"How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera"

Anna Russell...................................... Mary Jane Disco
Accompanist...................................... Glen Gordon

Part 2
Gilbert and Sullivan Strike Back

Narrator............................................ Glen Gordon
Accompanist...................................... Susanne Anderson

Chorus

Kathy Blaisdell, Theodore Blaisdell, Esta Busi, Catharine Butterfield, Elaine Crane, Nicholas Dahlman, Heather Davies, Jonathan Evans, Elaine Fligman, Glen Gordon, Kurtiss Gordon, John Healy, Phil Helzer, Kevin Hutchinson, Marese Hutchinson, Louise Krieger, Elysse Link, Matthew Roehrig, Tom Rowland, Bill Tobey, Elaine Walker, Jim Walker

The wonderful English-Canadian soprano/comedienne Anna Russell (27 December 1911 - 18 October 2006) recently passed away. Born Anna Claudia Russell-Brown, Anna Russell was trained and started a career as an opera singer in England. She returned to Canada in 1939 and soon began to appear as an entertainer on local radio stations. In the 1940s she began her solo career, giving many concerts in which she sang and played comic musical sketches on the piano. Among her best works were her concert performances and famous recordings of The Ring of the Nibelungs (An Analysis), a humorous 30-minute synopsis of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, and (on the same 1953 album) her parody How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera.

How this Show Came to Be

VLO first presented Anna Russell's How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera in our Spring Show 1998. We had so much fun with it then that we wanted to see and hear it again. We reprised it in our Spring Show 2007, not long after Anna Russell passed away. We are delighted to have another opportunity this evening. Fortunately, Mary Jane Disco, who gave the 1998 and 2007 performances, was enthusiastic to present it yet again.

Tonight's production is similar in structure to a number of the VLO spring shows written and narrated by Glen Gordon. For these he usually picks some theme on which to base his choice of the songs and choruses to include, providing an opportunity to illustrate how Gilbert and Sullivan often returned to exercise the genius of their wit in highlighting different aspects of the same human foibles.

Having chosen Anna Russell's parody as the touchstone of tonight's show, Glen has selected one or two numbers from different G&S operas to represent what Russell could have had in mind as the basis for each of the elements in her parody. We think they will show how very well the parody captures the essence of the original.

For several years, VLO has brought outreach presentations to several local elementary schools a couple of weeks before the opening of our fall productions. These are short (about 20 minutes) and contain a few of the best numbers from the upcoming show with a narration that gives a simplified version of the opera's plot for the benefit of the young audiences. (I'm sure that many adults might also benefit from a simplification of some of Gilbert's plots.) This evening, you have given us a chance to reach out to another type of audience. Thank you.

-- Kurtiss Gordon

For our 34th fall production, Valley Light Opera will present Gilbert & Sullivan's Princess Ida, or, Castle Adamant. The story of this opera is based on Gilbert's play The Princess which was, in turn, based upon Tennyson's narrative poem of the same name. (Gilbert called his play "a respectful per-version" of Tennyson's work.) Princess Ida is the only G&S opera with three acts, and the only one with the dialogue written in blank verse.

Although the setting of the action is nominally medieval, the major target of Gilbert's wit is women's higher education--something that was relatively new and controversial in the late nineteenth century in England. Of course, the subject is of great local interest in the Pioneer Valley, though few people here would agree with Gilbert's Victorian opinions.

Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884 and ran for 246 performances. It is not produced nearly as often as The Mikado or H.M.S. Pinafore, but it has excellent music and some of the funniest characters in any of the G&S operas.

VLO will present five performances of Princess Ida next month at Amherst Regional High School: three Friday and Saturday evening shows on Nov. 1, 7 and 8, plus two Sunday matinées on Nov. 2 and 9. Tickets are available through Amherst Leisure Services by mail, by phone, in person, or on line. See our Web site at www.vlo.org for more details. Ticket prices are $18 for adults, $15 for students and seniors.

Come and see our production!

The Agawam Cultural Council is an all-volunteer local partner of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and is funded, in part, by the MCC. The ACC is charged with bringing engaging, entertaining, and educational events and opportunities in the arts, humanities, and sciences, to children and adults from Agawam and the surrounding communities.

Valley Light Opera, Inc., is a nonprofit Massachusetts corporation founded in 1975 by a group of Gilbert and Sullivan devotees. Over the years, VLO has been guided by two principles--to promote broad community participation and to produce fine entertainment. The company has produced all fourteen of the G&S operas as well as Cox and Box, The Zoo, The Rose of Persia, The Chieftain, The Emerald Isle and Sullivan's oratorio The Prodigal Son. In addition, VLO has performed Rudolf Friml's The Vagabond King, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow, Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, John Philip Sousa's El Capitan, Warren Martin's The True Story of Cinderella, and several of Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach works.

The affairs of VLO are in the hands of a Board of Directors elected by the membership at the Annual Meeting in February or March. Officers of the Board this year are Kevin Hutchinson (President), Connie Cappelli (Past President), Kurtiss Gordon (Clerk), and Jim Walker (Treasurer). Members of the Board are Kathy Blaisdell, Sandra Burgess, Catharine Butterfield, Nicholas Dahlman, Heather Davies, Pat Devine, John Foster, Barbara Freed, Lew Jordan, Nina Pollard, Lucy Robinson, and Tom Rowland.

Donations to Valley Light Opera are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

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