Opera : Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Iolanthe’ Overwhelmed by Added Gimmicks

Add another to the grim and growing list of so-called efforts to improve Gilbert & Sullivan, which succeed only in making the magical team deadly dull. This time, it’s the California Music Theatre production of “Iolanthe,” which opened Saturday at Pasadena Civic Auditorium (it runs through July 29).

Director Tom Blank exhibits the familiar, dreary symptoms: deep distrust of composer and librettist and failure to take them seriously enough on their own terms.

Blank thinks he can invent comedy where Gilbert failed to find it. He directs the Fairy Queen (Lu Leonard) to be carried in on a litter borne by four green-costumed elfs. “Thanks, boys,” she quips, in her best Mae West fashion.

He delays the Queen’s summoning of Iolanthe from the bottom of the lake by adding a cheap joke. She must turn to the audience in order to ask them to “clap if you believe in fairies.” Blank borrows the line and episode from James Barrie’s play, “Peter Pan,” as if Gilbert needed another author’s assistance.

When Iolanthe finally does appear, she must spit out a mouthful of water. Classy. All this occurs during some of Sullivan’s most tender and evocative music.

Other visual gags abound. The fairies inevitably engage in flat-footed balletic maneuvers and pratfalls. Our hero, Strephon (Timothy Syverson) makes entrances swinging on a vine.

During his love duet with Phyllis (Ann Winkowski), a swan-shaped boat glides in from the side of the stage. Lovely. Not content with this one Wagnerian allusion, Blank has to add a joke recalling a famous historical mishap during a production of “Lohengrin.” The swan-boat starts to depart too early, and Strephon must use the shepherd’s crook as a break to stop it. A riot.

Blank apparently feels that Sullivan’s wonderful music can’t possibly interest an audience. He fills the stage with busyness to occupy the eye at the expense of the ear. We must watch silent-movie titles projected on a screen on stage during the Overture. (One slide even tells us how to pronounce the title. Blank forgets we will hear it numerous times in just a few minutes.)

After singing two verses of “When Britain really ruled the waves,” Lord Mountararat (David Snow) stops this rousing anthem to invite the audience to sing along on the final verse. Obligingly, the final lines have descended on a screen at the back of the stage. So much for musical momentum.

Too bad Sullivan didn’t think of adding a push-button, synthesized Latin-beat (and revolving disco mirrored-balls) for the Fairy Queen’s “Oh, foolish fay.” Blank did, tarting up another of Sullivan’s touching ballads.

Brittle and sometimes piercing amplification compounded the problems--disembodying voices, blurring lines and narrowing the already limited vocal resources of the singers.

Most of the cast seemed to think they ought to venture some kind of British accent, even though they usually sounded merely affected and obscure. They paid more attention to these frills than to delivering their lines with emphasis or point. Much of Gilbert’s vaunted clever dialogue failed to make its usual impact.

Noel Harrison sketched in an oddly low-profiled Lord Chancellor, but managed his patter with reasonable clarity and security. Leonard, on the other hand, provided an out-sized Fairy Queen who tended more to hoot than sing.

Syverson and Winkowski made a handsome, appealing couple, though they sang with limited range, Winkowski sometimes becoming distressingly sharp.

Snow brought a reedy, tremulous voice to Mountararat. Al Morris made a suitably stuffy Lord Tolloller. As Private Willis, Dirk Rogers worked agonizingly hard at clear enunciation but got to sing only one verse of his potentially show-stopping song.

Victoria Brasser made a pretty and sweet-toned Iolanthe. Indeed, most of the youthful fairies would have looked attractive if they hadn’t been over-rouged and dressed in Barbara Hinrichson’s nightmarish, luminescent green cellophane costumes and wigs.

The Peers, directed to be an effete, grotesque group, seemed to be getting by on a tight, Margaret Thatcher-imposed budget.

David Gibson created the lurid fairyland set--purple brook and electric-green trees with blinking lights--but provided a handsome cut-out set for the House of Westminster Hall.

Ward Carlisle created the rudimentary lighting design.

Stephen Gothold conducted an underpowered but often stylish pit band. Musically, the best moments were the dueling choruses in the First Act finale and the evergreen trio, “If you go in.”