Sullivan: The Grand Duke.(Sound Recording Review)

Wright, Ross, Rhodes; Knox, Wuehrmann, Christopher, Henderson, Woodward; Ohio Light Opera, Thompson. Text included. Albany Troy 631/632 (2)

The Grand Duke is the bastard stepchild of the Gilbert & Sullivan canon--the operetta that both fathers would gladly have disowned. The last of their fourteen collaborations, it wears the strain of their relationship like patches on a tweed jacket, and its initial run at the Savoy Theatre in 1896 lasted a mere 123 performances. Gilbert pillaged their prior successes both for exact turns of phrase and for elements of the dense, convoluted plot. The theatrical milieu and the Grecian costumes are on loan from their first, lost collaboration, Thespis, while the betrothal in infancy is borrowed from The Gandoliers and Princess Ida. Like the fairies in Iolanthe, a band of outsiders (in this case, actors) take over the government, and Julia Jellicoe's mad soliloquy is a pale, self-consciously theatrical echo of the echt lunacy of Ruddigore's Mad Margaret. The most intriguing element of the piece is the toe it dips into the decadence of the Gay Nineties, with some louche lyrics on Gilbert's part (e.g. "Fill the bowl with Lesbian wine") and the insouciant tang of Continental operetta on Sullivan's. Although the multiple patter songs wear out their welcome, Sullivan's score contains some real gems. Ludwig and Lisa's Viennese duet in the first act, Ernest and Julia's in the second, the Gallic Roulette song, the festive Act II can-can and parts of the Act I finale suggest what Sullivan might have accomplished throughout, bad be not been so fed up with Gilbert and the whole operation.

This recording, taken live from Ohio Light Opera's twenty-fifth-anniversary season, is billed as the first "complete" one, although this is not technically accurate, since the script has been smartly edited. (There is a music-only 1976 D'Oyly Carte CD on Decca; a 1989 BBC "complete" recording was never released commercially.) Although I am not a fan of recorded dialogue and have ...