Event

The Sorcerer

Before there was Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey, there was The Sorcerer Gilbert & Sullivan's playful look at love and magic in the class-conscious world of Victorian England. In the little West Country village of Ploverleigh, Alexis and Aline are getting engaged. He's the heir to the lord of the manor; she's similarly high-born. His father and her mother were in love long ago; they married others, but both are now widowed and available. Alexis is so in love with love that he wants everyone to experience it, regardless of age, rank or wealth. He hires a real magician to spike the tea at their betrothal party with a love potion that will make the villagers fall for the first person they see. It's Downton Abbey meets A Midsummer Night's Dream as Alexis' grand plan comes back to bite him in the tail, and only drastic measures can set things right.

The Sorcerer (1877, revised 1884) was Gilbert & Sullivan's first full-length light opera written for Richard D'Oyly Carte. The three formed a company of comic singer/actors and wrote parts to suit them; here are the prototypes of the G&S patter man, the stout and stolid baritone, and the aging contralto, among others. Sullivan drew from the English folksong and ballad-opera traditions as well as Continental opera; the show abounds in delicate melodies and rousing marches and drinking songs.

- Production Stage Director Tony Parkes