Review: Vancouver Opera's HMS Pinafore floats a feminist update on Gilbert & Sullivan classic
A feel-good operetta has fun while trying to show the world has changed since women wore pinafores
HMS Pinafore takes place amid stylized storybook-look sets. Photo by Tim Matheson
Vancouver Opera presents HMS Pinafore at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre until May 8
EVEN THOUGH IT first set sail in 1878, HMS Pinafore has seen many updates over the decades—recent productions around the world including a London version with a flying Boris Johnson, and a campy all-male rendition in New York.
And so it is no surprise to find the latest mounting of the show by Vancouver Opera has its share of localized, contemporary cues—say a few laugh-getting references to the English Bay barge and allusions to atmospheric rivers.
But the most subversive twist on the Victorian operetta comes through a slyly feminist lens that really gets its game on in the second half. This comes care of an all-female team of helmers (able conductor Rosemary Thomson and director Brenna Corner, who worked with comedy writer JD Derbyshire on the adaptation).
Let’s just say the female characters end up having more to aspire to than just being married off. The biggest alteration comes via Cousin Hebe (a member of the Lord of the Admiralty’s female entourage—“his sisters and his cousins and his aunts”, as the song goes). Wearing pants under her crinolined skirt, Hillary Tufford asserts Hebe as a more prominent character here. She eventually hooks up with an unusually sensitive-artistic Dick Deadeye (Marcus Nance), who—in a bit more identity and gender play by Derbyshire—is working on a children’s theatre piece (not exactly the crusty, hardened seaman of the original).
Peter McGillivray is the show-stealer as Sir Joseph Porter, Lord of the Admiralty. Photo by Tim Matheson
None of this is lecturing, the script more than self-aware about its feminist fun. The biggest laugh comes when Megan Latham’s middle-aged Buttercup alludes to the absurd age difference between herself and love interest Captain Corcoran (Jorell Williams).
Gilbert & Sullivan, who relished in upending social order, probably would have approved.
Elsewhere, the team ups the diversity of the production, its Ralph Rackshaw (Mexican-Canadian tenor Ernesto Ramirez) letting loose in Spanish when he’s frustrated. And refreshingly in a more inclusive world, it’s not all rah-rah Union Jacks for “For he is an Englishman”.
On the other hand, the VO production takes a mostly classical approach to the staging of the piece, with pop-up-storybook scenery and a ship’s stern that looks quaintly picturesque against a pink-setting sun or a starry night.
Much of the singing is top notch—if a tonally mixed bag. Peter McGillivray is the show-stealer, a comedic standout as the pompous, bumbling Sir Joseph Porter, Lord of the Admiralty—his delivery a classic, over-the-top Gilbert & Sullivan British sendup; his "Now give three cheers" is a rambunctious highlight. Capturing the full range of emotions of her character, Caitlin Wood has a vibrant soprano voice that easily scales the heights of Josephine’s arias, showing how legitimately operatic Gilbert & Sullivan’s music is. As the Captain, Williams has a smooth baritone, with an equally effortless comedic talent. Though he’s lovely to listen to, Ramirez seems to have been beamed in from a Puccini opera, with his earnest, note-extending Italianate style.
On opening night, due to an unspecified COVID incident, the chorus was forced to wear masks, but that did surprisingly little to dampen the sharply enunciated patter singing and sea shanties, performed with Amanda Testini’s buzzy choreography.
And so you could say this HMS Pinafore sails a not-so-direct journey. The abrupt tonal shifts subvert Gilbert & Sullivan, then celebrate them, then drop anchor for straighter arias. This is a feel-good operetta programmed for the spring after a long pandemic winter—one that’s also trying to show the world has changed a lot since women wore pinafores.
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