Word: ida
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Sometime in the life of every Gilbert and Sullivan company there arises the onerous necessity of mounting Princess Ida--usually after all other possible expedients have been tried. Unfortunately, only Gilbert and Sullivan have ever succeeded in writing a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, and even they only wrote a few. Ida is second-rate, but authentic; a weak sister, but still one of the family. This production is unlikely to make any fanatical converts, but Agassiz these days is still a pretty good place in which to forget worldly cares...
...Ida is the one about education for women, and it shows Gilbert at close to his worst. Behind the gruff whiskers, fat belly, and sharp tongue there lurked a small, narrow, smug, Philistine, and thoroughly reactionary mind, and a nagging weakness for the most squalidly dull-thud variety of pun. Both these latter qualities are prominently on display in Princess Ida. Moreover, some mad infatuation (something, perhaps, to do with the Tennyson poem of which Ida is a parody) led him to cast the thing in blank verse, of the sort Shaw must have had in mind when he said...
Most of the glop falls to Joy Myers as Ida, which is profoundly unfair, since Miss Myers is a big, beautiful girl with a big, beautiful voice, and deserves better. She can belt it out with the best of them when belting is required, but she has a comic sense unusual in a soprano, and manages, almost miraculously, to avoid giving the impression that she is about to emit a "ho-jo-to-ho," grab a horse, and make it back to Valhalla...
...best in some attractive groupings and funny bits, but his business is frequently over-busy, and occasional lost opportunities and miscellaneous lacks of clarity are discernible. The sets had to be simple and portable, since there are three of them; ven de shtate has videred avay, Ida will not have to be set against black curtains, but meanwhile let us praise the witty setpieces of James Peters, especially the down-left second-act tree, which has a neat bird painted...
Withal, if you know what I mean, Ida is a pretty good show. People who like Gilbert and Sullivan will probably be reasonably happy with it. People who do not like Gilbert and Sullivan can go to hell...