Restore the "Pinafore"

“Here’s a How-De-Do!” I have recently come to the unwelcome realization that we may be on the brink of losing one of our great cultural and comedic treasures: the hilarious operas of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Our own generation, it would seem, has been largely deprived of these delightful collaborations, composed in England from the 1870s through the Gay Nineties. I myself have only the most fleeting familiarity with the duo’s work, but “When I Was a Lad”, my parents took me to see “The Mikado”, and I honestly may not have laughed as hard before or since. But “Never Mind the Why and the Wherefore”, it is high time to “let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime” that is the forgetfulness of our age. If you are turned off by the word “opera” and dates beginning in a numbers lower than 19, “Behold the Lord High Executioner!” of your modernist prejudices. The centerpiece of the Gilbert & Sullivan genius is the “patter song,” which is sort of like rap music, but with singing, diction and actual words. Check out some of these gems on YouTube, or rent the wonderful 1983 film adaptation of “The Pirates of Penzance” with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt, and I suspect you will rapidly become hooked. You might not know it yet, but your liberal arts education has equipped you well to be “the very model of a modern Major-General.”