International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival


The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival was founded in 1994 by Ian Smith and his son Neil and is held every summer in England. The two- or three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from around the world. Beginning in 2014, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, has hosted the Festival, which was held in Buxton, Derbyshire, from 1994 to 2013.
At the Festival, up to a dozen amateur Gilbert and Sullivan performing societies from around the world compete on the Festival's main stage each year for awards including "International Champion". At the weekends there are professional Gilbert and Sullivan performances, including performances each year by the Festival's homegrown National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. A smaller nearby theatre and other venues host the Festival fringe, which consists of dozens of performances and lectures, a memorabilia fair, and other events.

History

The Festival was founded in 1994 by English businessman Ian Smith and continues to be produced by his wife Janet, son Neil and their family to preserve and enhance the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. It also has a goal of reinstating G&S and the performing arts in schools in Britain. On several occasions, the Festival added a week of performances in the United States. The founders believe that the Gilbert and Sullivan works are an important national heritage and legacy, especially as performed in the tradition of the venerable, year-round D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which performed Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy Operas continuously, year-round, for over a century until 1982. When that company closed in 1982, greatly diminishing the amount of Gilbert and Sullivan produced in Britain, Ian Smith "had a burning anger" that the English Arts Council had not subsidised the company, and this led him to found the Festival.
The Festival was held in Buxton, England, every year from 1994 to 2013, but it has experimented with producing additional Festival weeks in other towns or cities, including Eastbourne, England once; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, twice; Berkeley, California, once; and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, twice. The Festival relocated to Harrogate, England, in 2014. where it continues to be held each summer. Also in recent years, the Festival has also given a week of mostly professional shows in Buxton shortly prior to the main Festival opening in Harrogate.

Description

Each summer, beginning with the last weekend in July or first weekend in August, the Festival includes two or three weeks of nightly G&S operas and dozens of daytime fringe activities, The Festival has sold more than 25,000 tickets in some years and attracts up to 2,000 performers each year.
Sky Arts described the Festival as "one of the most colourful, melodic and joyous festivals of musical theatre you will come across. Celebrating the timeless, waspishly satirical lyrics of W. S. Gilbert and the brilliant musical inventiveness of Arthur Sullivan, the festival is quite simply the world’s biggest event dedicated to the Savoy operas.... It is forward-looking and fun presenting contemporary as well as traditional productions of G&S." The Festival's professional orchestra accompanies the main stage performances.

The competition

At the core of the Festival is a competition among amateur G&S performing troupes from Britain and around the world. Over the course of the Festival, on weeknights, "the best non-professional groups from the UK and overseas compete for the International Champions title." The day of performance for each amateur group is hectic, with move-in to the theatre at 9 a.m., lighting call at 11 a.m., their one and only tech-dress rehearsal in the afternoon, the performance in the evening, and move-out immediately afterwards. A professional adjudicator critiques each amateur performance immediately after the curtain falls. The adjudicator then scores each performance, and both group and individual awards are announced at the end of the Festival.
At the first Festival in 1994, first prize was awarded to the production of Utopia, Limited presented by the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Maine, in the US. The Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company has won the first prize more often than any other company ; and the South Anglia Savoy Players has won five times and placed second four times. Festival Productions, Ireland, won in three consecutive years, 2007 to 2009. Individual awards are also presented for performers, directors and musical directors.
Some groups compete year after year at the Festival, but some companies, especially those travelling from North America, South Africa, Australia and other distant places, may visit only occasionally or once. Some groups meet and rehearse entirely at the Festival, including the internet group SavoyNet, which has competed each year since 1997. SavoyNet were Festival Champions in 2013 and 2018 and are the first and only company thus far to present all 14 G&S operas at the Festival. The Festival organizers also rehearse, during the Festival each year, a "Youth Production" and a "Bus Pass Opera" production. A "Unifest" competition among university groups is presented simultaneously, as part of the Festival fringe.

Professional productions

While the amateur productions compete during weeknights at the Festival, there are weekend professional performances given by companies such as the Carl Rosa Opera Company, Opera della Luna, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, Charles Court Opera, and the Festival's self-produced National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, which has starred such well-known G&S performers as Richard Suart, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham, Gillian Knight, Barry Clark, Michael Rayner, Patricia Leonard, Donald Maxwell, Jill Pert, Gareth Jones, Oliver White, Rebecca Bottone, Ian Belsey and the Opera Babes. John Owen Edwards, David Russell Hulme, or David Steadman often serve as musical director of the company. Sky Arts calls these performers "some of the UK’s finest exponents of musical theatre". Raymond J. Walker wrote of the National G&S Opera Company:
Uniquely among professional companies in Britain, other than D'Oyly Carte, the National G&S Opera Company has presented all 13 of the extant Savoy Operas. The Daily Telegraph "thoroughly enjoyed spirited production" of Utopia, Limited in 2011, an opera that has rarely been given a professional staging in Britain over the past century. In 2012 the Festival mounted the first full-scale professional production with orchestra of The Grand Duke in Britain since the 19th century. In recent years, the company has produced at least three productions at each Festival, giving a total of up to 16 performances there, while the other professional companies give a few performances each.
In 2010, the National G&S Opera Company presented its first production outside of the Festival, The Yeomen of the Guard, at Oxford Castle. Two of its 2012 productions were repeated in Harrogate, and all three of its 2013 productions transferred there after the Festival. In 2014, the company began touring its productions in repertory from June to August 2014, giving performances in each of six cities. A review of the opening night of the 2014 tour praised the direction, choreography and conducting of The Pirates of Penzance and said of the company:
They are a real find with strong production values, a great orchestra and first class singing. Musically, this is a very strong show. It all looks marvellous with picture book settings and eye catching costumes plus a full and energetic cast.... It all works superbly with a company obviously enjoying themselves. The chorus work is top notch, and they all come across as individuals.

The National G&S Opera Company has generally staged four productions in Harrogate each summer since 2015, also touring them to other cities and towns, including Buxton. In 2018, in connection with the 25th anniversary of the Festival, the company presented six productions, including the first professional production of Haddon Hall since the 19th century.

Venues and fringe events

All of the competition performances and the weekend professional performances are given on the Festival's main stage. From 1994 to 2013, that was the Frank Matcham-designed 900-seat Buxton Opera House. Beginning in 2014, the main stage has been the 1,100-seat Royal Hall in Harrogate, another Matcham-designed theatre. These performances are nearly always accompanied by the "National Festival Orchestra". A review of a 2010 performance noted, "The music was up to usual high standard, with the orchestra ... giving a superb and sprightly reading of the Overture and score throughout." The Festival also hosts dozens of performances and fringe activities in smaller venues. In Buxton, these included the 360-seat Pavilion Arts Centre. In Harrogate, some fringe performances have been held in the 500-seat Harrogate Theatre and others at various venues in and around the town, including at the Festival's purpose-built Savoy theatre.
The "fringe" activities have included performances, master classes and lectures by members of the original D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other professionals, and a late night Festival Club, where cabaret performances are given each evening after the opera, and sometimes a G&S singalong is conducted. Recent years have included scholarly symposia, and rarely revived works by Gilbert or separately by Sullivan are also seen. There is also a G&S memorabilia fair, providing a chance for collectors and gift hunters to buy and sell G&S recordings, DVDs, books, scores, figurines and other items of interest. Fringe events also include recitals, concerts, lectures and productions of lesser-known works by Gilbert without Sullivan, Sullivan without Gilbert, works that played as companion pieces with the Gilbert and Sullivan operas during their original productions and other Victorian and Edwardian works.

Effect and allure of the Festival

The Festival serves as a "lightning-rod" of G&S activity worldwide. G&S performers and audiences from one part of the world can see performances by groups from other parts of the world. Performances in the traditional style mix with avant garde ones, and G&S scholars can communicate with a wide audience of enthusiasts.
A feature in Gilbert & Sullivan News noted: "The amateur performances were of a very high standard.... There is a lovely atmosphere... of Gilbert and Sullivan thriving, being enjoyed, and drawing everyone together as a family." The Festival has developed "a reputation for being one of the friendliest musical festivals anywhere, with people returning year after year to soak up its special atmosphere."
In addition, the Festival aims to raise awareness and funds for its organizers' efforts to re-introduce G&S into British schools. The Festival has been featured in several British television shows and in the documentary films Oh Mad Delight and A Source of Innocent Merriment. Sky Arts broadcast its features about the Festival and Gilbert and Sullivan several times in 2010.

Recordings

Recordings on DVD of most of the amateur and professional productions that have been seen at the Festival, as well as for some of the fringe events, are produced by the Festival organizers. Some of the Festival's professional shows are also available on CD.

Companies that have performed at the Festival

;Professional
;Most successful amateur UK award winners
;Foreign amateur competitors
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