Iolanthe

by W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan

seen at the Coliseum on 24 February 2018

Somehow, in contrast to most attributions in which the composer is listed first and the librettist afterwards (if at all), it is hard to break the conventional reference to 'Gilbert & Sullivan'. In their collaboration, the words (at least to an anglophone audience - and perhaps there are few others) are as important as the music, and the phrase and its initials 'G&S' simply too entrenched. I did it for Pirates but have reverted to type here.

This production, ENO's first in forty years, is directed by Cal McCrystal and conducted (at this performance) by Chris Hopkins from an edition prepared from the original manuscript by Timothy Henty (who conducts most performances in this season). It features Samantha Price as Iolanthe, Yvonne Howard as the Queen f the Fairies, Andrew Shore as the Lord Chancellor, Ellie Laugharne as Phyllis and Marcus Farnsworth as Strephon. The designer was Paul Brown, his last work in a distinguished career, as unfortunately he died late last year.

Satyagraha

by Philip Glass (libretto from the Bhagavada Gita)

seen at the Coliseum on 14 February 2018

This is the second revival of Phelim McDermott's 2007 production, this time conducted by Karen Kamensek and featuring Toby Spence as Gandhi.

The opera has three acts, named Tolstoy, Tagore and King, representing past, present and future in Gandhi's life. It is meditative rather than narrative, and the text is sung entirely in Sanskrit, taken from an ancient poem - thus it could hardly refer directly to any events being depicted visually. (It is interesting, by the way, to note that ENO's policy of singing opera in English has been waived for two Philip Glass operas, this and Akhnaten. The only other exception that I am aware of is John Buller's Bakxai from 1992, which used the ancient Greek of Euripides as its libretto.)