Between them, The Yeomen of the Guard and Trial by Jury contain all that is best in Sullivan’s music for the theatre. In the former there is some of his more serious and ambitious writing, in the latter some of his most consistently light-hearted and engaging.
All of this is brought out in the latest of Telarc’s series of recordings with Welsh National Opera. As always, Sir Charles Mackerras paces the music impeccably, and he has assured contributions from such stalwarts as Donald Adams, Felicity Palmer and Richard Suart. The last-named may be a shade light-voiced compared with some of the more comic performers of Jack Point and the Learned Judge; but in The Yeomen it is surely his performance that stands out. His handling of the dialogue after “Here’s a man of jollity” is masterly, and his “Oh, a private buffoon” is as winning as any I have heard, with impeccable clarity of diction and a perfectly judged French accent for “jests... imported from France”. Neill Archer and Alwyn Mellor are admirable as Fairfax and Elsie; but I feel that Pamela Helen Stephen could have displayed more of the minx in Phoebe Meryll’s personality, while in Trial by Jury Barry Banks seems to me to have too small a voice to convince as the Defendant.
If this set doesn’t quite stand out in the same way as Mackerras’s Mikado (5/92) and Pinafore (1/95) it would still be my clear recommendation from the three versions of The Yeomen of the Guard listed above. Anyone who wants any of Gilbert’s dialogue, though, must go for the Marriner version, while the D’Oyly Carte disc (TER) has a good sense of theatre. Yet perhaps the major competition still comes from the 1964 D’Oyly Carte coupling of the same works, with Sargent conducting Yeomen in relaxed but winning fashion and Elizabeth Harwood still unmatched as Elsie Maynard.'