fauxklore | Entries tagged with gilbert and sullivan

The last thing I did in England was go to a little bit of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton. This is an event I’ve been aware of (and wanted to go to) for years. When I was planning my conference travel, I had the idea to look up when it was going to be and, when I saw it would work, it drove the planning of the rest of my trip.

Buxton is an old spa town at the edge of the Peak District, which was mostly developed in the 1700’s and 1800’s. It’s about two and a half hours from London by train. If you’re smarter than I was, you might have figured out that being in the Peak District means it is hilly. I recommend wearing good walking shoes. I stayed at the Palace Hotel, which is close to the train station and not very far from the opera house, but a bit of a climb getting back to, as you might be able to tell from this view of the town from the hotel.

The hotel was built in 1868 and I’d characterize it as shabby chic, with the emphasis on the shabby. However, it was also less expensive than the other hotels that were reasonably close tp the town center.

There’s also a surprisingly wide variety of places to eat in town. Pubs and tea shops are not surprising, but I didn’t really expect a reasonably good Thai restaurant in this sort of place. I didn’t try it, but there is also a Tex-mex place.

I do also recommend strolling around and looking at the architecture. The Opera House is fairly impressive itself.

And the Pavilion Gardens are a very pleasant place to stroll. By the way, you will see signs there for the River Wye. This is not the same River Wye as the one in Wales, where the town of Hay-on-Wye (known for its used bookstores) is located.

But I was there for Gilbert and Sullivan. One of my life list items had been to see all of the extant operas and I completed that several years ago. So I had chosen the dates for festival going entirely for convenience and just bought tickets for the ones that were on those days. That means that I ended up with five operettas in three days.

The first one I saw (on Tuesday night) was a production of Iolanthe by the Brussels Light Opera Company. This is my favorite G&S operetta overall (though I like the score of The Gondoliers a bit better, mostly because I am partial to dance music). A couple of the performers had trouble projecting their voices, especially the woman playing the Fairy Queen. And, since the fairies were wearing pointy ears (something I associate more with elves, personally), why didn’t anyone every notice that oddity about Strephon? Another annoying modernization was the Queen taking selfies with Strephon. Still, these are nits. The choreography was above average and, overall, I enjoyed it. If it weren’t for having seen some truly outstanding productions of it in the past, I’d have been completely satisfied.

On Wednesday afternoon, I saw the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company production of The Mikado. I have no particular issue with modernizing the lyrics to “I Have a Little List.” I can deal with modernizing the clothing, e.g. by having Ko-Ko wearing a suit. But why oh why would someone decide to dress the chorus in British school uniforms (with the girls carrying hockey sticks some of the time and fans the rest of the time) and dress Pooh-Bah and Katisha as their schoolmasters? Seeing blonde boys in ties and sweaters singing “we are gentleman of Japan” is a step too far for me. This is not one of my favorite operettas to begin with and, while the music was generally fine, the bizarre choice of setting and costuming was incredibly grating. Why? Why? Why/

Wednesday evening was again the National Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, this time doing The Yeoman of the Guard. I had no complaints about either the performances or the costumes for that one. It’s one I had only seen once before and had only vague memories of, so my knowledge of it was weaker than of most of the operettas. It’s also unusual in not having a happy ending for at least three of the characters. I felt that this production gave me a better appreciation of the operetta, so it was well worth going to.

Thursday afternoon’s production was by the Oxford Gilbert and Sullivan Society and was of Utopia, Ltd. I’d seen a very entertaining production of this done by the Blue Hill Troupe in New York, which was based on leveraging off the Citizens United decision. Well, obviously that wouldn’t make sense at Oxford. I am assuming their script hewed closely to the original. Let’s just say that there’s a reason this is a rarely performed operetta. I think I dozed off in the middle of the first Act. The second act was better and “Society has quite forsaken” was particularly successful, including an encore. But, overall, this is never going to be anyone’s favorite. If you’re at a festival and this is on the program, that might be a good time to take a long hike. Or a nap.

The final production I saw was Ruddigore on Thursday night and was performed by The Savoynet Performing Group. This is one of the operettas I admit to not knowing particularly well, but I thought they did an excellent job of it. It also has one of my favorite lyrics, sometimes referred to as “the matter patter,” in which Robin, Despard, and Mad Margaret sing “This particularly rapid unintelligible patter / Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter.” All in all this was an excellent way of closing out the festival for me.

I should also mention that Simon Butteriss played both Ko-Ko in The Mikado and Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard. He was quite good, but I was raised on Martyn Green’s recordings for the D’Oyly Carte and nobody else ever really measures up to that standard.

Overall, I thought the festival was worth a visit. But I don’t feel any particular need to go to it again.

The next day, I took the train back to London. Since I was flying home early in the morning, I stayed overnight at an airport hotel. My trip home was pretty much glitch free, although I got screamed at by a guy at the airport (not a United Airlines employee) for using a check-in / baggage tag kiosk before 5 a.m. despite there being several other people doing likewise. (And, in fact, United opened the baggage drop at 4:45 a.m.) I even got upgraded to business class for the flight to IAD.

I am slowly catching up on things. Being perpetually busy does not help.

Celebrity Death Watch: The celebrity deaths I want to note for May include Dr. Joyce Brothers (newspaper psychologist and boxing trivia maven), Andrew Greeley (Catholic priest and author), and Jean Stapleton (actress, best known as Edith Bunker). But the one that stands out the most for me is that of Billie Sol Estes. Unless you are a fan of the Chad Mitchell Trio, the name may not mean much to you, but the short version is that he was convicted of fraud for a scheme involving mortgages on non-existent fertilizer tanks. As the song goes,"“Here’s to the greatest biggest embezzler of all." (By the way, this isn’t just me. My mother made a point of mentioning his death when I called her after getting back from my vacation and we sang, "Hey Billie Billie, Hey Billie Billie Sol" together. That may be proof of a congenital basis for earworms.)

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Ralph Chatham is gone. I’m somewhat at a loss for what to say. Ralph was a storyteller and organizer / promoter of storytelling events, retired naval submarine officer, and physicist. He spent a couple of years at DARPA and worked on things like the Grand Challenge (involving autonomous vehicles) and training tools for language learning. He told Jack tales, personal stories, and literary stories. He shared my fondness for Saki and Gilbert and Sullivan and narrative poetry. I carpooled with Ralph and his widow, Margaret, to many an event and he was always full of wide-ranging conversation. His death was not a surprise as he had been diagnosed with brain cancer about a year ago, but it is still a huge loss to our community. I am honored to have called him friend.

The Yeoman of the Guard: The first weekend in May featured a trip up to Delaware to see The Ardensingers’ production of The Yeoman of the Guard. The significance of this is that I have now seen every extant Gilbert and Sullivan operetta live, which is a life list item. (The "extant" qualifier is there because of Thespis which is mostly lost, though there are sporadic attempts to recreate it.) Anyway, the production was fun. I thought Jay Anstee was good as Colonel Fairfax, but Jeffrey Grant stole the show as Wilfred Shadbolt. I also want to note Mary Punshon as Elsie Maynard. My favorite song from this show remains "A man who would woo a fair maid."

By the way, I stayed up that way (well, a bit further south) overnight and stopped in at Delaware Park for dinner and a bit of gambling. It was amazingly crowded. I’d have thought that the spread of casino gambling to Maryland would have an impact, but it didn’t appear to.

Maryland Sheep and Wool: Part of the reason for staying overnight in Delaware was to make it more direct to stop off at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival on Sunday morning. As I have probably explained before, this is the largest fiber festival in the Eastern United States and is something of a cross between a county fair and the world’s largest yarn store. I was trying to stick to just buying things I needed for a couple of specific projects but a couple of other things (e.g. a book of patterns for knitted dinosaurs) jumped into my bags. Afterwards, I stopped off at knitting group and showed off my purchases.

Washington Jewish Music Festival: I made it to two shows at this year’s WJMF. The first was Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars Klezmer Bhangra Extravaganza. This featured Deep Singh on percussion and vocalist Manu Narayan, along with the klezmer band. The mash-up of Yiddish and Indian traditions (with a hefty dose of jazz thrown in) worked amazingly well. My only complaint is that the set-up at the Jewish Community Center had nowhere to dance.

The second show was a Broadway sing-along. Joshua Morgan led things at the piano, with Bayla Whitten and Will Gartshore as song leaders. I was disappointed for two reasons. The first was that I thought Morgan did too much shtick. Shut up about how much of the audience you’ve slept with, stop the rambling stories about your horrible auditions, and let everybody enjoy singing! The other issue was some dubious choices of songs. Many of the selections were fine and obvious (e.g. "If I Were a Rich Man") but there were several that were chosen without much thought of their singability by amateurs. I found it particularly egregious to choose "Children Will Listen" as one of the Sondheim selections. "Comedy Tonight" would be a much better choice. Not that the event was a complete flop, but I’d give it a B-minus. Since the premise is one you would think would be an easy A for me, that’s a significant miss.

Ballet – The Sun Also Rises: This was the final show of my Washington Ballet season subscription. An adaptation of a Hemingway novel seemed an unlikely choice for a ballet, but it turned out to be my favorite of the season. (Well, maybe tied with Dracula.) The score (by Billy Novick) suited the story and Septime Webre’s choreography meshed with the music and atmosphere and scenery. I expected the Pamplona scene to be visually exciting (and it was, with added video). That the rest of the ballet worked as well as it did was both a surprise and a delight.

I should also note that prior to this season, I would have said I favor going to ballet programs that consist of a few one act ballets. But it has been the full-length ballets (both from the Washington Ballet and other companies) that I’ve enjoyed and the mixed repertory programs I’ve found unsatisfying. It appears that I need to rethink my strategy.

Story Swap: I know I went to a story swap. I know it was a small group, possibly because of weather. I have to admit I don’t remember anything else specific about it.

Pro Musica Hebraica: I go to this series largely to support the idea of presenting Jewish classical music. The spring concert featured the Apollo Ensemble performing Jewish baroque music from Italy and Amsterdam. If you are at all knowledgeable about the subject, you are already muttering something about Salamone de Rossi, who is pretty much considered the first major Jewish composer. There were also pieces by Marco Uccellini, Giacobo Basevi Cervetto and M. Mani, as well as by non-Jewish composers (notably Lidarti and Handel) touching on Jewish themes. Many of the pieces were rescued from fragments in the Etz Chayim library of Amsterdam and much of the appeal of the evening (and of the series) was getting to hear rarities. I continue to question what (if anything) makes much of this work identifiably Jewish, but I suspect the answer is similar to the one Howard Schwartz gives regarding Jewish stories. To wit, a story is Jewish if it is told (or written) by a Jew, involves Jewish times (e.g. holidays) or places (all stories set in Jerusalem are Jewish until proven otherwise) or has some other Jewish connection. That still leaves me puzzled over Bernstein’s Mass, but so be it. Getting back to the concert at hand, I should also note that I particularly appreciate the extensive notes by Professor James Loeffler of the University of Virginia.

Vacation: And then I flew off on a trip to Singapore (with a side trip to Melaka, Malaysia), Australia (Perth for OzFest, followed by taking the Indian Pacific Railroad to Adelaide) and Hong Kong / Macau. I accomplished another life list item by drinking a Singapore Sling at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel. It was very pricy (SGD30 ish with the service charge) and decidedly not worth it.

Which brings me to June and other things I need to catch up about later.

In the vacation summary, I forgot to mention that I also did the other free walking tour on offer in Sydney (an evening tour of The Rocks, the old part of town). And I checked out Vivid Sydney, which is an exhibit of light sculptures, including lighting the sails of the opera house. I failed to get any decent photos of the latter, alas.

The worst jet lag was Thursday morning when I stood in front of the elevator in my office building for at least 2 minutes before I could remember what floor I work on. I'm reasonably recovered now, though I did sleep way more than usual over the weekend.

I did manage to get myself out of the house for a story swap on Saturday night. I was particularly pleased that not only did we have a newcomer, but he told a couple of stories.

Then, on Sunday I drove to Rockville to see The Victorian Light Opera Company production of Trial By Jury and The Sorcerer. The former is, of course, too short to do on its own, but I think the latter was too long to pair it with. They were enjoyable, at any rate. Blair Eig was a bit weak vocally as The Learned Judge, which was somewhat made up for by Bennett Umhau's strong vocals as The Usher and Courney Kalbacker's acting in the role of Angelina. (One of the strengths of this company tends to be expressive acting, instead of relying solely on vocal quality.) As for The Sorcerer, I want to particularly note Tom Goode as Dr. Daly. I also want to mention that this score must be particular fun for the percussionist in the orchestra.

Now the only Gilbert and Sullivan operetta I haven't seen a live performance of is Yeoman of the Guard. If nothing comes up sooner, the Ardensingers (in deepest Delaware) are doing it next spring.

Oh, I almost forgot the celebrity death watch. There was TV host Richard Dawson, bluegrass musician Doc Watson and two authors. Ray Bradbury got a lot of attention, of course - and deserved it. I really should reread a few of his books, as it has been way too long. But I also want to mention Paul Fussell, whose snarky essays both entertained and enlightened me. I particularly recommend his book, Class, a fine manual for all aspiring intellectual snobs.

Finally, my more recent reading included rereading a lot of Shirley Jackson. I'm not really crazy about The Haunting of Hill House but I love We Have Always Lived in the Castle. And her short stories are often intriguing. Everyone has read "The Lottery" (which I still find absolutely terrifying) but I want to particularly recommend the wickedly funny "My Life with R. H. Macy."

Fat Camp: I had originally intended to spend my Saturday night in New York seeing the revival of Carrie, one of the most notoriously awful musicals of all time. It closed early, alas, so I was scrounging for something else to see. In browsing various options, I stumbled upon Fat Camp which had won some acclaim at the New York Musical Theatre Festival a few years ago.

The basic premise involves a number of teenagers at Camp Overton, a weight loss camp. One camper, Robert, proclaims that he is fine, just the way he is, and refuses to go along with the program. Things get more complicated when he falls for Taylor, who lets him in on the little secret that he has to follow the program if he's going to have the privilege of going to the big dance. There are further complications when three cheerleaders from a camp down the road show up.

This was very lively and funny. The score by Matthew roi Berger and lyrics by Randy Blair were enjoyable and enhanced the story. I'd mention individual songs, but there was no song list in the program. There is a cast list and I want to particularly note Molly Hager as Taylor and Carly Jibson as Daphne.

I'm not convinced this would transfer well to Broadway, but I can easily see it being done at various off-Broadway venues. Here in the D.C. area, it seems perfect for Landless Theatre Company. (And, they have in fact, done other shows by the same creative team.)

Utopia, Limited: The show which triggered the New York trip was the Blue Hill Troupe production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited. I'm trying to see all the G&S operettas and this one is very rarely performed, so I jumped at the opportunity to add it to my list.

I should note that Blue Hill Troupe is an amateur group, but their history goes back to the 1920's and a few of their members are equity actors. Their shows are all charity benefits. In this case, the money was going to the "I Have a Dream" Foundation. The charity aspect leads to them having the thickest program I have ever seen for any theatre production - 160 pages of articles and ads. Lots of ads, but that's okay with me since it's for a good cause.

The basic plot involves a South Pacific island nation that is modernizing by Anglifying. The Princess Zara has brought back advisors from England who turn the country into a limited liability corporation. This proves to have many advantages, but there are some problems as well, with the king's two wise men (who have secretly manipulated things for years) stirring up the population. Fortunately, Princess Zara remembers the importance of the two-party system, with its ability to create political gridlock, and that saves the day.

They did do some tweaking of the show but I looked at the libretto afterwards and the surgery was less extensive than I had originally thought. There were a few modern additions, but they were not significant distractions. For example, when the attendees are being introduced at the tea, they include "Lord and Lady Gaga," "Mr. Smith, Miss Klein and Miss Glaxo" and too many others for me to remember. The protests stirred up by the wise men have the people holding signs that say things like "Occupy Utopia."

There aren't any particularly familiar songs, but even the least of the Gilbert and Sullivan canon is still fun. The performers all did well. Oh, rapture! The objectives of the trip were well satisfied.

I had a fairly hectic week at work, with three days spent at the Small Satellite Rideshare Conference. That was productive, even if there was somewhat more emphasis on picosatellites and less on hosted payloads than I would have preferred. It culminated in a tour of the Orbital's satellite manufacturing facility. I always enjoy seeing actual hardware. And I was amused by their corporate artwork, which runs heavily to sculptures of Pegasus. (The Pegasus rocket was their first major product.)

Last night I went to Wolf Trap to see the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players do The Mikado. I have to admit that I've always thought this a somewhat overrated piece and the production reminded me of why. The plot is no sillier than any other Gilbert and Sullivan operetta and there is plenty of fine music. But it lends itself to excessive tinkering with the libretto in the interests of modernization. I don't mind some topical references, but there is really no need to completely rewrite "I've Got a Little List" and "A More Humane Mikado." And, really, is there any reason to insert "Sony" and "Toyota" and the like into the lyrics for "Mi-Ya-Sa-Ma" other than a cheap laugh?

Pooh-bah is a part that is actually designed for overacting. I'm not a huge fan of physical comedy to begin with and I find that overdoing his attempts to sit on the ground just add to the length without enhancing the production. (On the plus side, I thought that Louis Dell'Ava did a fine job of singing the part.) I also found the bit with Ko-Ko's attempts to carry the axe to be overdone.

Despite the flaws, the show was still enjoyable. If the music isn't as good as, say, The Gondoliers well, frankly, what is? And most of the performances were fine. I want to particularly note Melissa Attebury as Pitti-Sing, who managed to give that character more personality than is often the case.

My evening was far more satisfying than my day yesterday. I drove to darkest Maryland to see The Victorian Lyric Opera Company production of The Grand Duke. I should note that "darkest Maryland" is a long-standing joke of mine that relates to my tendency to get lost in unfamiliar places in that state. (And, for that matter, in familiar places. I make it to Jane's house without a wrong turn only about a third of the time, which suggests I should leave some extra time for getting to the Voices business meeting this afternoon.) The problem is largely that Mapquest tends to use street names in directions, while most of the visible signage involves route numbers. Still, I'd left myself enough time so I was able to find the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater without too much trouble.

The Grand Duke is generally regarded as the worst of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But, really, it isn't that bad. Yes, the plot is ridiculous, but that is actually true of all of the operettas. (Okay, the sausage roll thing is unforgivably absurd, but is it really that much sillier than all the switched at birth plot lines?) Its greatest flaw is really that it just isn't as brilliant as, say, H.M.S. Pinafore. Sullivan's score is pleasant enough (I walked out humming "The Prince of Monte Carlo") and there are plenty of laughs, including Gilbert's self-referential line about rhyming lyrics (When exigence of rhyme compels /Orthography forgoes her spells,/ And "ghost" is written "ghoest") and the Athenian court dress (costumes from Troilus and Cressida) at the beginning of the second act.

As for the performances, I was quite impressed with Guillaume Tourniaire as Ludwig and Alexandra Boule-Buckley as Julia. Both were expressive actors, as well as having strong voices. John Perine as Rudolph and Ann Coffman as Lisa were also up to the challenges. Unfortunately, Rick DuPuy was a less than energetic Ernest and had a lot of trouble projecting his voice. He was a good argument for having supertitles for an operetta in English. Blair Eig was also somewhat weak as the Prince of Monte Carlo. Still, for an amateur company, the performance standard was better than average. I was also impressed by there being a full orchestra. Signature Theatre did Sweeney Todd with just 4 musicians, so having 32 for this is quite an achievement.

All in all, it was an entertaining evening which raised my opinion of this minor Gilbert and Sullivan work.

A few odds and ends:

1) I went to see the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society production of Ruddigore last night. (Hence, the title). GGSS bills themselves as "America's only theater group with its own law school" and the production was at the law school moot court auditorium. It was reasonably good as amateur productions go. Some of the performers had trouble projecting their voices over the orchestra, for example, and I thought a couple overdid things. The most notable performance was Sara Dunsky's as Mad Margaret. I still find the score of Ruddigore to be fairly forgettable (though pleasant enough). That may be an advantage since it means I won't be walking around humming it for the next week or two.

2) There are amazing deals on airfares to Peru right now. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go in November for under 250 bucks. I found that price on American via Miami, but there are allegedly similar deals on LAN. I will, of course, go to Machu Picchu, but I also particularly want to go to the Ballestas Islands and to see the Nazca lines. I don't need to do serious planning until August, though.

3) I haven't seen anybody note the death of Mark "The Bird" Fidyrich. He had only brief success as a pitcher, but was colorful and entertaining to watch. There are fewer characters nowadays.

Since there's no episode of The Amazing Race this week, I have time to do a little catching up on various odds and ends. The most critical is finishing my taxes, now that I've actually located all the info I need. In general, I'm behind on household paperwork, partly because of cleaning for Pesach and partly out of sheer laziness.

I'll also note that my love / hate relationship with freecycle is continuing. Yet again, I've had people email about how eager they are for something and then not get back to me after I give them my phone number to get directions and arrange a time for pickup.

But does that stop me from going out and doing things? Yesterday, I went to see the Washington Savoyard's production of Iolanthe at the Atlas performing Arts Center. I hadn't actually been to H Street NE before, which is claimed to be the hot neighborhood these days. It's not particularly convenient, since it's a bit over a mile walk from the nearest metro. (There is bus service, but it was a nice day.) Part of the way still feels pretty dicey and I would not be comfortable making the walk after dark. But the theatre itself is beautiful and quite comfortable.

I discovered when I got the program that they had set the show in 1968 and were trying to use the peers as a symbol of the establishment with the faeries as the counterculture. Normally, that sort of thing would make me run. Fortunately, with one exception, they left the material pretty much alone, with just costumes to suggest the era. Phyllis spends the first act in jodhpurs and the second in a remarkably unattractive blue plaid dress. The peers make out better with blue sweater vests, though being dressed for a cricket match while singing "Loudly Let the Trumpets Bray" is a bit jarring. The faeries are nicely colorful and, mercifully, lack wings. The exception was an "updating" of "Oh, Foolish Fay," which even included a particularly unreasonable anachronism ("Oh, Obama") given that he was a child in 1968.

But, as I said, they mostly played it straight - or as straight as one can play Gilbert and Sullivan. I've always had a particular fondness for this operetta, due to my bias in favor of political satire. "When Britain really Ruled the Waves" is as brilliant as ever, for example. There are plenty of lovely G&S melodies, too, and they were sung well. Annie Gill as Phyllis did a particularly good job. And I liked Ronnie Hardcastle's rendition f "Spurn Not the Nobly Born" (as Lord Tolloller).

The true scene stealer was Jase Parker as the Lord Chancellor. I thought he overdid it at times, but it's the sort of role that allows for that. His comic timing was right on the mark, especially in "Love, Unrequited, Robs Me of My Rest" (the nightmare song).

Normally, I'd recommend you go out and see this, but today was closing day. So you will just have to wait (like me) for the next Savoyards production.

Since I was already most of the way there, it made sense to continue south from the Fall Fiber Festival to Charlottesville and see the New Lyric Theatre production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Sorceror." It is an inherently flawed operetta, but even flawed Gilbert and Sullivan is fun. Tuneful music makes it possible to ignore the sheer silliness of the plot and the fact that the first act is nearly twice as long as the second. It's also rather troubling that there's never really any explanation of why Dr. Daly relents in his attitude towards Constance. But one does need that nice "rousing finale full of words and music signifying nothing" (to quote Tom Lehrer) and I suppose it would be unfair to leave somebody out.

I thought the performances quite good for the most part. Dan Stern did an especially nice job as Dr. Daly. My only real quibble was with the costumes. I know John Wellington Wells is supposed to be a bit ridiculous, but I thought his costume was a bit overdone, as were those of the spirits.

A good job overall and I am always happy to support companies putting on productions of operettas besides the big three.

I just realized that the Fall Fiber Festival (aka the Montpelier Sheepdog Trials) is also approaching. And it is the same weekend that the Gilbert and Sullivan group in Charlottesville is putting on a production of The Sorceror.

So much for unscheduled weekends.

I can't really say it was unforeseen, because I expected to enjoy seeing the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players production of H.M.S. Pinafore tonight at Wolf Trap. Usually touring companies are doing Pirates of Penzance on the one night I can go, so I'd never actually seen a live production of Pinafore before. They're doing The Gondoliers (which is my second favorite, behind Iolanthe) tomorrow night, but that didn't work with my schedule.

I hadn't been to Wolf Trap before, either, though I'd thought about it several times. The problem is, of course, that the shows I want to see rarely coincide with my schedule. It's really not very far from where I live so I expect I will be more inclined to go again. It was probably a mistake, however, to drive rather than use the metro shuttle bus, given how long it took to get out of the parking lot after the show. On the other hand, the shuttle bus presumably gets stuck in the same traffic. And there was no traffic once I got out of the park, since I used the back way to Route 123. (One advantage of living in Vienna is that there are a surprising number of back ways to get places.)

Anyway, it was a warm and pleasant evening and the theatre (Filene Center) is lovely. But the performance is what really matters - and that, too, was lovely. Colm Fitzmaurice, who played Ralph Rackstraw, has a phenomenal voice and was well matched by Laurelyn Watson Chase as Josephine. Stephen Quint hammed it up appropriately as Sir Joseph, especially in "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore." Angela Smith, as Little Buttercup, seemed to have a problem with the microphone, as she popped her p's, but was otherwise fine. The only performer I thought was weak was Victoria Devany as Cousin Hebe. There was nothing wrong with her singing or her physical comedy, but her speaking voice was inconsistent.

All in all, it was a fun evening. I will pay for it tomorrow, as I have to be up way too early to catch a plane. I expect to sleep all the way to Denver.

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening