From a 1984 performance (live, but with many voices dubbed) at Canada's Stratford Festival comes this version of Iolanthe, the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in which the residents of Fairyland confront the House of Lords. A work in its authors' most whimsical vein, Iolanthe combines satire with fantasy, acid humor with voluptuous melodies, in the improbable way that G&S could pull off so skillfully. Stratford's production places the story within a frame--a 19th-century theater company's performance of Iolanthe. The device doesn't serve much purpose, except to imply the director's uncertainty that audiences can swallow this material without mediation. That anxiety shows in the production's overwrought style. The performers try hard, though: The distinguished contralto Maureen Forrester, while not exactly funny as the Queen of the Fairies, is as game as can be, letting herself be flown in on a swing and dressed up as the god Mars. As the Lord Chancellor, Eric Donkin is amusing but restrained, perhaps laboring to keep up with the ferocious lyrics he has to get through.
Productions of Gilbert and Sullivan these days often include rewritten lyrics and dialogue; this one is loaded with them. The extent of the updating will alarm some viewers, but it's wholly in the spirit of the piece, since Gilbert's script is full of topical allusions that he wouldn't have expected to be meaningful more than a century later. Many of his political asides have, of course, been replaced with Canada-specific references, which will be of only limited value to non-Canadians. --David Olivenbaum
