Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World
by Dave Heather
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DVD details
Actor: Alfred Marks, Claire Powell, David Hillman, Elizabeth Gale, Joel GreyDirector: Dave Heather
Brand: Acorn
Producer: George Walker
Producer: Judith de Paul
Writer: William S. Gilbert
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Classical, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-10-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Acorn Media
DVD Reviews of Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World
DVD Review: Oh, the doing and undoing ... / When a jester goes a-wooing / And he wishes he was dead!
Summary: 3 Stars
I am in general agreement with five of the preceding six Amazon reviewers. This is ultimately a disappointing version of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard." It is all the more disappointing because its weaknesses arise from business decisions rather than artistic ones. These Brent Walker productions were rigidly locked into two-hour blocks of television broadcast time. Some, like "The Pirates of Penzance" and "HMS Pinafore" had to be stretched unconscionably. This one had to be cut with a very dull and bloody ax.
Save for one, the performers are very good. Alfred Marks, as Wilfred Shadbolt, the Tower of London's Head Jailer and Assistant Tormentor, has a particularly commanding presence. (My English wife, however, regards the accent he affects as rather improbable.)
The weak link among the performers is the most famous of the bunch, Joel Grey. Perhaps owing to the ridiculously short rehearsal schedule, Grey is dull where he should be sharp, annoying where he should be engaging and a flat-out failure in portraying the one tragic character in all of Gilbert and Sullivan. Too bad.
The London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Chorus both sound fine. The conducting by Andrew Faris is quite satisfactory.
Some regard "Yeomen" as the most operatic of the G&S works. It is certainly unique in being first and foremost a romance--and a fairly dark-hued one at that--rather than a comedy. My wife, who appeared in two separate productions of "Yeomen" reserves that title of "most operatic" to G&S's "Princess Ida" and on a fair day when the wind is north by northwest, I agree with her.
TEXT: Large sections of spoken dialogue are omitted but the cuts in the musical texts are a far greater loss. The following songs and ensembles are missing from this performance:
Act I--
"When maiden loves, she sits and sighs," first verse of solo for Phoebe Meryll
"Alas, I waver to and fro!" trio, Phoebe Meryll, Leonard Meryll, Sergeant Meryll
"Is life a boon?" solo, Colonel Fairfax
Act II--
"Free from his fetters grim--" solo, Colonel Fairfax
"Strange adventure, Maiden wedded," quartet, Colonel Fairfax, Sergeant Meryll, Dame Carruthers and Kate
"When a wooer / Goes a-wooing," quartet, Elsie Maynard, Jack Point, Colonel Fairfax, Phoebe Meryll
"Rapture, rapture," duet, Dame Carruthers, Sergeant Meryll
It may be noted that both solos and much else has been jettisoned from the part of the ostensible romantic tenor lead, Colonel Fairfax. All the music for both Kate and Leonard Meryll is gone. (This latter I find particularly galling, since Leonard Meryll was my role with San Francisco's Lamplighters--forty years ago.)
By my rough calculation, about nineteen minutes of music, including some of the best stuff in the show, are lost forever.
LIBRETTO: The booklet that accompanies this set neglects to point out that its text is much less than complete--an understandable enough omission, I suppose. W.S. Gilbert's stage directions have been abandoned wherever they have been ignored by the televison director and in some cases new directions have been inserted--again, understandable.
Not understandable at all, however, is why some ham-handed compositor has played fast and loose with Gilbert's verse structures. Where WSG in his carefully overseen printed editions has "Here's a man of jollity, / Jibe, joke, jollify! / Give us of your quality, / Come, fool, follify!", this libretto has "Here's a man of jollity, jibe, joke, jollify! / Give us of your quality, come, fool, follify!" This sort of slovenliness appears all through the printed text.
PRODUCTION: Overall, the production is quite handsome, even sumptuous. Tower Green is a fairly accurate reproduction of the Tower of London's Green as currently preserved. The interior of Sergeant Meryll's house is clearly based on the house of the Dutch painter Vermeer. The quarters of the Yeomen seems to spring out of any of several 17th Century Dutch genre paintings. With one exception, the costumes are good, although they are not those of Gilbert's specifically intended reign of Henry VIII (say 1540), but rather those of the time of Charles I (say 1630).
The exception is the costume of Jack Point. The man is a professional jester, for heaven's sake; he should not be the drabbest person on stage! W.S. Gilbert was a famous illustrator of his own published works. He clearly showed Jack Point dressed as though ready to pose for a portrait of the Joker in a new deck of cards.
The decision to bring the play forward by three generations is a bit puzzling. A down-at-the-heels jester on the road in the mid-16th Century is plausible. Shakespeare's one-time lead comedian and partner, Will Kempe, toured the length of England in the 1590s, performing comic dances. By the 1630s, though, the success of the established professional theater companies and the outright hostility of the Puritans would long-since have closed out the careers of any would-be wandering players.
Three stars for this "Yeomen of the Guard's" not-inconsiderable merits, but is should have been so MUCH better!
Description of Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World
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