The Pirates of Penzance, English National Opera review - fresh energy in clear-sighted G&S

“Comedy is a serious thing,” quoth David Garrick. Gilbert and Sullivan knew it, and so does Mike Leigh, having bequeathed to ENO a clear and unfussy Pirates of Penzance. It does renewed honour to Victorian genius in Sarah Tipple’s freshly-cast revival. Most striking of all, perhaps, is how seriously conductor Natalie Murray Beale takes each musically rich number, vindicating Sullivan’s reputation as more than just a tunesmith to match Gilbert’s endlessly sharp and funny words.

Fusion between pit and singers often attains perfection. William Morgan (pictured below with Isabelle Peters) as Frederic, the "slave of duty" of the operetta's subtitle who will serve out his piratical indenture to the age of 21 even though (spoiler notice) as a leap-year baby he won't attain that birthday until 1940, sets the energetic tone right at the start - the dialogue zings - but also phrases beautifully. "Oh is there not one maiden breast," the appeal to any girl among Major-General Stanley's entire chorus of daughters to rescue him morally, makes beautiful musical as well as verbal sense; the alliance with Murray Beale is surely part of that. And her delicate handling of strings in the old-fashioned tune for the Sergeant of Police's famous song complements James Cresswell's resonant but deadpan delivery; less is certainly more here. Savoyards of different generations inform the action: John Savournin, current G&S doyen, sings and acts the Pirate King to classical perfection, and while you sometimes fear that Richard Suart's Major General might freeze in his ancient man-childishness, that's as much to do with the characterisation as Suart's age (he's 73. Suart pictured below with Peters, Morgan, Savournin and the ENO Chorus).

Youth has its day too, starting with sidekick Samuel in the charismatic personage of Henry Neill, revelation of the Royal Opera's recent Bernstein, A Quiet Place. Isabelle Peters as stalwart heroine Mabel is on the ENO's Harwood Artists programme, along with Anna Elizabth Cooper who plays one of her sisters, and while she may not be a natural coloratura like previous incumbents Claudia Boyle and Soraya Mafi, currently wowing Irish audiences as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, she carries off the waltz-song with aplomb.Like Gaynor Keeble as Ruth, the "piratical made of all work" who misheard her master's injunction to apprentice charge Frederic as a sea-pilot, she can't always be heard in some areas of the big stage, but both have charm and - again, the key word of this revival - energy. The choreography is fine, but could do with a bit more of a quirky kick from the likes of Lizzie Gee. Alison Chitty's designs may be economical, but the orange, blue and green colourings of Act One are strongly lit by Paul Pyant - revival lighting by Ian Jackson-French - and provide some striking stage compositions. None is funnier than the policemen peering in from around the circle on the pirates in Act Two, and none more moving than the collective ode to poetry which stops the Act One finale unexpectedly in its tracks. The chorus provides as much focused vigour as anyone else in this reviva,l which wears its hard work lightly.

At the end, Morgan kept up the energy to ask support for the Harwood Artists, but in also praising the magnificent Coliseum, he begged a vital question. In all the gallimaufry about vague-ish Manchester plans for ENO, there was no mention of its London future. I emailed the two folk we were recommended to contact in the press release about it; I got no answer. Watch this space.

• The PIrates of Penzance at the London Coliseum until 21 February 2025
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