Opera della Luna
Encyclopedia
Opera della Luna, founded in 1994, is a British touring theatre troupe of actor-singers focusing on comic works. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, it takes its name from Haydn's operatic setting of Goldoni
's farce Il mondo della luna
. The company presents innovative, usually zany and irreverent, small-scale productions and adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan
, other comic opera
and operetta
, in English. Opera della Luna is a registered British charity.
The company undertakes two major tours each year, visiting over a hundred mid-scale venues throughout the UK. Occasionally the company has toured overseas. Clarke directs all of the productions, which are small-scale adaptations performed without chorus, accompanied by a small orchestral ensemble.
(which toured as far as Denver, Colorado
), Boieldieu’s The Caliph of Bagdad and Abu Hassan
(two one-act operas presented together), Il mondo della luna
and Robinson Crusoé
. After four years, Clark disbanded The English Players while he planned for a new, better-funded company.
With the help of marketer and versatile theatre professional Graham Watson, Clarke established Opera della Luna as a registered charity with a board of directors and a base of regular supporters. The company's name was intended to convey its zany style of adaptation. The company's first production, in 1994, was Robinson Crusoé. Plagued by transit strikes, the show lost money. Clarke and friends made up part of the deficit by playing evenings of music hall
concerts.
's The Pirates of Penzance
called The Parson's Pirates, about the vicar of St Michael's Under Ware, who is tasked with raising church funds through an amateur production of Pirates. The original idea had been merely to produce an evening of Gilbert and Sullivan hits with five singers. Clarke wrote, in his 2010 memoir,
Actress Louise Crane played Ruth and is still a member of the company. Choreographer Jenny Arnold had worked on Robinson Crusoe with the old company and has continued as choreographer ever since. The piece (and all of OdL's subsequent G&S pieces) is played without chorus - principals are assigned to cover choral lines in the music, in sometimes startling and amusing ways. The original three-night stand was a surprise hit, and touring followed. Since then Richard Suart
and Ian Belsey
have performed in the production numerous times. Critic George Hall wrote that the production "is an evening of brilliance, both a tribute to and an affectionate send-up of [Pirates], done with verve, style, some excellent voices and a hefty quotient of camp. With Richard Suart ... we know we’re in for a treat.... Ian Belsey [and the rest of the cast] are all great fun and Jeff Clarke directs the whole at a cracking pace.... This is a show both for Gilbert and Sullivan devotees and for novices.... In short, a total treat – irresistible and unmissable."
(1997), where a couple of nerds, Amanda Goodheart and Kevin Murgatroyd, have car trouble like Brad and Janet in the Rocky Horror Show. They find themselves in the spooky Brigadoon
-like village of Rederring, where they discover their ancestors and become embroiled in the tale. One reviewer said that the production supplied "Belly laughs, baronets and more than a touch of Blackadder
".
Next was The Mikado
(1998). The company's updated adaptation is set in a hip tailor/design shoppe and inspired by the sexy, flashy world of fashion. As Clarke described the genesis of the production, he was in New York City over Christmas 1997 and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, which was showing a special exhibition of the work of Gianni Versace
. "I was confronted with a dress; a cheeky mini-crinoline, sexy and sassy, classical and witty. The startling originality, colour and fun of it hit me like a blow – imagine three of these – the three little maids! Remembering that Ko-Ko, before his elevation to Lord High Executioner, had been a cheap tailor.... the germ of an idea started. Why not make Ko-Ko a designer? ... a Jean-Paul Gaultier
– camp, outrageous, and bursting with creativity and invention. This gave the green light to filling the stage with all sorts of over-the-top theatrical fashion creations". Clarke engaged fashion designer Gabriella Csanyi-Wills to create the costume designs; she originated the idea to make the second act set, Ko-Ko's garden, out of fabric. Clarke decided that Katisha would be based on the older women in Dallas
or Dynasty
. "Women long past the first flush of youth, but determined not to grow old gracefully. ... [If] she becomes a sympathetic character, the whole plot collapses. But the ridiculous picture of a woman in love with a man half her age is one we are all familiar with ... the key to what makes Katisha pitiful." This production, featuring Simon Butteriss as Ko-Ko and the Opera Babes
as Yum-Yum and Pitti-Sing, also became a success, and theatres were eager to book it. One new opportunity for the company was the chance to showcase the production at the 1999 Covent Garden Festival – the company's first London performances – and at subsequent Covent Garden Festivals. The production continued to be very popular on repeated tours.
was first presented in 2001 on the QE2 cruise ship
and sailed as far as Australia. Clarke's adaptation was designed to meet the ship's one-hour time limit for entertainments. This was repeated in subsequent seasons on the H.M.S. President, a ship moored on the Thames River that doubled as the Festival Club for the Covent Garden Festival (Julia Goss
played Little Buttercup), and in 2002 on a different cruise ship with both Pinafore and Mikado. In the energetic opening scene of Pinafore, the company erects the H.M.S. Pinafore right before the audience. Clarke noted, "Many an old sailor, when his sea-faring days were over, worked on the fly floor of a theatre ... used to signal cues to fly the scenery by whistling. That is the origin of the theatrical superstition that it is bad luck to whistle in the dressing room. ... I wanted to find some visual way of showing this connection, so to have the sailors “flying” the scenery by pulling the ropes and tying them off would be a great trick.The company's typically zany version of Pinafore is played in Victorian dress with few textual and musical changes from the original.
The company has performed all of its Gilbert and Sullivan productions at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
nearly every year since 2003 as well as touring them extensively. Another G&S-related piece is The Burglar's Opera, with a script by Stephen Wyatt, based on W. S. Gilbert
's 1890 short story, Burglar's Story, mixed with elements of The Threepenny Opera
. The music was adapted by Jeff Clarke from Arthur Sullivan
's orchestral music. This toured in 2005 and 2006.
In 2007, Clarke introduced a new piece called Nightmare Songs in which Simon Butteriss plays an understudy to the principal comedian of a fictionalised D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
during World War II
and must be ready to go on at very short notice to play in any of ten G&S patter roles
. Clarke plays another resident of his lodging house, an itinerant "variety" performer who assists and hinders the patter man's nightmarish rehearsal. The two men have performed the piece many times.
The company's adaptation of The Sorcerer
was produced at the 2009 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. The opera is updated to the groovy 1970s, and the love potion causes Dr. Daly to fall passionately in love with Alexis. The Buxton presentation was recorded, and clips of it are included in a 2010 Sky Arts
TV series about G&S, narrated by Butteriss, called A Motley Pair. The Sorcerer
earned a mostly positive reaction from the somewhat shocked Buxton audience, and the company toured the opera extensively since then. A review called the show "one of the most delicious musical feasts on the circuit". Another review enthused, "Sharp and witty, it oozed fun and inventiveness while satirising the class structure of English village life and marriage. [It] breathed new life and fun into the work. The uniformly good cast have fine voices, allied to stagecraft and excellent comic acting skills. They delivered the piece with pace and panache. Clever use of tableaux and excellent sung and spoken diction (a sine qua non for G&S) ensured total enjoyment."
adaptation, Lucia, The Bride of Lammermoor. As it turned out, the opera would be the company's only non-comic piece, and Clarke decided that the company was better off making a name for itself through its zany comic productions than competing in the standard repertoire against the other small touring British opera companies.
After introducing its first three Gilbert and Sullivan productions, the company turned to other works, as Clarke feared that it would become identified exclusively as a G&S company. In 1997, when the Royal Opera House
had to close for renovations, they presented a season at the Shaftesbury Theatre
, including some lighter works, such as a new production of The Merry Widow
with a translation by Jeremy Sams
. It was not a success, and the Royal Opera agreed to license the translation to Opera della Luna after having seen the company's Mikado at the Covent Garden Festival. The company first played the piece at the Covent Garden Festival in 2000 and later toured it extensively, often to larger theatres. The company's updated chamber adaptation included naughty puppets three years before Avenue Q
opened. Clarke recalled, "Shadow puppets for Valencienne and [Camille] in the pavilion required some restraint from Miss Knight and Mr [Carl] Sanderson, who were only too ready to make their assignation more graphic than Lehar
intended. But the “grisettes” [were] life-size puppets – dazzlingly costumed in frills and feathers and prepared to reveal far more than any chorus girls had previously done."
In 2003, the Iford
Opera Festival commissioned the company to create a chamber version of Offenbach
's La Belle Helene
, which the company later toured. Belsey returned, and Simon Butteriss made his debut with the company; they have both played many seasons for Opera della Luna, particularly in the Gilbert and Sullivan productions. Clarke did not tell the festival organizers what he had planned: "The show was rude. It contained not a few four letter words; the cast handed out Viagra to the audience in the last act; and most alarmingly, in the celebrated Act 2 Helen and Paris duet 'Am I but dreaming?'", the mezzo-soprano
was topless. The audiences were enthusiastic, and the piece toured. Iford later commissioned productions of Robinson Crusoé (2004), a scaled-down version of The Tales of Hoffmann (2005) and Clarke's Lucia. Clark wrote of these years, "The early part of the year would be work on QE2 ... followed by the company’s spring tour. Summer would be taken up with preparations and performances for Iford and [the International G&S Festival at] Buxton
. There would be an extensive autumn tour from September to early November, and then the company would perform its annual Christmas pantomime
at the Corn Exchange Newbury." The company's pantomimes has begun in 1995 which performed, in Christmas seasons, Dick Whittington and his Cat
, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Puss In Boots, Cinderella, Robinson Crusoe (some of them twice). The last was Robin Hood in 2003–2004. Clarke felt that these productions enhanced the reputation of the company, and "the chance to create exciting music theatre for children was one we relished."
In 2006, at Iford, the company revived Il mondo della luna. Clarke's English translation hews closely to the original libretto, but some material is cut. The next year, the company produced a new English version of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore
set at a health spa. In 2008, the company toured Verdi's
Un giorno di regno
("King for a Day"). In Clarke's broad English adaptation, the story is moved to post-war Italy around the reign of Umberto II, infused with elements of organized crime, and political humour is added. One reviewer commented that the production "makes up for what it lacks in bel canto elegance by being a riotously funny, enormously enjoyable evening's entertainment". In 2009, the company toured its version of Die Fledermaus
in Clarke's English translation. The show was another success for the company, was toured to larger venues, and was featured in Opera Now magazine in May 2009.
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The press generally praises the company for its innovative, irreverent small-scale productions. Musical Opinion
wrote, "Who needs grand opera
when you can have Opera della Luna? The scale of their performances ... is so small as to be minuscule, but they are so skilfully conceived and realised as to be totally engaging. In their way, they are every bit as rewarding as far more ambitious, not to say pretentious stagings. Director Jeff Clarke can be relied upon to provide a whole new perspective on a piece through his brilliant translations". A review of the company's 2009 adaptation of The Sorcerer in Bucks Free Press
stated, "Opera Della Luna is innovative, imaginative and inventive. Its grasp on musical theatre is astounding and director Jeff Clarke should be applauded for bringing a new spirit of the age to G&S." Opera Now magazine wrote, in its review of the company's 2009 production of Die Fledermaus:
Gilbert and Sullivan expert Ian Bradley
comments, "Opera della Luna has achieved the rare feat of bringing in a new audience for G&S without alienating the old one." Typical of reactions to the company's many appearances at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton is this Manchester Evening News
review of the company's H.M.S. Pinafore in 2006:
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
's farce Il mondo della luna
Il mondo della luna
Il mondo della luna , Hob. 28/7, is an opera buffa by Joseph Haydn with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, first performed at Eszterháza, Hungary on 3 August 1777. Goldoni's libretto had previously been set by four other composers, first by the composer Baldassare Galuppi and performed in Venice in the...
. The company presents innovative, usually zany and irreverent, small-scale productions and adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
, other comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
and operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
, in English. Opera della Luna is a registered British charity.
The company undertakes two major tours each year, visiting over a hundred mid-scale venues throughout the UK. Occasionally the company has toured overseas. Clarke directs all of the productions, which are small-scale adaptations performed without chorus, accompanied by a small orchestral ensemble.
History and description
In 1986, Clarke founded The English Players, a touring opera ensemble. Clarke's productions for that company included English-language adaptations of Love in a VillageLove in a Village
Love in a Village is a ballad opera in three acts that was composed and arranged by Thomas Arne. A pastiche, the work contains 42 musical numbers of which only five were newly composed works by Arne. The other music is made up of 13 pieces borrowed from Arne's earlier stage works, a new overture...
(which toured as far as Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
), Boieldieu’s The Caliph of Bagdad and Abu Hassan
Abu Hassan
Abu Hassan is a comic opera in one act by Carl Maria von Weber to a German libretto by Franz Hiemer, based on a story in One Thousand and One Nights...
(two one-act operas presented together), Il mondo della luna
Il mondo della luna
Il mondo della luna , Hob. 28/7, is an opera buffa by Joseph Haydn with a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, first performed at Eszterháza, Hungary on 3 August 1777. Goldoni's libretto had previously been set by four other composers, first by the composer Baldassare Galuppi and performed in Venice in the...
and Robinson Crusoé
Robinson Crusoé
Robinson Crusoé is an opéra comique, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach.The French libretto was written by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux, which was loosely adapted from the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, though the work owes more to British pantomime than to the book...
. After four years, Clark disbanded The English Players while he planned for a new, better-funded company.
With the help of marketer and versatile theatre professional Graham Watson, Clarke established Opera della Luna as a registered charity with a board of directors and a base of regular supporters. The company's name was intended to convey its zany style of adaptation. The company's first production, in 1994, was Robinson Crusoé. Plagued by transit strikes, the show lost money. Clarke and friends made up part of the deficit by playing evenings of music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
concerts.
Parson's Pirates
The company achieved its first theatrical financial success in 1995 with Clarke's adaptation of Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
called The Parson's Pirates, about the vicar of St Michael's Under Ware, who is tasked with raising church funds through an amateur production of Pirates. The original idea had been merely to produce an evening of Gilbert and Sullivan hits with five singers. Clarke wrote, in his 2010 memoir,
Actress Louise Crane played Ruth and is still a member of the company. Choreographer Jenny Arnold had worked on Robinson Crusoe with the old company and has continued as choreographer ever since. The piece (and all of OdL's subsequent G&S pieces) is played without chorus - principals are assigned to cover choral lines in the music, in sometimes startling and amusing ways. The original three-night stand was a surprise hit, and touring followed. Since then Richard Suart
Richard Suart
Richard Suart is an English opera singer and actor, who has specialised in the comic roles of Gilbert and Sullivan operas and in operetta, as well as in avant-garde modern operas...
and Ian Belsey
Ian Belsey
Ian Belsey is a lyric baritone specializing in opera of the bel canto period, but is best known for his performances in light music and operetta, particularly the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.-Biography:...
have performed in the production numerous times. Critic George Hall wrote that the production "is an evening of brilliance, both a tribute to and an affectionate send-up of [Pirates], done with verve, style, some excellent voices and a hefty quotient of camp. With Richard Suart ... we know we’re in for a treat.... Ian Belsey [and the rest of the cast] are all great fun and Jeff Clarke directs the whole at a cracking pace.... This is a show both for Gilbert and Sullivan devotees and for novices.... In short, a total treat – irresistible and unmissable."
Ruddigore and Mikado
Three other G&S adaptations soon followed, with direction by Clarke and choreography by Arnold, all adapted for a cast of 6 to 8 and no chorus. The first was The Ghosts of RuddigoreRuddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
(1997), where a couple of nerds, Amanda Goodheart and Kevin Murgatroyd, have car trouble like Brad and Janet in the Rocky Horror Show. They find themselves in the spooky Brigadoon
Brigadoon
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love" have become standards....
-like village of Rederring, where they discover their ancestors and become embroiled in the tale. One reviewer said that the production supplied "Belly laughs, baronets and more than a touch of Blackadder
Blackadder
Blackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...
".
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
(1998). The company's updated adaptation is set in a hip tailor/design shoppe and inspired by the sexy, flashy world of fashion. As Clarke described the genesis of the production, he was in New York City over Christmas 1997 and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, which was showing a special exhibition of the work of Gianni Versace
Gianni Versace
Gianni Versace was an Italian fashion designer and founder of Gianni Versace S.p.A., an international fashion house, which produces accessories, fragrances, makeup and home furnishings as well as clothes. He also designed costumes for the theatre and films, and was a friend of Madonna, Elton John,...
. "I was confronted with a dress; a cheeky mini-crinoline, sexy and sassy, classical and witty. The startling originality, colour and fun of it hit me like a blow – imagine three of these – the three little maids! Remembering that Ko-Ko, before his elevation to Lord High Executioner, had been a cheap tailor.... the germ of an idea started. Why not make Ko-Ko a designer? ... a Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier , born 24 April 1952 in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France) is a French haute couture fashion designer. Gaultier was the creative director of Hermès from 2003 to 2010. In the past, he has hosted the television series Eurotrash....
– camp, outrageous, and bursting with creativity and invention. This gave the green light to filling the stage with all sorts of over-the-top theatrical fashion creations". Clarke engaged fashion designer Gabriella Csanyi-Wills to create the costume designs; she originated the idea to make the second act set, Ko-Ko's garden, out of fabric. Clarke decided that Katisha would be based on the older women in Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
or Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
. "Women long past the first flush of youth, but determined not to grow old gracefully. ... [If] she becomes a sympathetic character, the whole plot collapses. But the ridiculous picture of a woman in love with a man half her age is one we are all familiar with ... the key to what makes Katisha pitiful." This production, featuring Simon Butteriss as Ko-Ko and the Opera Babes
Opera Babes
The Opera Babes are a crossover classical music duo, consisting of Karen England , mezzo soprano, and Rebecca Knight , soprano....
as Yum-Yum and Pitti-Sing, also became a success, and theatres were eager to book it. One new opportunity for the company was the chance to showcase the production at the 1999 Covent Garden Festival – the company's first London performances – and at subsequent Covent Garden Festivals. The production continued to be very popular on repeated tours.
Pinafore and later
H.M.S. PinaforeH.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
was first presented in 2001 on the QE2 cruise ship
RMS Queen Elizabeth 2
Queen Elizabeth 2, often referred to simply as the QE2, is an ocean liner that was operated by Cunard from 1969 to 2008. Following her retirement from cruising, she is now owned by Istithmar...
and sailed as far as Australia. Clarke's adaptation was designed to meet the ship's one-hour time limit for entertainments. This was repeated in subsequent seasons on the H.M.S. President, a ship moored on the Thames River that doubled as the Festival Club for the Covent Garden Festival (Julia Goss
Julia Goss
Julia Goss , is an English singer and actress best known for her performances in the principal soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...
played Little Buttercup), and in 2002 on a different cruise ship with both Pinafore and Mikado. In the energetic opening scene of Pinafore, the company erects the H.M.S. Pinafore right before the audience. Clarke noted, "Many an old sailor, when his sea-faring days were over, worked on the fly floor of a theatre ... used to signal cues to fly the scenery by whistling. That is the origin of the theatrical superstition that it is bad luck to whistle in the dressing room. ... I wanted to find some visual way of showing this connection, so to have the sailors “flying” the scenery by pulling the ropes and tying them off would be a great trick.The company's typically zany version of Pinafore is played in Victorian dress with few textual and musical changes from the original.
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
nearly every year since 2003 as well as touring them extensively. Another G&S-related piece is The Burglar's Opera, with a script by Stephen Wyatt, based on W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
's 1890 short story, Burglar's Story, mixed with elements of The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
. The music was adapted by Jeff Clarke from Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's orchestral music. This toured in 2005 and 2006.
In 2007, Clarke introduced a new piece called Nightmare Songs in which Simon Butteriss plays an understudy to the principal comedian of a fictionalised D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and must be ready to go on at very short notice to play in any of ten G&S patter roles
Patter song
The patter song is characterized by a moderately fast to very fast tempo with a rapid succession of rhythmic patterns in which each syllable of text corresponds to one note...
. Clarke plays another resident of his lodging house, an itinerant "variety" performer who assists and hinders the patter man's nightmarish rehearsal. The two men have performed the piece many times.
The company's adaptation of The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
was produced at the 2009 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. The opera is updated to the groovy 1970s, and the love potion causes Dr. Daly to fall passionately in love with Alexis. The Buxton presentation was recorded, and clips of it are included in a 2010 Sky Arts
Sky Arts
Sky Arts and Sky Arts HD is the brand name for a group of art-oriented television channels offering 18 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music...
TV series about G&S, narrated by Butteriss, called A Motley Pair. The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
earned a mostly positive reaction from the somewhat shocked Buxton audience, and the company toured the opera extensively since then. A review called the show "one of the most delicious musical feasts on the circuit". Another review enthused, "Sharp and witty, it oozed fun and inventiveness while satirising the class structure of English village life and marriage. [It] breathed new life and fun into the work. The uniformly good cast have fine voices, allied to stagecraft and excellent comic acting skills. They delivered the piece with pace and panache. Clever use of tableaux and excellent sung and spoken diction (a sine qua non for G&S) ensured total enjoyment."
Other repertory
Early on, the year after its first success with The Parson's Pirates, the company produced a DonizettiGaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
adaptation, Lucia, The Bride of Lammermoor. As it turned out, the opera would be the company's only non-comic piece, and Clarke decided that the company was better off making a name for itself through its zany comic productions than competing in the standard repertoire against the other small touring British opera companies.
After introducing its first three Gilbert and Sullivan productions, the company turned to other works, as Clarke feared that it would become identified exclusively as a G&S company. In 1997, when the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
had to close for renovations, they presented a season at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...
, including some lighter works, such as a new production of The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
with a translation by Jeremy Sams
Jeremy Sams
Jeremy Sams is a British film director, writer, translator, orchestrator, musical director, film composer, and lyricist....
. It was not a success, and the Royal Opera agreed to license the translation to Opera della Luna after having seen the company's Mikado at the Covent Garden Festival. The company first played the piece at the Covent Garden Festival in 2000 and later toured it extensively, often to larger theatres. The company's updated chamber adaptation included naughty puppets three years before Avenue Q
Avenue Q
Avenue Q is a musical in two acts, conceived by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, who wrote the music and lyrics. The book was written by Jeff Whitty and the show was directed by Jason Moore and produced by Kevin McCollum, Robyn Goodman, and Jeffrey Seller...
opened. Clarke recalled, "Shadow puppets for Valencienne and [Camille] in the pavilion required some restraint from Miss Knight and Mr [Carl] Sanderson, who were only too ready to make their assignation more graphic than Lehar
Franz Lehár
Franz Lehár was an Austrian-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow .-Biography:...
intended. But the “grisettes” [were] life-size puppets – dazzlingly costumed in frills and feathers and prepared to reveal far more than any chorus girls had previously done."
Iford Manor
Iford Manor in Wiltshire sits on the steep slopes of the Frome valley, which itself has been occupied since Roman times. The house is mediaeval in origin, the classical façade having been added in the 18th century when the hanging woodlands above the garden were planted.-History and...
Opera Festival commissioned the company to create a chamber version of Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La Belle Helene
La belle Hélène
La belle Hélène , opéra bouffe in three acts, is an operetta by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
, which the company later toured. Belsey returned, and Simon Butteriss made his debut with the company; they have both played many seasons for Opera della Luna, particularly in the Gilbert and Sullivan productions. Clarke did not tell the festival organizers what he had planned: "The show was rude. It contained not a few four letter words; the cast handed out Viagra to the audience in the last act; and most alarmingly, in the celebrated Act 2 Helen and Paris duet 'Am I but dreaming?'", the mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
was topless. The audiences were enthusiastic, and the piece toured. Iford later commissioned productions of Robinson Crusoé (2004), a scaled-down version of The Tales of Hoffmann (2005) and Clarke's Lucia. Clark wrote of these years, "The early part of the year would be work on QE2 ... followed by the company’s spring tour. Summer would be taken up with preparations and performances for Iford and [the International G&S Festival at] Buxton
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...
. There would be an extensive autumn tour from September to early November, and then the company would perform its annual Christmas pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
at the Corn Exchange Newbury." The company's pantomimes has begun in 1995 which performed, in Christmas seasons, Dick Whittington and his Cat
Dick Whittington and His Cat
Dick Whittington and His Cat is an English folk tale that has often been used as the basis for stage pantomimes and other adaptations. It tells of a poor boy in the 14th century who becomes a wealthy merchant and eventually the Lord Mayor of London because of the ratting abilities of his cat...
, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Puss In Boots, Cinderella, Robinson Crusoe (some of them twice). The last was Robin Hood in 2003–2004. Clarke felt that these productions enhanced the reputation of the company, and "the chance to create exciting music theatre for children was one we relished."
In 2006, at Iford, the company revived Il mondo della luna. Clarke's English translation hews closely to the original libretto, but some material is cut. The next year, the company produced a new English version of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
set at a health spa. In 2008, the company toured Verdi's
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
Un giorno di regno
Un giorno di regno
Un giorno di regno, ossia il finto Stanislao is an operatic melodramma giocoso in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on the play Le faux Stanislas by Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval...
("King for a Day"). In Clarke's broad English adaptation, the story is moved to post-war Italy around the reign of Umberto II, infused with elements of organized crime, and political humour is added. One reviewer commented that the production "makes up for what it lacks in bel canto elegance by being a riotously funny, enormously enjoyable evening's entertainment". In 2009, the company toured its version of Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
in Clarke's English translation. The show was another success for the company, was toured to larger venues, and was featured in Opera Now magazine in May 2009.
Memoir
In 2010, Clarke published a memoir of the company organized around photographs of its various productions. Borrowed Light: A retrospective of 15 years on the road with Opera della Luna. This describes all of the company's productions and offers cast lists.Critical reception
Musical Opinion
Musical Opinion, often abbreviated to MO, is a European classical music journal edited and produced in the UK. It is currently among the oldest such journals to be still publishing in the UK, having been continuously in publication since 1877....
wrote, "Who needs grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
when you can have Opera della Luna? The scale of their performances ... is so small as to be minuscule, but they are so skilfully conceived and realised as to be totally engaging. In their way, they are every bit as rewarding as far more ambitious, not to say pretentious stagings. Director Jeff Clarke can be relied upon to provide a whole new perspective on a piece through his brilliant translations". A review of the company's 2009 adaptation of The Sorcerer in Bucks Free Press
Bucks Free Press
The Bucks Free Press is a weekly local newspaper, published every Friday and covering the area surrounding High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It was first published on 19 December 1856. Despite its title, it covers local news for the High Wycombe region only.The paper covers local news,...
stated, "Opera Della Luna is innovative, imaginative and inventive. Its grasp on musical theatre is astounding and director Jeff Clarke should be applauded for bringing a new spirit of the age to G&S." Opera Now magazine wrote, in its review of the company's 2009 production of Die Fledermaus:
Jeff Clarke’s Rocky HorrorThe Rocky Horror ShowThe Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...
version of The Bat ... turned out to be rather brilliant, not to mention hilarious.... As is his wont, Clarke, panjandrum of Opera della Luna and its nifty pianist too, had not only translated but rewritten the show so as to be actually funny.... Clarke's hallmark is a cheery vulgarity underpinned with a subtle but distinct moral eye.... But this was all very good-natured.... This non-preachy evening was a success, in the end, mostly because of an inspired cast.... Clarke's little band moved things along at a terrific lick. The most enjoyable evening for ages.
Gilbert and Sullivan expert Ian Bradley
Ian Bradley
Ian Campbell Bradley is a British academic, author, theologian, Church of Scotland minister, journalist and broadcaster.At the University of St Andrews, he is Reader in Practical Theology and Church History and a University chaplain...
comments, "Opera della Luna has achieved the rare feat of bringing in a new audience for G&S without alienating the old one." Typical of reactions to the company's many appearances at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton is this Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...
review of the company's H.M.S. Pinafore in 2006:
[The] festival proper opened with this inventive and entertaining production by M.E.N. Award-winning Opera della Luna. It's a cleverly pared-down version to suit the mere eight-strong company, plus [its five-person orchestra] (and how haunting to hear Dear Little Buttercup as a violin solo by Rachel Davies). Jeff Clarke directs from the keyboard.... The cast is led by the irrepressible Simon Butteriss as Sir Joseph Porter. He gestures, minces and trips around to great comic effect, splendidly aided and abetted by the others... Ian BelseyIan BelseyIan Belsey is a lyric baritone specializing in opera of the bel canto period, but is best known for his performances in light music and operetta, particularly the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.-Biography:...
makes an imposing and funny Captain.... Between them, they entertain hugely."