Reviews for Gilbert & Sullivan Austin Performances
Review: Ruddigore by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 20, 2018
G&S Austin lays down a very smooth production of RUDDIGORE, with the advantage of recruiting probably the best singers in the Austin region. This year the star is tenor Danny Castillo.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, or The Witch’s Curse, now playing at the Worley-Barton Theater at Brentwood Christian School off north Lamar Boulevard, sparkles as a well-produced and well-performed gem of light opera. The show is the yearly grand production of Gilbert & Sullivan Austin, a largish cabal of G&S fanatics under the control, barely, of Artistic Director Ralph MacPhail, Jr. The music, as always, is under the superb direction of Jeffrey Jones-Ragona. Known simply as Ruddigore, the light …
Review: The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 16, 2017
The PIRATES OF PENZANCE works its magic gradually. After the stage fills with absurd stereotypical costumes garbing actors swaying to corny lyrics, one’s adult critical reserve caves in. After that, one drinks the kool-aid of Victorian light opera.
Gilbert and Sullivan Austin premiered its 2017 Grand Production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance on June 15, 2017. The company offers one full production per year, to great expectations always, and it does not disappoint with Pirates. The original production of The Pirates of Penzance took place in 1879 in New York City, not London. W.S. Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, and their producer Richard D’Oyly Carte moved the production to New York …
Review: The Gondoliers, or The King of Barataria by Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 19, 2016
THE GONDOLIERS has superb voices, wacky humor full of puns and droll stupidities, and its general topsy-turvyness leaves audiences howling with laughter.
The measure of any opera is the music, particularly the singing. In smaller urban markets such as Austin, the singing talent pool might seem somewhat restricted, as operatic voices are rare in the human species. Too often elsewhere in Austin’s musical theatre community, a production with a large cast may have only three to five singers good enough to tread the boards of a musical production. In contrast, all of the singers in The Gondoliers are talented, …
Review: The Sorcerer by Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 28, 2015
Gilbert and Sullivan stand up very well indeed in the face of “progress.” Heartfelt thanks goes to GSSA for polishing this gem from the G&S trove.
The Sorcerer by Gilbert and Sullivan is finishing up its current run in Austin at the Brentwood Christian School on North Lamar.The show offers up more lapidary work by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin (GSSA) doing what it does best: historically faithful renditions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work. Fans of English light opera will be thrilled by the show, as will theatergoers of any type. The Sorcerer is one of the early …
Review: Iolanthe by The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 17, 2009
Victorians are reputed to have been sexually repressed, one result of which was the fashionable obsession with fairies -- not with the self-aware and sometimes swaggering ones of our own day, but, rather, with barely pubescent young women.
What a sensation Gilbert & Sullilvan must have been back then, the 19th century London equivalent of our Capitol Steps and Second City rolled into one! In fine satirical style, in their best known works they took on the Empire, the peerage, exotic Asia and the Royal Navy. The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin in its 34th year brings us with Iolanthe their mockery of Parliament itself, pairing the pompous velvet-clad peers of the House of Lords with diaphanous fairies …