Papp's Pirates: From Operetta To Musical
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- "If this 'Pirates of Penzance' at first seems like a misbegotten ship of fools, I'll be damned if it doesn't sail." -Frank Rich (1980)
How did a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, well known for a rigid history of following original practice, become the model of a modern major improv-filled musical? In this new video essay, Zach Barr (they/them) discusses the history of "Papp's Pirates," the 1980 Shakespeare in the Park production that changed everything.
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In four years of high school theater, our director did Les Mis each year. Many students did not sign up for a second year of theater.
I’m with you on Ruddigore. I discovered it relatively recently and love it. And yes, Papp’s Pirates is almost perfect. I wish that Patricia Routledge had been in the film version.
Thanks for this breakdown! I first saw Pirates as a high school production, and then watched the Papp's movie version. I knew it was an operetta when it premiered and is now produced as a musical, but I had no idea that it all happened with such a bang because of that 1980 production! It's one of my favorite stage shows, so in a way I'm grateful that mayor cut the Shakespeare in the Park funding 😂
This video is amazing. Please keep making more content! I’m a musical theatre actor and a big nerd and I truly couldn’t get enough of this. You’re so smart and informed and packed so much super cool history and information into this while also keeping it funny and interesting. Go you! Let us know how we can support you!
This is really great! How are there so few people subscribed to this channel! Thank you for all this work!
I'm so glad I found this channel!!!!
Fantastic video!! I first saw the Australian 1994 version on video when I was young and loved it. Jon English was a perfect Pirate King, and I loved the interactions with the conductor and musicians. Only recently have I rewatched it, and discovered the 1980 version and realised many of the comedic queues and staging of the Australian version were taken from the 80s version. Loved your breakdown of it all!
The Film is the first thing I ever saw on HBO back in the day! This is the only G and S work i can watch all the way through without cringing from the subject matter. Its still great!
Wow! I am sold! Can't wait to watch those filmed versions of the show, i only ever saw a ballet version of pirates, but now I am excited to re-try it in a new context.
7:59 Actually, Penzance did have a pirate problem in the past, about a century before the operetta was written. Barbary piracy (slavers) in particular. But at the time of the writing, yes it was quite respectable.
Hi! love your channel and your work! who are you?! where are you?! Thanks for these deep dives into MT history. As a singer who crossed over from opera land to musical theater I can say this is pretty spot on!
Great video! I think you might have spoken even more about the muscular and percussion heavy orchestrations and conducting of the Papp production by the amazing William Elliot. He left us much too soon.
I own three copies of the Pirates of Penzance movie, and have seen it at least 20 times. I recommend it to anyone who wants to try Gilbert and Sullivan for the first time. I tell them that G&S is the immediate predecessor to the modern day musical, halfway between opera and musical, and that's even more obvious with the Joseph Papp version.
You could make a very vague argument for “The Mikado” being racist. It’s a thinly veiled mockery of Victorian bureaucracy, Gilbert has a pattern of setting his Opera’s in other countries and made up lands so as to somewhat avoid ridicule. Some companies have effaced the setting of “The Mikado” and made Japan nominal only while putting the scenery and costumes in a European style. A Thai Prince even “rewrote” it so as to not place any misconceptions on Japan. There are also multiple accounts of actual Japanese people (and even a Japanese Prince I believe) praising the Opera.
Yeah I seem to remember The Mikado was very popular in Japan
While the Mikado has always been looked down upon by many Japanese persons, I agree that it is not racist. It is merely disguised as racist to hide the commentary on England
I was lucky enough to see the 1980 Papp production of "The Pirates of Penzance," twice at the Delacorte, and once on Broadway. I don't think that Linda Ronstadt sang everything in the original key, because there was one song that seemed to be lowered. I think it was "Poor Wandering One," and it may simply have been one of the runs, which isn't a big deal, but I remember being shocked to hear something different from what I remembered from listening to the D'oyly Carte recordings.
But, yes, the production was revelatory. About 10 years later, I caught a high school production, and was pleased to see that Kevin Kline's interpretation of the Pirate King was now standard.
But there's no reason that similar updates to the operas couldn't be done.
There were actually 14, not 13 G&S operas (often called "light operas", not "operettas"). But most of the music of the first one, Thespis, produced in 1871, is lost except for two songs, one of which "Climbing Over Rocky Mountains", was reused in "Pirates".
You're commenting on semantics. The US uses the term light opera whilst the UK calls it an operetta.
I got into the Gilbert and Sullivan shows during quarantine ( I did pirates as a kid and the music is very nostalgic) and i loved what you said about Ruddigore it would be really good as a modern music, really it is the most musical out of all the shows just being a play with songs more than an operettas. I would also love the see Iolanthe because of the political commentary and stuff. Really good video!
Thank you. This is well researched and skillfully and wittily assembled. Misguided about The Mikado, in my view. Maybe you can be persuaded to reassess your position on it.
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but for heaven's sake, SHOW BOAT was not "the first musical." I'm very surprised that anyone who has obviously done so much research on the topic could come up with a statement like that. Also, Ed Koch's last name was not pronounced "Coke." And that live performance video of the NYSF production of PIRATES was not televised at the time.
Wunderbar das Video! Ich lieb e die Piraten! Und Sullivan!
I've heard Die Piraten in Deutsch. A lot of fun!
"Show Boat" is not by any stretch of the imagination the first musical/musical comedy. That honor goes to an 1866 production called "The Black Crook". "Show Boat" didn't come around until 1927. By that time, the American musical/musical comedy had been a well-established genre of theater. It didn't "replace" operetta, the two existed simultaneously until the operetta form gradually started to fade out in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Throughout the latter half of the 19th Century and the early decades of the 20th Century, musicals were basically a bunch of song and numbers that could easily be switched in and out of the score, lines of chorus girls, and a libretto with a very thin plot solely meant to be a placeholder for the musical numbers. By the end of the 1920s and into the 1930s, musicals began to become much more sophisticated, the libretto became a more integral part of the show, and the musical numbers started to be more plot driven and less random, which would eventually lead up to the Rodgers And Hammerstein era of the musical where book, music, lyrics, and dance were all integrated into a seamless whole. Basically, the sophistication of the musical comedy was a major contributor to the eventual demise of the operetta form.
Thanks for this, I'm glad to see someone made this point before I did. Again, it amazes me that someone who has obviously done a great deal of research on the subject could ever make the statement that SHOW BOAT was "the first musical."
Big Finish Doctor Who! :D
If you think The Mikado is racist, you don't understand The Mikado. It isn't about Japan or its people. It's a satire of late Nineteenth Century British government and society. It just happens to be set in a fantasy "Japan" entirely of Gilbert's making. It is not in any way, shape or form meant to comment on the real Japan or the Japanese people.
I think the larger issue here is less that he suggested that The Mikado itself is racist and more that he implied within the first 30 seconds of the video that anyone who wishes to put it on must be racist. That was a really rude generalisation. I'm glad others in the comments have called him out on it.
@@sKid-gh9ub So true.
@@sKid-gh9ub, no later in the video he described THE MIKADO itself as a "racist piece of garbage."
@@malp1 Which is an opinion he's entitled to, as much as I disagree with it, but to me, the character judgement about anyone who wishes to put it on is where he crossed the line.
Of course he declares it racist
By doing so he places himself in a position of moral superiority to Gilbert and Sullivan
Sure, their plays are still being performed after a century
And yes, this guy's only contribution to art is a youtube channel about other artists
But G&S were Racists and He's Not, so that makes him Better Than G&S.
Actually history records raids by Moorish pirates on the coast of Cornwall, and they especially were looking for young women to "marry" or sell as slaves. So in writing this show, Gilbert may have had those pirates in mind.
My favorite modern major general parody is the animal jam modern major kangaroo
Don't you consider George M Cohan's work prior ot 1926?
The South Coast of England, including Cornwall was ravaged by Pirates up to the 19th cent.
Linda Ronstadt ❤❤❤😊
“Pirates Of Penzance” would most likely be picked, because it is G&S’s most famous & well known operetta. And, no matter how hard you want it, “Pirates” will never be known as a musical. Even if it stars Linda Ronstadt, or made into a movie staring Kristy McNickles & Christopher Atkins, and throw in a few contemporary songs as well.
It is a classic, and should be performed as the authors had written it, and respected for being a masterpiece of music & humor.
Though I’ve never been much of a fan of “Pirates” or Gilbert & Sullivan, I have great respect for their vast contribution to the performing arts!
Very good, aside from the adolescent editorialising.
KAHTCH, NOT KOKE!
Mayor Coke??
"In England"???? I presume that you meant to say "In the UK".
🤦♀️🤦♂️= me when a millennial calls The Mikado racist. Jeez buddy, at least watch it and see the actual point to the show
This, in no way, could be called a musical. Especially when compared to many modern musicals which celebrate particular artists (e.g. ABBA's Mamma Mia).
Operetta (comic opera) is the correct definition and we should respect the composers by not messing around with the music, lyrics, and every other aspect of this masterpiece.
Incorrect on all counts....and no one said the work itself should be called a musical.
I don’t think they’re “operettas” either. They said they were marketed as comic operas, hence, they are real operas and should, nay, MUST always be treated as such.
@@JoshFreilich and yet operettas is the precise definition of Gilbert and Sullivan productions.
@@voulafisentzidis8830and yet operettas are what they are not, because G&S themselves NEVER called them operettas. And neither should we. They are so good they are basically a huge leap above mere operettas, hence they are known and must always BE known as Savoy operas. Nothing less, nothing more.
Some interesting suff here, but also some poor research evident. As for the silly comments about 'The Mikado'... well. you're both young and American, so I suppose we should cut you some slack.