WPLN News Archive; 11 Nashville Opera HMS Pinafore (Rebecca) 1 28 99; News Archive 1/8/99-2/5/99

a month after his best known composers are sensational germany's reports and from britain well it's a gilbert and sullivan all volunteer work ok technically they wrote operettas apparatus and sullivan were masters of musical comedy unfortunately too many poorly performed and the two were productions by community theater groups have caused many people to

well to not taking these comedies seriously so national opera hired linda brandt director of operate the university of missouri in kansas city to direct its production of hms pinafore with various husband robert brand who sings the role of sir joseph porter both land and robert are big fans of gilbert and sullivan they're just fun to direct and i love the word play and the tunes and there's a sweet little romance is in the middle of it all to see you can have a little bit of love interest that holds a little bit silly but the characters just sort of dotty aunt the women are never just sweet young thing work by josephine just doesn't quite know whether she's going to build and give up her dogs guard and she's going to have to have her barracks in order to be happy and she knows that and that's the way it is the leading man are usually pretty straight narrow stalwart young

heroes but everybody else around them is just lucky and i find that really fine it isn't a bubble over with these things i have a great time working on them in addition to lend as director and robert is sir joseph national opera's production of hms pinafore features soprano tom miller is josephine baritone david smalley is captain corcoran and tenor kurt peterson as ralph rex drop rafi oh bondage will conduct the nashville symphony as well as the chorus director brands says that cast is one of the delights of this production doing genius with opera singers their sheer sour mood about it is spectacular which sometimes you get with a little more community based productions and few times they can't quite do it harder than centers and it's hard to find the lyric soprano who can really nail that stuff especially these two or is it just feeling as an important ally would be hard you say yum

yum was much younger it is eight so have a really wonderful choral sound from an opera chorus in addition to listen to musical performances from her past director brand has to work with are centers to develop their english accents fortunately her husband robert is already pitch perfect mad and it has been represented to me that you wouldn't hold by my exalted rank i decide to convey to officially my insurance healthy people hesitation is attributable to that circumstance it is a cold fall and parents looking for an entertaining way to introduce their children to opera can't do much better than gilbert and sullivan their lively full of outrageous characters and they are clean will win these were all being written they were

fighting against that notion that theater was caesar of the devil and these productions were to be something that a father could bring his youngest daughter to without ever having to blush national opera's production of gilbert and sullivan's hms pinafore opens tomorrow night at eight at deepak sports theatre with a performance sunday evening an eight and again next tuesday evening at seven thirty tickets are available through ticketmaster for national public radio oh no