Review: San Diego Opera’s breezy, funny ‘Pirates’ marks a fresh start

Oct. 15, 2017 3:25 PM PT

San Diego Opera charted a new course Saturday with the opening of its first-ever Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. But based on the capacity audience’s exuberant reaction to “The Pirates of Penzance,” it looks like thar be smooth sailing ahead.

The playful and well-sung production is chock full of humor and eye-popping visual surprises. But more than that, it’s an operetta produced in grand opera fashion, with solid singing and acting in the principal roles, a 21-member chorus and 45 San Diego Symphony musicians elegantly conducted by Evan Rogister in his company debut.

“Pirates” is the opening production of a season of “firsts” for the reinvigorated San Diego Opera. Next month, the company presents its first transgender-themed opera, followed in January by its first tango opera. It’s also the first season to feature almost entirely American artists.

General Director David Bennett, who joined the company a year after its near-shutdown in 2014, aims to expand the audience. That was evident Saturday, with a much wider age range and diversity than usually seen on opening nights.

Written in 1879, “The Pirates of Penzance” tells the story of Frederic, a dutiful sailor accidentally apprenticed as a boy to a band of pirates by his hard-of-hearing nursemaid, Ruth. When Frederic turns 21, he decides to go straight and falls for Mabel, the earnest daughter of Major-General Stanley of Penzance, a resort town on Britain’s Cornwall coast. But Frederic’s pirate brethren aren’t quite ready to let him go and conspire to conscript him well into middle age.

“Pirates” features many of William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s best-known songs, including “Poor Wandering One,” “Climbing Over Rocky Mountain” and “With Cat-Like Tread, Upon Our Prey We Steal”

Director Seán Curran’s detailed, cohesive production has the look of a 19th-century British musical hall. The “show-within-a-show” takes place behind a majestic wood and lamp-lit proscenium arch topped with skull and crossbones. The comically broad style of acting, James Schuette’s playful costumes, Robert Wierzel’s theatrical lighting and Steven W. Bryant’s exaggerated stage makeup add to the show’s vaudeville style.

Curran’s tongue-in-cheek direction has a few contemporary references. The Pirate King looks a bit like Capt. Jack Sparrow, another pirate has the Darling brothers’ top hat and teddy bear from “Peter Pan,” and listen closely for in-jokes on Carnival Cruises and the Donald Trump-coined word “covfefe.”

The singing is strong throughout the lead roles, but it’s bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi who steals the show as Major-General Stanley. Besides breezing through the rapid-patter song “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” Carfizzi hilariously trots, high-steps and pirouettes around the stage as he sings.

Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, usually seen here in dark roles, lightens up amusingly as the swashbuckling Pirate King, who in this production is woefully clumsy. His robust voice fills the cavernous Civic Theatre more effortlessly than some of the other singers.

Also strong is tenor Mackenzie Whitney, in his company debut as Frederic. He’s got a large, ear-pleasing voice and a sunny stage presence, which proves the perfect match for the effervescent Maureen McKay, the coloratura soprano who plays his lady love, Mabel.

Also memorable are mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee as Frederic’s aging cockney nurse, Ruth, and lanky bass-baritone Ted Pickell, as pirate first mate, Samuel. Soprano Tasha Koontz and mezzo Sarah-Nicole Carter lead a chorus of women who make up the Major-General’s all-girl brood.

Because of his background in dance, Curran fills the stage with dancing, swordplay, fighting and whimsical movement, which is a refreshing contrast to the usual stand-and-deliver style of many opera stagings. It asks a lot from the singers, but it’s a refreshing change of wind for the newly ship-shape San Diego Opera.