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[Note: This review is based on viewing a dress rehearsal.]
To celebrate their 65th year, the Sudbury Savoyards—the only opera company in Massachusetts to regularly produce the works of Gilbert & Sullivan—pulled out all the stops for The Gondoliers, the duo’s eleventh collaboration. If you’ve never seen a Gilbert & Sullivan performance, or even if you’ve seen all thirteen comic operas, you shouldn’t miss this one. It surpasses their usual high standards!
From the moment the professional-sounding orchestra plays the overture’s first note to the final curtain call, I was nearly transported to London’s Savoy Theatre (where the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company regularly performed Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas). The show originally ran there for a very successful 554 performances, which at that time was the fifth longest-running piece of musical theatre in history.
Set in 1750s Venice (hence the show’s title) and on the fictitious island of Barataria, the plot is like many a convoluted Shakespeare play. To wit, two heartthrob brothers and gondoliers, Marco (played by the engaging Bruce Amidon) and Giusseppe (Santo Mammone, who hammed it up as Scynthius in 2024’s Princess Ida) are preparing to choose brides from among the city’s contadinas (peasant girls). Giannetta (enthralling soprano Danielle Shevchenko) and Tessa (rewardingly rich mezzo-soprano Gretchen Struckmeyer) are chosen and married. This all happens in a huge and long opening number (“List and learn”) with multiple melodies and verses.
Meanwhile, the Duke of Plaza-Toro (Tom Frates, especially engaging) has simultaneously come to town with his wife (spunky Elaine Crane), daughter Casilda (touchingly and expressively performed with equal parts sweetness and brattiness by the uber-talented Naré Kim) and her secret lover and the duke’s personal drummer Luiz (dreamy David Smyth). Apparently, Casilda was married at birth to the future King of Barataria, except that the Grand Inquisitor, Don Alhambra (Blair Eig, amusingly straitlaced), switched the baby prince with one of the gondolier brothers, allegedly to save the prince’s life from the island’s rebellious faction. Another lengthy scene ensues.
Upon discovering that one of them is the rightful king of Barataria, the two gondoliers dutifully leave their new brides to travel to the kingdom to claim the throne, But which brother is the rightful heir? Since Don Alhambra switched them at birth, he’s the only one who can say. Suffice it to say, they all live happily ever after. It’s Gilbert & Sullivan after all.
But it wouldn’t be Gilbert & Sullivan without a bit of social and political satire, skewering everything from republicanism, egalitarianism, class structure, and the rise of capitalist corporations.
The set, which is an admirable evocation of Venice’s Piazza San Marco, is worth the price of admission alone. It is a step up from previous productions I’ve seen and on par with that of professional theater companies. Kudos to set designers Brendon Chetwynd, Blair Eig (who also plays the role of the grand inquisitor Don Alhambra with the right amount of gravitas and confusion), and Laurel Martin and their construction crew for creating such an impressive stage, in a high school no less.
It’s hard to keep track of who’s who and what’s what, but simultaneously reading the libretto made it a bit easier. You must suspend a bit of disbelief—it’s Gilbert and Sullivan—but what a great evening of musical entertainment and theatrics, right in our own backyard.
[All images: Chris Pollari.]
[Feature Image Left To Right: Gretchen Struckmeyer as Tessa, Santo Mammone as Guisseppe the gondolier, Naré Kim as Casilda, Bruce Amidson as Marco, the other gondolier, and Danielle Shevchenko as Giannetta ]