Ripper (2001)

Poor Quality of Great Music
This DVD recording of the Mikado has poor quality to the point of not being able to hear and understand the words on good speaker systems. It seems the original analog recording was simply moved to different media.

"D'Oyly Carte!"
Despite problems in sound transfer and of color fading, this is, hands down, still the best available filmed version of Gilbert and Sullivan's delightful comic opera. As others have pointed out, the D'Oyly Carte cast is consistently impressive, including among its principals Valerie Masterson, who went on to a career of some distinction in grand opera, sweet voiced Philip Potter, and those excellent comic patter singers John Reed and Donald Adams. Further, except for the truncated overture, this production saves all of Sullivan's wonderful music and most of Gilbert's witty lyrics and dialogue, both of which are to varying degrees maimed in other versions.

In my view this production does have a serious flaw, though, which should be emphasized: it is essentially not a film, but rather just a stage play filmed in a studio without the inspiring presence of a live audience. It is afflicted, as a consequence, with a peculiar deadness. Watching it, this viewer felt as if he were seeing a theatrical dress rehearsal at which the audience had been asked to sit on its hands. Real audience laughter, applause and even demands for encores after musical numbers might have inspired the actors to better timing and to being more on top of their form during the filming, thus bringing the project successfully to life. Unfortunately, though, no matter what they do or sing, the actors are rewarded here with only a deadly, unvarying silence, the end result of which is to throw the whole project out of kilter.

Still as a record of an incomparable theatrical troupe in its last years, this performance remains a treasure of sorts.

Pure Gilbert & Sullivan ... pure delight!
I have been a lover of the light operas of Gilbert & Sullivan for many years, and this filmed stage production of the best of those light operas is as close as one could come to being there and yet not be there! This production stars the D'Oyly Carte Light Opera Company towards the end of their greatest years but still starring some of the greatest members of that Company's history! John Reed as "Ko-Ko", the hapless Lord High Executioner, is a joy to both see and listen to; Kenneth Sandford as the Lord High Everything Else "Pooh-Bah" is perfect in the role that might have been made for him; Donald Adams is the ultimate Mikado, especially in his signature song "My Object All Sublime"; Philip Potter is a marvelous "Nanki-Poo"; and Valerie Masterson is as charming, demure and beautiful a "Yum-Yum" as one could wish, especially in performing "The Sun Whose Rays", one of the most beautiful songs Gilbert & Sllivan ever wrote. The sets and costumes for this filmed stage production are as historically accurate as a purist could ever wish for, and not a single line of dialogue is changed, altered, or updated (another joy for G&S purists).

If you're just starting to learn about Gilbert & Sullivan, this is the very (indeed ONLY!!!) video to start off with. A must for any lover of G&S, of light opera, of true theatre, or for a truly classic video collection! (I would say "Rapture!", but after you've seen a few G&S operettas, you learn to HATE that particular word, especially since it's used in every single G&S operetta!)