"The Mikado" by The Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company at the Howard Conn Fine Arts Center

This long winter is beginning to transition into a very wet spring, which means it must be time for The Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company's annual production of a Gilbert and Sullivan classic comic opera. GSVLOC has been around for 40 years, but this is just my 5th year attending their spring show. I love G&S's fast, witty, joyful operas, and GSVLOC does them well with a huge cast and orchestra. This year they've partnered with Rick Shiomi, directing his adaptation of The Mikado which removes the Japanese stereotypes and modernizes some of the songs. G&S were famous for their biting social commentary, so I'm all for updating their shows to include more relevant social commentary, remove the offensive bits that no longer play to today's audience, but keep the things we love about the original (see also Park Square Theatre's Pirates of Penzance). This Mikado welcomes in the spring "with laughing song and merry dance."

"Princess Ida" by Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company at Howard Conn Fine Arts Center

This is the fourth year in a row I've attended Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company's spring production of, you guessed it, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Before becoming familiar with this company (that's been around for more than 30 years), I had no idea G&S wrote so many shows! I was only familiar with the more popular ones (e.g., Pirates of Penzance and H.M.S. Pinafore, both of which I love), and it's been fun to discover the lesser known and performed works of this unique composing team. This year they're performing Princess Ida in a steampunk style (which just makes everything more fun). And similar to Park Square Theatre's ingenious adaptation of Pirates of Penzance (now playing through March 24), GSVLOC has made some minor adjustments that make this 130 year old play a little more palatable to modern ears. The result is quite a feminist story of a university by and for women, who live without men. It's Gilbert and Sullivan, so of course it ends with a happy ending to a love story, but at least these female characters are a little more smart and independent than the usual. And as always, it's such a treat to the ears to hear an operetta performed with cast and orchestra too large to count (but north of 30). Traditional, yet modern, this Princess Ida strikes just the right tone.