Gilbert & Sullivan: The Immersion Method

As your humble editor is currently preparing for two performances and three auditions, not to mention getting ready to move, this article will necessarily be short, but, I trust, somewhat illuminating.

It has been said that Gilbert & Sullivan fans are a strange breed, and this is probably true. Witness, for example, two events, one just past and one upcoming, involving near-total G&S immersion for extended periods of time. The first, just finished, was the 5th International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival, in Buxton, England. For two solid weeks, G&S fans and performers from around the world gathered in Buxton to perform, watch others perform, and learn from G&S legends like Gillian Knight, great D'Oyly Carte contralto. Professional and amateur performers from many companies strutted their stuff, including a group from SavoyNet - who mostly knew each other only by e-mail, and had only three rehearsals all together. If you'd like to get a taste of what this intensive course in Gilbert and Sullivan was like, I recommend Jackie and Bob Richards's Buxton 1998 Diary, with a day-by-day series of impressions, show reviews, and photos. (The site does require frames.)

Closer to home (at least for me) is the upcoming 2nd Great Gilbert & Sullivan Sing Out!, sponsored by the Victorian Lyric Opera Company of Rockville, Maryland. This is G&S for the truly devoted, or truly crazy: On Saturday, August 29, folks from all over will gather in Rockville to sing through all 13 surviving G&S operas - that's right, in one day. Music only, no dialogue. It begins at 8 a.m. and continues until midnight. Yours truly will be there, singing the role of Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore and as many choruses as my voice will hold out for. Rest assured, if I survive the immersion treatment, I will give a report in a later column.

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