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Just got around to posting a review of Opera North\u2019s 2011 revival of last year\u2019s production of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s Ruddigore.<\/p>\nJust got around to posting a review of Opera North\u2019s 2011 revival of last year\u2019s production of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s Ruddigore.<\/p>\n
This was actually the first Gilbert and Sullivan I\u2019d seen, and I must say I was much impressed! The story is pretty complicated but involves a cursed family whose Baron at the time has to commit a crime a day, and of course the Baron has difficulty finding a wife!<\/p>\n
From the Opera North web site: Sir Despard Murgatroyd is a man under pressure. He has inherited a witch\u2019s curse forcing him to commit a crime a day or die in agony. So it\u2019s a huge relief when shy Robin Oakapple is revealed as his long-lost elder brother \u2013 true inheritor of the curse. Robin\u2019s chances with the prim Rose Maybud look doomed, but his troubles<\/em> really start when his feeble crimes drag his exasperated ancestors back from the dead. <\/em><\/p>\n The story had been slightly updated from the Victorian setting to the 1920s and it worked very well. The cast were excellent, the orchestra as always superb and it was conducted by the superb John Wilson. The setting was simple at times but very complicated at others; the portrait scene being a a good example. In the Bad Baron\u2019s study are portraits of his predecessors. At a time when the rather mild Bad Baron was making a note of his pretty pathetic attempts at crime, the pictures come to life and members of the chorus join him as ghosts.<\/p>\n This is really the part where the operetta gets going and is wonderfully entertaining and funny for the rest of it, the first half really being a scene setting period.<\/p>\n If this is the wonderfully lavish standard that Opera North is going to produce operettas in the future, I don\u2019t think this will be my last one!!<\/p>\n