Songs for (last Sunday, actually) The Yeomen of the Guard

[mdlbear]

I have a long history with G&S, and especially with The Yeomen of the Guard. If I remember correctly it was the first, or one of the first, of their operettas I ever saw live, with my parents. It's grown on me over the years. I've had nearly as long a history with the Lamplighters in San Francisco. (I mentioned other performances of Yeomen here in 2005 and 2011.)

Colleen and I had season tickets for somewhere around thirty years, before we moved up to Seattle in 2012. I stayed on their mailing list, mostly out of inertia; it was often rather frustrating. So when they cancelled the 2020 season and started streaming past performances to their patreon supporters every month, I found out about it. Their first was free -- a performance of Pirates of Penzance. Their second was one of their recent Galas, and I might have skipped it, but they also announced that the one after that would be a 2017 performance of Yeomen. Hooked.

I'm not sure why Yeomen is my favorite. Perhaps because it's more serious than the others -- I have a rather ambiguous relationship to comedy. (This post might be something like a succinct explanation, though I really still don't understand it very well, so take it with a couple of bags of salt.) Perhaps it's because of "I have a song to sing, O!", a song I love fiercely, though I rarely get to perform it.

Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see The Yeomen of the Guard, do it. You won't be sorry.