OPERA REVIEW : Youthful ‘Pirates of Penzance’ Captures Savoyard Spirit

Without recourse to gimmicks or newfangled angles, Richard Sheldon and his modest Gilbert and Sullivan troupe, Opera a la Carte, mustered a first-rate “Pirates of Penzance” Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa under the auspices of the Irvine Symphony.

Sheldon wears the mantel of authentic Savoyard tradition with conviction and vision and has assembled a youthful company that treated “Pirates” as newly minted. No dead routines here.

The small band of pirates was appealingly rowdy and innocent. Maj. Gen. Stanley’s daughters were vivacious and charming. The troupe sang Sullivan’s wondrous “Hymn to Poetry” with well-nourished, swelling tone.

The production--simple cut-out sets and period costumes--looked bright and fresh.

Of the principals, Alison England excelled as the very model of a model modern Mable. Vocally secure in coloratura challenges, deftly steering lyric flights to dramatic effect, England sang with lustrous, weighty tone and acted with inventiveness, blithely balancing Gilbertian comedy and pathos.

Sheldon, as Maj. Gen. Stanley, showed his familiar command of style and ran through his patter song with speed, wit and clarity, even sometimes outdistancing the scurrying instrumentalists.

Eugenia Hamilton sang and acted the role of Ruth with accomplished sympathy and sensibility.

Paired with England’s vocal and dramatic resources, Jeffrey Gerstein proved somewhat lacking as Frederic. He brought a pliant, serviceable tenor to the role but rarely pointed up his lines and even threw away some of Gilbert’s wonderfully wry jokes.

John Ross Nelson made a swaggering, tender-hearted, idealistic Pirate King and sang with strength. Rollin Lofdahl was a barrel-voiced, flat-footed Sargeant. Marc Goldstein offered a strong Samuel. Donna Oden and Marcelle Zonta were secure as Edith and Kate, respectively.

Frank Fetta conducted with light, springy rhythms. The Irvine Symphony, sunk deep in the pit, could not produce much power, though it played with impressive transparency of texture and firm, if thin, string tone.

Occasionally, the players benefited by the amplification of voices on stage, though this also resulted at times in some strange sonic displacements of the instruments.

A few problems nagged. Frederic had to react to a virtually inaudible offstage chorus of daughters; some company members never did project sufficiently clear enunciation, and lighting was erratic in the second act.

The audience, which seemed generally enthusiastic, never did demand any encores. But overall the enduring Savoyard values were well served. Familiarity breeds content.