The Puppets of Penzance

Backyard Broadway Theater—Creative Manitoba

There were a lot of children in the audience and I wasn’t sure they would be entertained for an hour by opera, despite it being a puppet show. Among all the younger bodies, I only saw one get distracted after the 50-minute mark; the rest were enrapt with the entire show. This is definitely, very kid-friendly.

As an adult, I found this a wonderfully entertaining outing. I’ve seen a lot (A LOT) of opera in my life and this is not the snobby, high-brow kind of thing that everyday laypeople cannot enjoy. Quite the contrary, the silly music and songs of Gilbert and Sullivan juxtaposed beautifully with the outrageousness of the puppets. The coupling resulted in a perfect marriage of fun, entertainment and amusement. Until the tragic part (and it’s not THAT tragic), I found myself with a smile on my face through the entire outing.

For the opera-phobic, most people I know who don’t like opera, specifically do not like the soprano voice. There is only one soprano who performs only two, abbreviated arias. There’s one bass and the rest of the cast comprises of altos and tenors, which are very approachable to all audiences. Most of the operas I see are in either Italian or German with surtitles. This is sung entirely in English, which makes it a bit of a challenge at times to hear what they say without the captioning, but worry not- the plot is simple enough that you do not miss a beat.

Tip for the cast: although I sat closer to the side, there were a couple of instances where the Diva/Uomo faced the target character and turned their back on me (meaning my side of the audience). At most, you should be 90-degrees when talking/singing to the other characters.

Lovely, lovely time—bravo!

Ray Yuen