Shamrockery
LOOKED forward to hearing the Sullivan-Hood-German opera The Emerald Isle, presented by the Hamilton Dickson Light Opera Company, because, like this group, I believe there are many pleasant operas of this period which could well be revived. I still hope one day to hear Gilbert and Cellier’s The Mountebanks, and Gilbert and Carr’s His Excellency. But I found last Saturday’s Emerald Isle disappointing. The music sounded thin and unoriginal; the libretto pseudo-Gilbertian and full of stage-Irish shamrockery, and the plot preposterous without the saving grace of Gilbert’s wit and fantasy. The whole thing seemed like a poorish imitation of Gilbert and Sullivan, even down to a typical Savoy entrance for the Lord Lieutenant, and his hangers-on. Nor was the presentation itself exciting. We must make allowances for recordings of stage performances. But, whether singers’ or technicians were at fault here, the diction of most jof the principals was far from clear, while the ensembles justified Gilbert’s sardonic "No single word is ever heard when singers sing in chorus."
However, several roles were pleasingly sung and characterised, and there was a vivacity in the attack which makes me hope we will hear more of this groupin, perhaps, the unrecorded Savoy
operas.
J.C.
R.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 20
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203Shamrockery New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 20
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