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A fine day out
2006-07-30 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mdlbear Went to the Lamplighters production of Ruddygore, taking ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jilara along instead of our stick-in-the-mud Younger Daughter.
Her loss. The Lamplighters did an excellent job, as usual, though the
sets were a little too minimalistic for my taste. Basically sketch-like,
two-dimensional flats; the scenes where the pictures step out of their
frames was done by pulling up the flats, to reveal a distant backdrop of
clouds in a night sky. I really preferred the old sets, where the picture
frames held a painted scrim that was pulled away to allow the ancestors to
step through.
The music, however, was completely up to Lamplighter standards. Ruddygore (that's the original name, btw, before it was changed to Ruddigore so as not to offend tender Victorian sensibilities) has some of the finest music of any G&S -- the silly songs are appropriately silly, the tender love songs are among their prettiest, and the overture and "The Dead of the Night's High Noon" are just plain awesome.
I realized sometime during the second act that the right way for me to do "I Have a Song to Sing, Oh" (from Yeomen of the Guard -- it's one I've been wanting work on for quite some time) in concert would be to open with the verses from the first act, and close with the two verses from the finale. Duh.
Driving home, we saw a curtain of slanted dark streaks coming down from a cloud, which I identified as rain that was probably evaporating before it hit the ground. Further evidence was provided about 10 minutes later as a little patch of rainbow appeared in front of the streaks. Total confirmation came as we were on our way to dinner after picking up the Y D at home -- a sprinkling of large raindrops.
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Date: 2006-07-31 06:18 am (UTC)(cues that annoying little Disney tune...)
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Date: 2006-07-31 06:28 am (UTC)alt.callahanstogether, back in the day.Wait -- you know
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Date: 2006-07-31 06:39 am (UTC)no, wait. You might've known
But, yeah. It's a damn small world.
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Date: 2006-07-31 07:02 am (UTC)Did "Someplace in the Net" strike a chord, perhaps?
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Date: 2006-07-31 07:05 am (UTC)A lot of folks use the net to escape... me, I use it to meet people I wouldn't otherwise meet, and very much like to put faces to names and exchange hugs as appropriate. It's been a very good year so far for meeting new and interesting people. I'm hoping GaFilk and Consonance continue that...
Ruddygore
Date: 2006-08-24 02:35 pm (UTC)I'm jim Campbell, the Lamplighte's stage manager. I just read your very preceptive notes with glee: all the reviewers liked the set, which I also thought was too minamalistic -- a function of budget (or lack thereof.
I thought you might be interested to know that Sullivan's overture for Ruddygore is no longer used (he didn't write it anyway...all of the overtures except Iolanthe, Yeomen and Mikado (?) were written by Alfred Cellier, sullivans very capable assistant, generally under the Maestro's supervision. The original Ruddigore overture is simply not up to the usual standard. the overture that you heard was done by compser Geoffrey Toye on commission from the D'Oyley Carte in 1929.
Another useless tidbit: The evapoating rain you saw is very common in the southwest deserts, It's called a 'virga'
Thanks for posting good things about Lamplighters. We'll try to get you a better set next time!
All the best
Jim Campbell
PSM LMT
jjcampbellpsm@juno.com
Re: Ruddygore
Date: 2006-08-28 05:19 am (UTC)And welcome to Livejournal! Useful, especially if many of your friends are on it, but somewhat addictive.