PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
This month TER re-releases five recordings from the acclaimed series - The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's Complete Gilbert And Sullivan Recordings. These are The Pirates Of Penzance, The Mikado, The Yeoman Of The Guard, HMS Pinafore and The Gondoliers.

Gilbert and Sullivan, one of the most famous and successful writing partnerships in music, need little introduction. Their works are continually staged internationally, they have themselves been the subject of numerous books and feature films and their place as the great musical innovators of the operetta form, is assured within the cannon of British musical history.

All these recordings bring together high profile, international stars of stage and screen, working alongside some of the most acclaimed musical directors and conductors, a number of which will already be familiar to lovers of the TER catalogue.

Performers include:
Yvonne Barclay, Alfred Boe, Frances McCafferty, Tom McVeigh, Gordon Sandison, James Cleverton, Stephen Davis, Gaynor Keeble, Chorus & Orchestra of the D'Oyly Carte Opera conducted by John Owen Edwards







AMAZON
This delightful two-CD set is based on a 1995 D'Oyly Carte production, which was revived to great acclaim in London's Royal Festival Hall in August 1999. The recording was made just a month later, and as a result has a dramatic tautness about it and musical flexibility which keeps the comedy absolutely fresh. The tempi feel just right--brisk for the set pieces and more relaxed for the sentimental numbers, though without a hint of mawkishness. The casting is excellent, for the voices are all of the light lyric or character kind perfect for the genre, and no one overacts while singing. Yvonne Barclay is particularly impressive, and brings real vulnerability to her rendition of Josephine's Act 2 "God of love, God of reason" aria. The only problem with the disc is the inclusion of the dialogue scenes, which, as so often happens when removed from the oxygen of live theatre, simply gasp and die. As if in compensation however, the set includes the diverting duet "Reflect, my child", which was cut from the first production and has since been reconstructed from recently discovered band parts. --Warwick Thompson