G&S

On at least one other thing besides the British Empire the sun never sets: the operas of Gilbert & Sullivan. In Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada, the U. S., they are many a tot's first taste of theatre, many an oldster's last object of devotion. They draw dramaphobes out of retirement, lure suburbanites to the city. They foster cultists as rabid as Wagnerians--cultists who, unlike Wagnerians, squeal, snort, gurgle, hum and nudge their neighbors.

The greatest money-makers in the history of the theatre, the Gilbert & Sullivan operas today are finding new ways of striking gold. In Chicago an all-Negro Federal Theatre Mikado, set to swing, has the town by the ears. Last month Britain's G. & S. Films, Ltd. released The Mikado in Technicolor--the first full-length cinema version of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera in history.

But for U. S. connoisseurs, the big current news is the latest U. S. visit of England's famed D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. The late Richard D'Oyly Carte produced most of Gilbert & Sullivan originally. His son Rupert has preserved intact, to the last gesture and grace note, the traditions of his father's productions. On three previous American tours, Rupert D'Oyly Carte gave fastidious Gilbert & Sullivan fans a glimpse of Heaven. On his fourth visit he does not let them down.

By last week the D'Oyly Carters had given, at least once, every opera in their current repertory. Each production (The Pirates of Penzance, Trial by Jury, The Mikado, Iolanthe, H. M. S. Pinafore, Cox and Box, The Gondoliers, The Yeomen of the Guard, Patience) was velvety and letter-perfect as ever. To the irreverent, there might be something a trifle ritualistic about the performances, as though the matter in hand were sacred music rather than light opera; but the devout could only praise Heaven that nothing had been changed, that not a single present-day allusion had been adlibbed into the patter songs.

One mild crisis has colored the D'Oyly Carters' present visit. Several Broadway critics accused Martyn Green, the company's chief comic, of prancing, capering, grimacing too much as Ko-Ko in The Mikado--"putting the horseplay before the D'Oyly Carte," as Critic John Anderson referred to it. To this the Olympian D'Oyly Carters made no answer, merely continued to play, night after night, to standees.

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