Aboard the Pinafore with Lamplighters

Sir Joseph Porter (Carly Ozard, center) with most of the rest of the Pinafore cast (and a no-so-subtle political message)

Prior to next weekend’s performances announced late last June, the Lamplighters Music Theatre (LMT) presented a series of performances of H.M.S. Pinafore at the Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. The good news is that yesterday afternoon’s offering was live streamed, meaning that I would be able to report on the production prior to its first appearance in San Francisco on August 16. This was my first encounter with LMT Multimedia, and it could not have been more satisfying.

LMT has consistently found just the right level of wit to match the “topsy-turvy” antics in the text conceived by W. S. Gilbert, and the Lamplighters Orchestra has always had conductors providing music that would reinforce that wit, particularly when it came to breathing life into W. S. Gilbert’s text with Arthur Sullivan’s music. Pinafore was their fourth operatic collaboration, but it was the first to succeed with so much impact that it was performed internationally. For those that to not yet know the story, one of the sailors on the Pinafore, Ralph Rackstraw, is in love with his captain’s daughter, Josephine. However, her father, Captain Corcoran (best known for singing “I am the Captain of the Pinafore”) wants to marry her off to nobility, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Joseph Porter. Porter has many of the show-stealing moments, but most of them involve his faults and weaknesses. Of course, as the plot unfolds, it turns out that Rackstraw and Corcoran were babies switched at birth. Fortunately, there is no shortage of engaging humor in Gilbert’s words (spoken as well as sung); and the music is so memorable that those hooked on the “Gilbert and Sullivan team” will feel completely at home with Conductor Brett Strader’s handling of the score.

Today’s livestream took place through a YouTube Web page. I have no idea whether or not it will be saved for future viewing. However, the text included on that Web page gives generous credit to all the performers involved, as well as the entire staff that made the production possible. This was a “major teamwork” undertaking; but the production could not have been more memorable, however familiar past performances may have been.