H.M.S. Pinafore

or The Lass that Loved a Sailor

November 1, 7:00 PM

November 2, 3:00 PM

Stars  |  Conductor  |  Director  |  Full Cast  |  Opera Story   |  Composer Bio

Stars

	JOHN STEPHENS Stage Director / Dick Deadeye American bass and Stage Director John Stephens has sung with opera companies and symphonies for over 30 years, appearing with the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and many others. He has an affinity for character roles, both comic and dramatic, particularly the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, having directed or sung in hundreds of productions.
He has directed Benjamin Britten’s operas Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw, and The Rape of Lucretia, Carlyle Floyd’s Susannah and Of Mice and Men, and many other works. As director of the voice program at the University of Kansas, he has taught voice and directed operas for the past 26 years. Mr. Stephens directed and sang in WGO’s productions of The Mikado in 2004 and The Pirates of Penzance in 2008.
	WILLIAM BROWNING, Captain Corcoran. William Browning, Kansas baritone, spent the summer of 2007 in San Francisco, where he was a member of San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Program. Last season with Wichita Grand Opera he appeared as Benoit and Alcindoro in La Boheme, Valentin in Faust, and the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance. In previous seasons he performed the roles of the Marquis D’Obigny in La Traviata, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet, Count Ceprano in Rigoletto, Yakaside in Madama Butterfly, 3rd Priest in Die Zauberflöte, and 1st Man in Pagliacci. An alum of Wichita Grand Opera’s Young Artist Program, this is his second season as a Resident Artist..
	PATRICK GREENE, Ralph Rackstraw. American tenor Patrick Greene made his European debut as Rodolfo in La Bohème at the Heidelberg Opera where he also starred as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. He sang Alfredo in La Traviata at Staatstheater Cottbus, the title role of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide at the Bellingham Music Festival, and Rodolfo at the Stadttheater Giessen.
In 1992 he was awarded the Koch Cultural Trust, which partially funded his studies at the Manhattan School of Music. During the 1999-2000 Season, Mr. Greene was the resident lyric tenor at the Staatstheater Braunschweig where he performed numerous roles. He made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall in Mozart’s Requiem with John Rutter conducting, and his America opera debut as Alfred in Die Fledermaus with Sarasota Opera. Last season with WGO, Mr. Greene appeared as the Judge in A Masked Ball and starred as Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance.
	CHELSEA ROSE, Josephine She had her professional debut as Mabel in WGO's 2008 production of The Pirates of Penzance. She has appeared with Cimmaron Circuit Opera as a featured soloist and performed the roles of La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, Despina in Cosi fan tutti, and Papagena in The Magic Flute. Chelsea holds a Master's degree from Oklahoma City University and a Bachelor's from the University of Miami. This will be her second season as a WGO Young Artist.
	EARL LEVINE Sir Joseph Porter Earl Levine, American bass, appeared most recently with WGO in 2008’s The Pirates of Penzance as Major-General Stanley. He also starred in WGO’s 2004 The Mikado as Ko-Ko, earning rave reviews. Later that season he appeared as Benoît in La Bohème. His repertoire also includes Papageno in The Magic Flute and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. In 1995 he was a founder of the Great Plains Theatre Festival in Abilene, Kansas. Mr. Levine was in the 1981 Broadway revival of George M. Cohan’s Little Johnny Jones, and he played the Indian in the original Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks. Mr. Levine has also performed and recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Ormandy.
	KAREN ARCHBOLD, Buttercup Karen, from Wichita, recently returned from studies in Bremen, Germany, where she appeared as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw last year. Karen’s solo appearances in Germany included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, John Rutter’s Magnificat, and Lili Boulanger’s Psaume De Profundis. She has also performed Verdi’s Requiem with the Wichita Symphony.

Conductor

Maestro Louis Salemno is a regular guest conductor with opera companies throughout North America, including Houston Grand Opera, L'Opera de Montreal, New York City Opera, Vancouver Opera, Seattle Opera, Florentine Opera of Milwaukee, Opera Pacific, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Baltimore Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Columbus, Opera Carolina, Michigan Opera Theater, and many others. He has been a frequent guest conductor of the New Orleans Opera where he has conducted La Traviata, Faust, Romeo and Juliet, The Daughter of the Regiment, L'Elisir d'Amore, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, and Macbeth. For the Houston Grand Opera he conducted new productions of Aida, Hansel and Gretel, and Dialogues of the Carmelites. He began his career by serving on the conducting staff of Barcelona's Gran Teatro del Liceo, the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Teatro alla Scala in Milano.

Director

JOHN STEPHENS Stage Director (Pinafore) American bass and Stage Director John Stephens has sung with opera companies and symphonies for over 30 years, appearing with the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and many others. He has an affinity for character roles, both comic and dramatic, particularly the works of Gilbert and Sullivan, having directed or sung in hundreds of productions. He has directed Benjamin Britten’s operas Albert Herring, The Turn of the Screw, and The Rape of Lucretia, Carlyle Floyd’s Susannah and Of Mice and Men, and many other works. As director of the voice program at the University of Kansas, he has taught voice and directed operas for the past 26 years. Mr. Stephens directed and sang in WGO’s productions of The Mikado in 2004 and The Pirates of Penzance in 2008.

Full Cast

WGO Orchestra and Chorus

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Chorus: The Admiral’s Sisters, His Cousins, His Aunts, Sailors, Marines

*WGO Resident Artist           **WGO Young Artist

Opera Story

Click here to view the full synopsis.

Composers

Often referred to by their initials, G&S, William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan have left an indelible mark on the world of theater. This remarkable pairing created some of the greatest hits in operetta that are still regularly performed around the world; The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance, to name a few. 

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was born on November 18, 1836 in London, England to a retired naval surgeon and his wife. He went spent much of his youth touring Europe with his family, returning to London in 1849. William began his education at the Great Ealing School and went on to King's College. He entered into the legal profession although he had little success there. He did gain a thorough understanding of legal quirks that he later used in his biting satire. 

William eventually left his legal career to pursue writing. In 1869, his first piece for the Gallery of Illustration was produced and met with some success. He wrote a total of six musical plays for the Gallery. Gilbert was also gaining some practical experience in stage direction. He started to direct his own plays that opened doors to him creatively. His first contact with Sullivan came as a collaborative Christmas play, Thespis, in 1871. That same year was a tremendous success for Gilbert; seven of his plays had their premieres, and he was writing constantly in many different genres including farces, fairy comedies, novel adaptations, etc. Eventually, Gilbert and Sullivan were drawn together again by the influential impresario, Richard D'Oyly Carte. D'Oyly Carte suggested Gilbert take his libretto for Trial by Jury to Arthur Sullivan. It was an immediate hit. 

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan was born on May 13, 1842, also in London, to the royal bandmaster and his wife. By the age of 8, Arthur could play most of the instruments in the band. After he finished his studies at a private school, Arthur received an appointment at the Chapel Royal. He then received the Mendelssohn scholarship and attended the Royal Academy of Music until 1858. Arthur left England to study at the Leipzig conservatory. Leipzig had a profound impact on the young composer. When he returned to England in 1862, he composed an orchestral suite to William Shakespeare's The Tempest. After that premiere, Arthur found himself being hailed as the new hope of serious English music. 

In 1866, the premiere of Arthur's Symphony in E flat was a tremendous success. The next several years produced orchestral overtures, concertos, oratorios and several Christian hymns, including Onward, Christian Soldiers. He also held several positions in London including organist, conductor and the principal of the National Training School. In 1867, Arthur composed a one-act musical Cox and Box and a full-length musical work, The Contrabandista.

In 1871, Sullivan was introduced to Gilbert through singer Fred Clay. Thespis was the outcome of that initial meeting, but it wasn't until 1875 and the meeting with D'Oyly Carte that launched this successful pairing. Trial by Jury was an immediate success and led to further collaborations as well as the formation of the D'Oyly Carte comic opera company in 1876. In 1877, the G&S team created The Sorcerer, followed by H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), the latter running for almost two years to full houses. In 1879, a copyright dispute brought G&S to America along with their Pinafore and Pirates of Penzance, which were huge hits in New York.

In 1884, a most famous feud took place; Sullivan refused to write anything more for D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theater. He left for a five-week tour of Europe; upon his return, both D'Oyly Carte and Gilbert tried to persuade him to continue his collaborations. Gilbert, initially insisting on a plot with a magic pill, finally came up with plot when a Japanese sword hanging on the wall of his study crashed to the floor, catching his attention. He came up with the plot that would become The Mikado and Sullivan agreed to compose the music.

After The Gondoliers, Gilbert and Sullivan had another parting of the ways over some of the expenses the Savoy Theater was incurring. D'Oyly Carte purchased an extremely expensive carpet for the theater; Gilbert felt it was an unnecessary extravagance. Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte had words and ultimately Sullivan ended up siding with D'Oyly Carte.

After this split, both Gilbert and Sullivan explored other areas but neither was as successful individually as they had been togeher. They twice attempted reuniting and collaborating, but both experiments failed to capture the audience that previous G&S works had. Sullivan went on to write an opera, Ivanhoe, and several operettas. Gilbert completed several plays including The Fortune Hunter (1897) and The Hooligan (1911).

Sullivan's health went into decline at the turn of the century, and he became addicted to morphine to relieve his pain. Sir Arthur Sullivan died on November 22, 1900 in London. Neither of his closest friends, Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte, was with him when he died. Gilbert was out of town and read about Sullivan's death in a newspaper, and D'Oyly Carte was in poor health. A few months later, D'Oyly Carte passed away. Gilbert lived until 1911 when a swimming accident took his life.