‘Pirates of Penzance' With a Dose of ‘Python'

One could hardly attend Wednesday evening's performance of "The Pirates of Penzance," which opened the New York City Opera's spring season, without wondering how last week's appointment of Gerard Mortier as general manager and artistic director will affect the company. Mr. Mortier, who takes over in 2009, has already said the City Opera, which has long searched for a new home, will stay put in the New York State Theater. But what will happen artistically under the provocative Belgian impresario, who likes nothing better than to shake up an audience, is anybody's guess.

One question that came to mind Wednesday night is what Mr. Mortier thinks of Gilbert and Sullivan. Or, simply, whether he has ever thought of Gilbert and Sullivan.

The City Opera has a venerable G&S tradition for which Lillian Groag's production, warts and all, makes one grateful. I saw the current production (sets by John Conklin, costumes by Jess Goldstein) at Glimmerglass Opera last summer and was thus forewarned of its excesses.

A play-within-a-play, featuring Monty Python-style cutouts, serves notice during the overture of Ms. Groag's relentless quest for laughs. Fortunately, she has enough comic flair to render some of the gags pretty funny: Frederic nonchalantly tosses away a beach ball, which accidentally strikes one of General Stanley's daughters in the chest, knocking her over.

But there is an element missing here. In a program note Ms. Groag rightly positions G &S within the great tradition of British humor, but there is a difference between it and "Fawlty Towers": context. "Pirates" needs at least some element of Victorian decorum against which the humor can play, and Queen Victoria's periodic cameo appearances don't quite do it. And unlike straight comedy, there's a music backdrop here, which ought to have at least some bearing on the shenanigans. Ms. Groag is also relentless in underscoring the operetta's parodies of straight opera. The sets aptly take on the looks of an opera house for the Mabel-Frederic duet. But expecting the audience to infer from the abundance of coloratura in Mabel's entrance piece that she is less than mentally stable (we hear a snatch of the "Lucia" cadenza with flute) doesn't do the opera any dramatic favors.

Ms. Groag does, however, deserve credit for the cast's affecting, unselfconscious delivery of Gilbert's inimitable dialogue. Sarah Jane McMahon's clear, agile soprano made for a fine Mabel, and I was grateful Ms. Groag gave her the opportunity to make something expressive of her duet with Frederic, an opportunity she did not squander. Matt Morgan cut a fine figure as Frederic and sang pleasantly, though his tenor sounded a bit light for the great "O, is there not one maiden breast." Mark Jacoby was an accomplished Major-General, as effective in his gentle Act II number as in his famous patter song. Marc Kudisch was a swaggering Pirate King, and Kevin Burdette ably dispatched the Sergeant of Police's two wonderful solos. Myrna Paris has the right booming mezzo for Ruth but tended to sing out of tune, and Erin Elizabeth Smith, in her City Opera debut, made a favorable impression in the small role of Edith.

Finally, Gerald Steichen's alert conducting showed a fine grasp of the idiom, but made a bit too much of pregnant pauses and introduced some abrupt shifts of tempo, as in the "Paradox" trio.

So while this was not the most stylish Gilbert and Sullivan, it proved a lively evening.

Until March 31 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).