Code All regions Picture format 16:9 Anamorphic

Sound format 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Menu languages EN

Subtitles EN

The Mikado
The most successful of their 'Savoy' operas, The Mikado made fun of English bureaucracy, thinly disguised by its Japanese setting. Enjoying over 650 performances at the Savoy Theatre, this work remains their most frequently performed work, and has been translated into numerous languages.

Anne-Maree Mcdonald, Graeme Ewer, Heather Begg, Peter Cousens & Gregory Yurisich

The Australian Opera Chorus & The Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra, Andrew Greene

The Gondoliers
The last of Gilbert & Sullivan's great successes, The Gondoliers, takes place partly in Venice and partly in the kingdom of Barataria. The lilting score contains some of their most sparkling and tuneful music, and plenty of dancing.

David Hobson, Roger Lemke, Suzanne Johnson, Christine Douglas, Robert Gard & Graeme Ewer

The Australian Opera Chorus & The Elizabethan Philharmonic Orchestra, Dobbs Franks

HMS Pinafore
HMS Pinafore was Gilbert & Sullivan's first international hit, satirising the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority, and poking good-natured fun at the English obsession with social status. As with many of their operas, a surprise twist at the end of the story turned the drama on its head.

Anthony Warlow, David Hobson, Colette Mann, John Bolton Wood, Tiffany Speight, Ali McGregor, Roxane Hislop & Richard Alexander

Opera Australia Chorus & Orchestra Victoria, Andrew Greene

Trial by Jury
Composed in a matter of weeks, Trial by Jury pokes humorous fun at the law and the legal profession, based on Gilbert's own experiences as a barrister. The outrageous antics of the characters led to the work being the toast of London, and was a runaway success.

Patience
In this production, Opera Australia meets and brilliantly overcomes a special kind of challenge--what we might call historically informed comedy. Patience raises problems different from and harder to negotiate than in The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, or Pirates of Penzance. Those works get most of their laughs from universal human foibles or ridiculous plot twists; they have a validity as deep and permanent as human stupidity.

The comedy in Patience is closely linked to a particular time and place, specifically the antiquarian fads and fashions of Victorian England, with characters striking Pre-Raphaelite poses and the hero pursuing the heroine with what he calls "a Florentine 14th-century frenzy." For a modern production, the designer and stage director must establish awareness of these absurdities to make people laugh at them. This is accomplished in a performance as effective visually as it is musically--Gilbert & Sullivan caviar. --Joe McLellan

Christine Douglas, Heather Begg, Anthony Warlow & Dennis Olsen

The Elizabethan Philharmonic Orchestra, David Stanhope