MUSIC REVIEW : ‘H.M.S. PINAFORE’ HITS ROILED WATERS

Richard Sheldon’s Opera a la Carte and the Irvine Symphony collaborated in a stylish but problematic production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” on Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Despite what sounded like amplification, Sullivan’s wondrous music and much of Gilbert’s witty lyrics were heard as if from a great distance in the cavernous, 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall.

Audible matters improved somewhat in the second act. But the overall experience remained a miniaturized one.

Still, within those limits, the production had a sense of style. Conductor Frank Fetta led the small orchestra in a clean, crisp, lyrical reading of the score. The Irvine players responded with security and buoyancy.

Company director Sheldon, who has inherited authentic Savoyard traditions, has trained his small troupe in the appropriate G & S manners and actions. The cast enacted the traditional staging like veterans able to convey a sense of discovery in their roles.

Sheldon himself gave a typically authoritative interpretation of Sir Joseph Porter. The high point of the evening undoubtedly was his bobbing merrily up and down as various bell ringers in the high-spirited repeats of the trio “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore.”

Deborah Mayhan brought youthful freshness and a lyric security to the role of Josephine. In the role of Ralph Rackstraw, Mark Miller looked like Billy Budd, acted with purpose and sang with a somewhat pale tenor.

Eugenia Hamilton, as Little Buttercup, could scarcely have bettered a distinctive interpretation.

Terrell Anderson savored the villainy of Dick Deadeye and so did the audience. But John Ross Nelson proved a rather tired, unstylish and vocally monochromatic Captain Corcoran.

In minor roles, Marcelle Zonta made an appropriately imperious Hebe, and Rollin Lofdalh, a sympathetic Boatswain’s Mate. Mark Beckwith, as the Carpenter’s Mate, strongly filled out the trio performing “A British Tar is a Soaring Soul.”

The small chorus--seven sailors and, sadly, only nine sisters, cousins and aunts--acted with synchronized precision but lacked desirable vocal weight.

Peter Sevaly’s budget set and Minta Manning’s costumes looked fresh and serviceable under Debra Garcia’s somewhat simplistic lighting.