Director Mike Leigh must have fond memories of schoolboy productions of G&S operas as he faithfully reproduces one here. What is most noticeable about this production is that he succeeds in removing all trace of humour from the proceedings. There is no attempt to give the pirates or the young ladies individual characters. The ladies, in particular move around the stage like a flock of sheep. The choreography, such as it is, is lamentable. The production looks lost on the vast Colluseum stage. Designer Alison Chitty vignettes some of the scenes in garish geometrical shapes but this only serves to emphasise the emptiness of most of the stage. The recording of the vocal dialogue is unpleasantly boomy.
Joshua Bloom as the pirate king and Robert Murray as Frederic are rather bland. Andrew Shore struggles with his Major-General patter song and too often parts company with the orchestra. Claudia Boyle is an impressive Mabel and deserves to be in a better production.
This is one of Gilbert's sillier libretti although Sullivan provides some of his best music. It is debatable whether this silly story of pirates who are really noblemen who have gone astray can ever be successfully produced for a modern audience. The evidence of this production suggests that this opera is a poor wandering one.
