SULLIVAN H.M.S. Pinafore • Grant Harville, cond; Andy Abrams (Sir Joseph Porter); Ryan Thorn (Captain Corcoran); Heath Rush (Ralph Rackstraw); Dean Messerly (Dick Deadeye); Amalia Goldberg (Josephine); Molly Spivey (Buttercup); Madison Savoyards O and Ch • MADISON SAVOYARDS (DVD: 103:35) Live: Madison 7/31/2010

The Madison Savoyards’ 2010 production of H.M.S. Pinafore appears to have been filmed from the rear of the University of Wisconsin’s Music Hall by a single camera unequipped with a zoom lens powerful enough to provide close-ups of the performers. Action and character development in Pinafore, in any staging, are minimal. Instead of opening up the experience of the operetta for the viewer, this filming keeps it at a distance, making the chances of any possible emotional involvement with Gilbert’s admittedly two-dimensional characters next to impossible. Gilbert’s plotting and dialogue become funnier in the subsequent G & S operettas, but musically, Pinafore represents the start of Sullivan’s finest work with Gilbert and a performance with strong singers can make Pinafore a satisfying show.

Despite this community theater production’s well-designed set, attractive costumes, and resourceful direction by Terry Kiss Frank, it isn’t musically strong enough. At the start, one regrets the underpowered orchestra and chorus, shaky intonation in the strings, and a “Buttercup Cripps, bumboat woman”—her full name and title—whose light voice is unsuited to the role. (Little Buttercup needs to be Azucena in a bonnet.) Likewise, the villainous Dick Deadeye, as portrayed by Dean Messerly, is a vague figure whose voice barely projects. Things improve with the entrance of Ryan Thorn, who has a pleasant light baritone as Captain Corcoran, but little stage presence.

The standout in the cast is Andy Abrams, a frisky, diminutive Sir Joseph Porter with good comic timing, an English accent and the right semi-singing voice for the part. The “Rafe” Rackstraw and Josephine are adequate but their singing often lacks smoothness and sure technique. There’s a touching lyricism in Sullivan’s music for these two characters and I wonder whether, along with Gilbert’s obvious parody of Il Trovatore (many years ago, when she practiced “baby farming,” Buttercup mixed up the Captain and the common sailor), Pinafore’s recurring themes of the threat of prison and loyalty tested might have influenced Sullivan to reference Fidelio in the “Abscheulicher”-like arpeggios in Josephine’s second-act scena.

This high-definition DVD is more a souvenir of a performance than a fully professional release. As such, I would recommend it to fans of the Madison Savoyards, a company with more than 50 years of history devoted to honorable Gilbert and Sullivan productions, but suggest that others look elsewhere for better-sung Pinafores. Charles Mackerras’s luxuriantly operatic performance on a Telarc CD omits the dialogue but boasts distinguished vocalism from Michael Schade, Rebecca Evans, Felicity Palmer, Thomas Allen, and Richard Van Allen. Compared to the Wisconsinites, their “Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen” sounds like “O namenlose Freude.” Paul Orgel

This article originally appeared in Issue 35:1 (Sept/Oct 2011) of Fanfare Magazine.