On October 26, at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) opened their 45th season with Artistic Director and General Manager Albert Bergeret’s favorite G & S operetta, “Iolanthe,” which had its world premiere on November 25, 1885, and pits fairies—of the Titania and Oberon variety, though the old name for queer men invariably comes to mind during some of the punning—and Parliament’s House of Lords against each other in a struggle over power and love. This G & S revival of “Iolanthe,” directed and conducted by Bergeret and co-directed and choreographed by David Auxier, was as refreshing as ever, with the ensemble making particularly strong contributions at the entrances of the fairies, led by Elisabeth Cernadas, Brooke Collins, and Jamie Buxton as Leila, Celia, and Fleta, and of the peers, led by Matthew Wages and Cameron Smith, as Mountararat and Tolloller, in Act One, and the Verdian and bel canto strains of the first act finale, as well as to the Act Two finale, during which all the men sprouted gossamer fairy wings.
Auxier has replaced the galumphing, when the singing-and-dancing women momentarily relaxed from being “dainty little fairies,” with more apt athletics, and the men, entering through the audience, glared at us when they sang to “ye lower middle classes.” Leila, Celia, and the fairies’ “Don’t go!,” addressed to the peers, was fittingly much more command than plea. Topical updates included mentions of Brexit, leaders who Tweet, and Boris Johnson, and the Fairy Queen addressed the second verse of “Oh, foolish fay” to the D’Oyly Carte, the traditional British G & S company, now defunct.
Angela Christine Smith brought a now plummy mezzo-soprano to the Queen’s invocations, to the curse-like sentence—qualification for the House of Lords being “by Com-/Petitive Examination”—at the end of Act One, and to “Oh, foolish fay.” Quotes from “H.M.S. Pinafore” and “Hamlet” found their way into Lord Chancellor James Mills’ “When I Went to the Bar” and he made “When you’re lying awake,” the Nightmare Song, and its three encores, into every bit the tour-de-force it’s supposed to be.
David Macaluso, as the Arcadian shepherd Strephon, Iolanthe’s son, who’s half a fairy—a fairy “down to the waistcoat” and a mortal below the belt—make what you will of that—and Laurelyn Watson Chase, as the Arcadian shepherdess and ward in chancery Phyllis, harmonized lyrically in romantic duets “None shall part us from each other” and “If we’re weak enough to tarry.” Veteran soprano Chase made the most of her ballad “For riches and rank I do not long” and its cabaletta with chorus “To you I give my heart so rich!” in the first act finale.
Amy Maude Helfer lent a plangent mezzo to Iolanthe’s entrance solo, “With humbled breast,” and dramatic plea to the Lord Chancellor, her husband, on Strephon’s behalf, “My lord, a suppliant at your feet I kneel … He loves! If I the bygone years.” Matthew Wages gave us a haughty “When Britain really ruled the waves” and Cameron Smith punctuated his part with bright high notes. David Wannen, as Private Willis, offered a lyric bass “When all night long a chap remains.”
NYGASP’s season continues with “The Mikado,” from December 27 to 30 and January 4 and 5, 2020, at Kaye Playhouse; New Year’s Eve with NYGASP, at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space; and “The Gondoliers,” on April 18 and 19, at Kaye Playhouse. Visit www.nygasp.org for further information.