ARTS High aesthetic line

JOHN HIGGINS

ere is a great deal of talk about love in atience (which has just joined the Sadler's Veils repertory at the Coliseum), and the eason surely is that the commodity is in istinctly short supply within the precincts f Castle Bunthorne. Reginald Bunthorne imself looks a ready made bachelor even at he height of his popularity : no surprise hen that he remarks with little sorrow uring the closing bars of the opera 'single must live and die'. Archibald Grosvenor, at prime Narcissus among baritones, im- robably takes on the clothes and accents

a jolly Bank-holiday masher before he an contemplate any attachment.

And the ladies, those twenty lovesick) aidens? They are sick of nothing but the lion of keeping up with the fashion, chasing fter the latest idol, whether it is Bunthorne, r Grosvenor, Bob Dylan or Jane Birkin4 he exception possibly is Lady Jane, but the oment she starts getting entangled in the hreads of passion Gilbert has her laughed ff the premises with the last four lines of er aria: Stouter than I used to be, Still more corpulent grow I— There will be too much of me In the coming by and by!

ullivan at this point declined to join in the pirit of the thing and preferred to give Lady ane one of his most elegiac melodies, which of surprisingly became a much favoured rawing-room ballad. But Jane still stands the chance.

The whole mood is summed up in Patience erself, one of those incredibly innocent eroines Gilbert delighted to create. There e is, almost twenty if the evidence of her uet with Angela, 'Long years ago, is to be l'eved, wrapped up in a milky Arcady of utter churns where sex has no place at all:

G But is it possible that you have never ved anybody?

Yes, one.

'G Ah! Whom?

My great aunt, 'G Great aunts don't count.

In Patience there is more than a hint of lanthe, the next Gilbert and Sullivan opera; its escape from human flesh and blood.

• stle Bunthorne is a monument to sexless tifice, and this is precisely the tone caught John Cox's excellent production at the I iseum.

The drop cloth, with a Wildean sunflower its centre, goes up to show the maidens aped over the Castle grounds. Their cob- bby grey velvets blend with the exterior Château Bunthorne, then their pre- aphaelite tresses fall gracefully around the liars once they are inside. John Stoddart's for the first act, which looks a little like unt Ory's place redesigned by William orris, is built for posing, and he gives the aidens some exquisite clothes for posing in. ey also happen to look rather well against red and yellow uniform of the Heavy "goons. despite Jane's anguished cry rimary colours! Oh, South Kensington !' A great deal of care has gone into dressing this Patience and John Stoddart has managed to keep to the letter of Gilbert's text, right down to Bunthorne's 'dirty greens' (perhaps to go with his vegetable love) and still come up with a delicious spectacle.

Probably this is as well, for the first act of Patience takes a little time to get going. The insipidity of the heroine is partially to blame —Sullivan gave her two of his least dis- tinguished soprano airs ; partially it is be- cause we are all waiting for the meeting of Bunthorne and Grosvenor, which does not occur until the finale. Sullivan might possibly have guessed that there was something wrong with the pacing of this act : with the excep- tion of `Prithee, pretty maiden', an exercise in his own Early English style like 'Strange adventure', he saved all the best songs for the second half.

In Act 2 Sullivan produces winner after winner, and those who tend to praise him for writing in the style of other composers (which he did with ease, particularly in The Pirates of Penzance) would do well to listen to his own voice here. There is constant elegance and once Lady Jane's aria is over Gilbert and Sullivan are at one in their thoughts ; the feeling, too often present in that first act, that Gilbert was holding the upper hand dis- appears before a flow of totally apt melody.

Derek Hammond Stroud is a superb Bun- thorne, a fleshly poet if ever there was one, almost bursting out of his velveteen costume. The mock-Weber recitative of 'Am I alone' is funny, but funnier by far are the duets with Jane and Grosvenor. Hammond Stroud is an artist who is at his best with someone to work with or against: the reactions become quicksilver, the articulation immaculate. Neither John Reed nor Martyn Green seemed particularly at home with Bunthorne for the D'Oyly Carte Company, but Derek Hammond Stroud has certainly got him right for Sadler's Wells.

• Emile Belcourt plays Grosvenor as a Fran- cesca di Rimini, niminy, pimihy, je-ne-sais- quoi young man—Gilbert's circumlocution for camp. He is gracefully infatuated with his own beauty, reflected in the lily pool or merely in the eyes of others. The sense of

Sullivan line was missing to begin with ; this was possibly because Kenneth Montgomery's conducting favoured slowish tempi. Both though should soon find their natural pace —there is plenty of promise there.

Eric Shilling, Alan Charles and John Delaney are the admirable trio of military men. Shirley Chapman is in splendid eye- rolling form as Lady Angela and Heather Begg makes fun, a little too much fun, of Lady Jane. Wendy Baldwin is miscast as Patience, having neither the pretty innocence Margaret Mitchell brought to the part—arch- ness is no substitute—nor good enough articu- lation.

But perhaps the ladies get a poor deal. When Derek Hammond Stroud. Emile Bel- court and Eric Shilling are on stage together Patience turns out to be a game played with a pack of male cards.