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The Gondoliers
by Deirdre Donovan Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1889 opera The Gondoliers returns with delicious verve to NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts with the redoubtable New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP). This comic opera might not reach the exotic heights of The Mikado or have the rollicking patter songs of H. M. S. Pinafore, but this late-career work of the famous duo works its own brand of enchantment. Directed and conducted by Albert Bergeret, and performed by a 17-member ensemble, this comic opera spoofs the abolishment of class distinction and more. Its brief run of only four performances at NYU’s Skirball Center brought out the faithful followers of the NYGASPers. Incidentally, this New York-based company are the premiere purveyors of Gilbert & Sullivan in Gotham and has gained prestige on their successful tours across the country, in Canada, and overseas. Truth be told, Gilbert and Sullivan had been at artistic loggerheads as they created this gem. Sullivan feared that he was becoming a “cipher” next to the witty librettist Gilbert, and increasingly felt the urge to devote his time for composing a grand opera that would allow him to exercise his musical talent with more artistic freedom. Though the team’s artistic differences couldn’t be completely resolved, they were ironed out enough for the two to collaborate on The Gondoliers. And, as history reveals, Sullivan would shortly whip up the delicious score for The Gondoliers to dovetail with Gilbert’s libretto. And it wasn’t long till Gilbert & Sullivan new comic operetta floated into the Savoy Theatre on December 7, 1889. And it proved a hit at the box office, with 554 performances to boot.
The Gondoliers isn’t altogether original! Gilbert plucked the story for his opera out of a dusty history book. He soon penned a letter to Sullivan, with a brief excerpt from the tale, in hopes that the composer would see merit in the charming Italian tale as well. Gilbert purportedly wrote: “The Venetians in the fifteenth century were red-hot republicans. One of their party is made king and invites his friends to form a Court in which all people shall be equal, and to this they agree. In Act 2 the absurdity of this state of things is shown.” Yes, Gilbert ratcheted up the political nonsense by inventing a character The Grand Inquisitor Don Alhambra del Bolero (Ryan Allen) who 20 years before the opera begins kidnapped the infant heir to the throne of Barataria and smuggled him to Venice. Gilbert mixed in an absurd romance by having the would-be king marry Castilda (Laurelyn Watson Chase), infant daughter of the Spanish Duke of Plaza-Toro (Stephen Quint) before the prince was stolen from his cradle. As fate would have it, an insurrection occurs, and the throne of Barataria becomes vacant. The financially-challenged Duke is determined to make his now grown daughter Castilda the Queen. He and his Duchess (Angela Christine Smith) and Casilda leave their home and head to Venice to find the rightful heir to the Crown and rejoin Castilda with her husband.
Doubleness is threaded into the opera, from its double title The King of Barataria to its double plotline of Spanish personages and Italian gondoliers and their contadine (it means peasant) wives, to the two leading gondoliers Giuseppe Palmieri (Matthew Wages) and Marco Palmieri (Daniel Greenwood) who never-ever perform apart in any scene. Yes, there are many more characters and fol-de-rol in this doubled-up story. But the aforementioned personages, including the Grand Inquisitor Don Alhambra Del Bolero who straddles both plots, are the movers-and-shakers in this topsy-turvy world. If The Gondoliers doesn’t have patter songs that ring down the ages, it has something else: a satiric and penetrating look at social class, where the line between republicans and royalty is erased. So what happens when two leading Venetian gondoliers Giuseppe and Marco learn that either could be the heir to the throne of Barataria? Well, in this preposterous tale, the gondoliers’ elevated social status allows them to create their own court from their own circle of friends. And the result is well-indexed in Gilbert’s witty lyrics: “When everyone is somebodee, / Then no one’s anybody!” So what’s in a title? According to this surprisingly clear-eyed operetta, everything and nothing. This performance required a bit of stamina from audience members as it ran three hours (Gilbert and Sullivan didn’t dare to suggest any cuts to each other’s work lest it upset the apple cart and re-open raw emotional wounds from their recent quarrel.) But one is rewarded by the opening chorus and solos of “List and Learn,” the Grand Inquisitor’s wickedly good “I Stole the Prince,” the joyful finale “Here is a Case Unprecedented,” and quite a few other numbers in this consistently strong work. No standouts in this acting ensemble, which is really to applaud the collective energetic talent of the NYGASPers. The NYGASP Orchestra infused color into the goings-on, with their brass, strings, and percussion, all under Bergeret’s exuberant baton. Jack Garver’s set and Benjamin Weill’s lighting conjured up Venice in broad strokes; Jan Holland’s costumes accommodated all characters from the villainous Don Alhambra Del Bolero to the sweet Casilda, and all the characters in-between. David Auxier’s choreography was up to snuff. This NYGASPer production, in fact, cut no aesthetic corners. The Gondoliers surely has been done grander and with more opulent décor, but this production glowed with the company’s pure joie de vivre. There’s no shadow of a doubt that NYGASP has closed their season with a well-chosen piece. Following their hauntingly-good revival of Ruddigore last fall, the ever-popular H. M. S. Pinafore in winter, The Gondoliers rounds out their 40th Anniversary Season with an operetta that comes complete with a happily-ever-after ending. And what could be a better way to bid farewell to the season than to send the audience home with a smile? The Gondoliers 
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