It’s a real pleasure to find a non-professional company still staging an annual show mostly G&S (twelve out of twenty this century) as they have been doing since 1973 – and doing it pleasingly.

Director Leon Berger takes us to the land of make-believe with this production. Frederick is, after all, reckoning by his “natal day” just a “little boy of five”. So with 21st birthday balloons aloft, we’re in a colourful nursery classroom in which pirates with scarves round their waists play with wooden swords and there are lots of wind-up dolls and policemen. But it’s a gentle conceit. Beyond that it’s a pretty straight account of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 piece.

Someone at Ferrier Opera Company understands that the important thing about making G&S work in the 21st century is to respect the music and have faith in it. And Gilbert’s words are as funny and clever as ever. For the most part they don’t need tinkering with.

I was thrilled, therefore, to hear Hail Poetry – the lovely four line anthem which Sullivan pokes in apropos of nothing in particular – beautifully sung by a totally still cast, lights dimmed and an illuminated photograph of Sir Arthur at the back. Later I was also delighted to hear another anthem To Queen Victoria’s Name sung with the same respect and precision in the second half – this is an unusual inclusion because there are three versions of the Pirates of Penzance owing to “cock-ups” relating to first performances, copyright issues and the first production in New York.

Of course some cast members are a lot stronger than others but Andy Lee excels as Frederick. His tenor voice is delightfully resonant (nothing as crass as radio mics in this production) and he convinces completely as the dutiful young man who falls passionately in love with Mabel (Rebecca Foster). She matches him perfectly with her piercing soprano voice. Yes, she has great fun with her show piece top notes but also duets very sensitively with Lee. Every note and every word is placed with accurate warmth. Both are accomplished actors too.

Other cast members doing a fine job include Jackie Mitchell as Ruth the “piratical maid of all work” whom Frederick loves as his nursemaid but rejects as his bride. She has some good low contralto notes. Nice 2022 touch to have her team up with another woman at the finale so she gets a happy ending like everyone else.

Andy Noakes is a pretty competent Major General – making his first entrance in 19th century striped bathers, flippers and bearing an inflatable unicorn because he’s come straight from swimming in the sea. Much is made of pretending he can’t manage the rhymes and needing cast help in his famous song. He’s also a strong lyrical baritone as well as a watchable actor. I also enjoyed Nathan Killen’s deliciously Irish Samuel – he sings well too.

Musical Director, David Stephens gets a nice sound from his bijoux 12 piece band – working from the proper, if cramped, pit offered by the Bob Hope Theatre. He brings out one or two textual details that are often lost in larger scale renderings. And three cheers for the decision to play the overture and let us listen to it without stagey distraction. The enthusiastic chorus escaped from him several times during the performance I saw but each time he managed to get them back on track after a few bars. I suspect some cast members are not very good at keeping a discreet eye on the conductor.

It’s a decent show, though, and I’m really thrilled that Ferrier Opera Society is doing this sort of thing. Princess Ida next year!

Susan Elkin

Arnold’s Tam O’Shanter overture is a brave choice for an opener because it must be a challenge to get all those potentially disparate elements together. Brian Wright, however, ensured we heard incisive percussion and bold brass against threatening strings until the folksy Scots melodies break boozily through. And it was all pretty coherent.

Daniel Lebhardt is a calm but charismatic perfomer, well supported by Wright who is always good at musical collaboration with young soloisits. The second Rachmaninov concerto may have become a bit of a war horse but here it sounded fresh – and almost fragrant. The first movement (Moderato) was thoughtfully warm with a nicely judged balance between flute and piano while Lebhardt brought a lot of intensity to the second movement in which I particularly admired the clarity of the muted string work. The soloist’s insouciant musical charm helped to deliver a lively finale (Allegro scherzando) in which the orchestra did wonders with nicely punctuated syncopation and what fun that pianissimo cymbal rhythm is.

For his encore Lebhardt took us to a different sound world with a nod to his homeland and Schubert’s Hungarian Melody. It was a gentle but elegant contrast.

And so to Sibelius Symphony number 2, which Wright packed with all the brooding tension it needs, having observed soberly in his introduction that it was written in 1901 against a background of Finland trying to free itself from Russian rule – an alarmingly topical issue at present.

The orchestra found fluttery anxiety in the repeated crotchet motif which dominates the opening Allegretto and gave us a brooding, unsettling second movement in which the bassoons packed real menace and the silent pauses were eloquent. The Vivacissimo whipped along as it should but without blurring of sound and there was wistful warmth in the contrasting oboe-led melody.

It’s all too easy to over play the big dramatic shift into the final movement but Wright resisted that in this measured performance – just letting the music speak for itself as it worked towards the (very marked on this occasion) final melodic statement led by the cellos.

Thus we got a resounding end to MSO’s 111th season. Roll on the 112th.

Susan Elkin

If you want your Sibelius served up with verve, passion and fresh richness then get a charismatic young Finn to conduct it. Ross Jamie Collins doesn’t look, to borrow a cliché, old enough to have left school, and actually that’s almost the case. He is 20.

Born in Nottingham in 2002 he has been living in Helsinki since 2008 and describes himself as Finnish-British. He is a Salonen scholar and studies with Esa-Pekka Salonen. And he’s a force to be reckoned with.

In this performance of Symphony No 2 I loved his management of the intersectional dialogue in the Allegretto and the beautiful pianissimo timpani work. In the andante he made the pizzicato section at the beginning sound more mysteriously dramatic than I’ve ever heard it and by the time he reached the trademark Sibelius grandiloquence at the end of the movement he was literally jumping for joy although in general he’s a self assured but not flamboyant conductor.

The Vivacissimo is one of those “good luck and see you at the end” movments played here with crisp dexterity before the beautiful oboe melody is gradually picked up and developed. And, my word, how Collins milked the rallentando transition into the Finale – and brought it off in spades. This is a young man who clearly loves Sibelius and inspires everyone around him because the Philharmonia played the whole symphony with panache.

At the end of the symphony at one point the orchestra – some of whose members are thirty or forty years older than Collins – refused to stand at his behest because they wanted him to take more credit from the audience which was giving huge amounts of enthusiastic applause. It was a moving moment.

Before the interval Randall Goosby played the Mendelssohn E minor violin concerto, standing very close to Collins with lots of eye contact so that we had a strong sense of two young men duetting. He brought effortless warmth to the first movement especially in the colourful cross string work and dramatically paused harmonics. I loved the gently graceful segue into the andante which he played with all the lyricism it needs before he brought delightful lightness to the third movement. He is a performer who smiles a lot – clearly relishing the sheer loveliness of what he’s doing.

I often reflect that the encore tradition in concerts is an odd one: a bit like playing the title role in King Lear and then being expected to drop in a bit of Alan Bennett at curtain call. On this occasion Goosby rose to the versatility challenge admirably and played Louisiana Blues Strut by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson. With its slides, double stopping, and blues-y swing rhythms it was a perfect choice for a young, black American – and about as far from Mendelssohn as could be, in every sense.

The concert opened with Carl Nielsen’s very programmatic Overture Helios, a familiar piece from recordings but I’d never heard it live. Collins gave us immaculately pinpointed string work, starting small, his gestures growing larger as the sun and the piece reach their zenith. I admired the way he allowed the viola melody to sing as the sun finally sets.

I was forcibly struck that this reviewer is old enough to remember seeing Pierre Monteux. Adrian Boult, Antal Dorati and Otto Klemper conduct live. In front of me at the Marlowe Theatre was a boy of about eight watching Ross Jamie Collins. Decades hence, when Collins is a grand old man of music, that child will remember this concert and tell his grandchildren about it. I felt, in a strange way, as if my presence was a link between the music making of the 1960s with that of the 2060s.

Susan Elkin