Gilbert & Sullivan - Ruddigore / Michell, Price, Trevelyan, Opera World

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FEATURING THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND A HOST OF INTERNATIONAL STARS, INCLUDING VINCENT PRICE, JOEL GRAY, PETER MARSHALL, KEITH MITCHELL, FRANKIE HOWERD AND PETER ALLEN. FILMED IN ENGLAND AND CREATED ESPECIALLY FOR TV, THEY HAVE DELIGHTED FANS ON PBS AND THE BBC. .com ---- Ruddigore, a pseudo-melodramatic ghost story, became most famous for the moment when the portraits of Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd's ancestors spring to life and demand that he uphold the family curse of performing a crime every day. Less flawlessly balanced between score and libretto than some of Gilbert and Sullivan's works, it's a pleasurable t set to gorgeous music. Since this is the only version widely available, we're lucky it's so good. Vincent Price is wonderfully typecast as Despard Murgatroyd, the brother who hands over the title and the curse when Ruthven gives up hiding from his evil e. Price can't sing--and he has a good 15 years on Keith Michell, who plays his older brother--but it really doesn't matter. He carries off his performance with supreme deftness. Unlike many G&S productions, this one is admirably free of mugging; the actors don't condescend to their material. The staging is as beautifully absurd as the plot. The chorus of professional bridesmaids are an indistinguishable unit out of a fractured fairy tale, ing in one bed and showing up in the middle of other people's scenes; and during a lovely but dramatically static madrigal, the cast plays croquet. Part of the Opera World series of 12 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, produced in the early 1980s, Ruddigore is among the best in an uneven project. --David Olivenbaum P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); From the Back Cover ------------------- From the popular series seen on PBS and the BBC. A witch's curse binds each Lord of Ruddigore to commit a crime a day - or die. Meantime, in the local fishing village, all the young men are in love with pretty Rose Maybud. Her secret favorite is Robin who, unfortunately, is really the Lord of Ruddigore, living incognito to avoid the family curse. He is exposed and forced into a life of crime, until faultless logic offers an ingenious solution and a blissful reunion with Rose. Featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Opera Chorus and starring Vincent Price, John Treleaven, Sandra Dugdale, Keith Michell and Ann Howard. DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE an introduction to the opera by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Gilbert & Sullivan profile, song index and companion booklet featuring the Ruddigore libretto. See more ( javascript:void(0) )