The Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company were on fine form, in spite of the noise from the Food and Music Festival in the park adjacent to the Opera House. Not a happy pairing! They rose above this and gave a fabulous performance.
The cast was amazing and the plot rattled along. Pirates has some of my absolute favourite music and songs including: When a Felon's not Engaged in his Employment and I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General. The acting and singing was superb.
There are so many themes in Pirates which I love including the satire of the melodrama which was sweeping Victorian literature and stage; parodying the Victorian obsession with "duty" which presented itself through contracts and legal loopholes (think Dickens' Bleak House!), and the more subtle Victorian love of ruins and antiquities, inherited from the Romantics. I love the scene where the Major-General is soliloquising amongst the ruins of his "family" chapel.
We had a splendid afternoon's entertainment, the Opera House was full to capacity and the cast got rapturous applause throughout.