Celebrating the organization’s 70th year, SF Lamplighters is preparing its first live show with the full orchestra after two years of pandemic restrictions. The semi-staged concert, with scenes and scenic elements from all 14 Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, is scheduled for Feb. 19–20 in San Francisco and March 5–6 in Mountain View. Nicolas Aliaga Garcia is director and David Drummond conducts 16 performers and the 21-member Lamplighters Orchestra.
Lamplighters Executive and Artistic Director Cheryl Blalock told SFCV what to expect at the “Sesquicentennial Soirée of Scenes: Celebrating 150 Years of Gilbert & Sullivan”:
It’s planned as a concert of equals, basically equal distribution of solos, everyone singing ensemble on the rest of the numbers. It is the first time for most of these folks to get to sing the glorious choruses, as they are all leads. The G&S choruses are exquisite, and folks are quite happy to sing them.
Since the show comprises scenes from 14 operas, the set will be draped banners with emblems from each show, and major props such a pirate’s chest, a ship’s wheel, a throne (Gondoliers), etc.
The show will be about 90 minutes, no intermission. All singers leave their masks at the stage entrance, stay onstage the whole time, then leave and pick up their masks. So, we keep the singers safe. Any meet-and-greet will be outside. All shows are matinees.
Not since a memorable Princess Ida in January of 2020 has the company had an opportunity to work, except for a free outdoor event in August last year and streamed gala in October.
Stories of “our” Lamplighters facing adversity is reminiscent of what English performers of works by dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836 – 1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842 – 1900) went through once the Victorian Age ended. At the beginning of their collaboration, in the 1870s, the Empire’s peace and prosperity (except for children in coal mines at home and colonial exploitation abroad) still held firm. It continued to do so until the queen’s death in 1901, and Europe’s period of artistic frenzy lasted until the tragedy of the Great War began in 1914.
Then, and even more so during World War II and the Blitz, the Savoyards and English musical theater carried on, even under circumstances that are difficult to imagine today.
Besides resuming performances, Lamplighters are also making an effort to reach out to the community. “We are inviting young students to our productions,” Blalock says. “We are making a large number of seats for each performance available free, with one student and one accompanying adult free per household. The invitation will go to schools and youth music theater programs in the San Francisco and South Bay areas.”
