Set the merry joybells ringing, for the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players have at last arrived at years of discretion! Every season has its cheer, and especially this season, as the city's foremost professional Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company is turning 50. In commemoration of this joyous occasion, the group will kick off their 2024-25 season with a Golden Jubilee, both celebrating the company's anniversary and honoring the 150th anniversary of Trial By Jury, the earliest extant collaboration between the playwright-and-composer pair.
The October 19 Golden Jubilee, which will be held at Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, will be free to the public, with advance registration online. Festivities will begin in the afternoon with a musical and visual history of New York Gilbert Players, featuring comparisons of the original 19th century productions with NYGASP's productions of each show since 1974. That evening, after dinner, the NYGASP company and full orchestra will give a concert featuring NYGASP Artistic Director Albert Bergeret's "Founder's Favorites," as well as audience requests.
The opera season will commence in November with of Ruddigore. Parodying the popular Gothic fiction of the early 19th century, Ruddigore follows members of the Murgatroyd family, the "Bad Baronets of Ruddigore," who have been cursed to be compelled to commit a crime every day or perish in inconceivable agonies. Originally considered something of a disappointment, Ruddigore was never revived within the authors' lifetimes. However, Sir Roderic's claim that "in a couple of centuries I shall be an Old Master," proved prophetic. The opera gained in popularity during the 20th century, and has become an established part of the core Gilbert and Sullivan repertory, its evocative Gothic aesthetic making it a popular choice for the Halloween season.
In January, the company will produce the perennially popular Pirates of Penzance—an appropriate choice for an anniversary season, being that it opens with a birthday celebration. As a young boy, Frederic was mistakenly apprenticed to a band of pirates. Although morally opposed, he is, like the Baronets of Ruddigore, nevertheless bound to aid in their crimes, at least until his 21st birthday, when he comes of age and is freed from his indentures—or so he thinks. Unique among Gilbert and Sullivan's works, The Pirates of Penzance was written with an American audience in mind. When their previous collaboration, H.M.S. Pinafore, proved unexpectedly popular in the United States, with unauthorized pirated productions popping up left and right, the writers decided to premier their next opera in New York, making The Pirates of Penzance the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera to have its world premiere on Broadway, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. Appropriately, The Pirates of Penzance has remained popular in the United States to this day, and will even be coming back to Broadway in a new adaptation next year.
NYGASP's New York season will conclude in April with Iolanthe. Although not as popular in the United States, Iolanthe is considered by many fans to be one of the finest works of the canon, featuring a pointed blend of satire and pathos. The fairy Iolanthe has been banished from Fairyland for the crime of marrying a mortal, and her son Strephon courts a similar sentence by seeking the hand of Phyllis, a ward in Chancery. When the Lord Chancellor recklessly insults the Fairy Queen, a battle ensues between the Fairies and the House of Lords, with Strephon and Phyllis caught in the center.
Ruddigore, The Pirates of Penzance, and Iolanthe, will be performed at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre at John Jay College. In between New York productions, the company will go on the road, touring their productions of H.M.S. Pinafore in January, and The Mikado in March.
For more information, including tickets, visit NYGASP.org.
