Jacobs to premiere H.M.S. Pinafore

White and navy-clad sailors mopped the deck of a large wooden ship, singing and dancing in tune to the orchestra music.

At the dress rehearsal of “H.M.S. Pinafore” on Tuesday, the cast’s operatic notes reverberated off the walls of the Musical Arts Center without the amplification of a single microphone.

Jacobs School of Music and the Musical Arts Center will premiere “H.M.S. Pinafore,” an opera set on a British cruise liner, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

The opera follows low-class sailor Ralph Rackstraw, played by actor and vocal performance major Trey Smagur, as he tries to impress the captain’s daughter, Josephine, on a mid-nineteenth century British ship.

“Most of the story is me trying to pine for her affection and being mocked by the members of the crew because I’m trying to woo someone on such a high level,” he said.

Smagur was cast as Rackstraw after he auditioned in August at the opera “cattle-call” auditions, during which singers audition for all of this season’s opera productions.
However, “H.M.S. Pinafore” is a bit different from other operas, he said. While it does include the typical conflict of love and nobility common in other operas, the notion is mocked.

“Thematically speaking, the show is all about equality,” director Michael Shell said. “While the opera takes place in the 1800s, it pokes fun at the inequalities we still have in our society. Shows like this were much like the ‘Daily Show’ of their day.”

“H.M.S. Pinafore” is Shell’s first production at IU. He was contacted by Timothy Stebbins, executive director of productions of the musical arts center, about directing at IU.

Stebbins told Shell he had been following his career and invited him down as a guest director.

“I had wanted to direct at IU for a few years but didn’t know how to make that happen,” Shell said. “This school, like the metropolitan opera, is steeped in operatic history, so this is a huge honor for me to be here.”
The opera is a comedy, which Shell said provided a lot of challenges for the cast and crew.
“Unlike a drama, timing must be so specific in a comedy in order for the humor to play clearly to the audience,” Shell said. “There is very little left to chance with comedy.”
Actress Eileen Jennings, who plays the role of Buttercup, said the comedy is her favorite part.

“I adore comedy,” she said. “That’s the fun part of this opera, taking something archaic and making it modern and achieving laughter from it.”

Along with comedy, the production includes a mix of dialogue and singing, which is different from the traditional French grand operas, actor Benjamin Smith said.

Smith also plays character Ralph Rackstraw in the opera. Each opera production uses a double-cast system, meaning that they split each character between two different
actors.

Most operas do not have many characters, so the double-cast system gives more singers an opportunity to perform in productions, Jennings said.

Each cast of actors prepared diligently for performances, sacrificing several months of hard work and preparation to pull it off.

Auditions were held in August and many of the actors began looking at the music and preparing in October or November. Individual coaching began in December with musical and staging rehearsals to follow.

For the past two weeks, the cast has been doing five hours of rehearsal everyday.
A lot of the work has to do with getting the singers to project their voices across such a large space and getting the audience to understand the words, Jennings said.

“Words are so important,” Jennings said. “We have to make sure our diction is spot on because it’s a massive house to not have microphones. The huge challenge is that what is coming out of us is heard and understood.”

Another challenge for the cast was nailing down the 19th-century British
accents.

“We had to get familiar with particular dialects,” Smith said. “You just have to get it in your body. Once you’ve done it enough, it just sort of comes out.”

As the director, Shell ensures that he knows the story inside and out to make sure he is ready to direct a show.

“I tell the story of the show to someone that I know or don’t know,” Shell said.
“I get all the way up to the very end, right before I reveal the ending, and I stop. If I have done it well, the person will say something like ‘Don’t stop! I want to know what happens!’ That’s when I know I am ready.”

Despite all of the hard work and challenges, the cast and crew is excited for the performance.

“I am most looking forward to seeing the performers own their performances,” Shell said. “The moments I enjoy the most are when they forget they are onstage and they play the scenes truthfully in the moment. That is when the most interesting performances happen.”

When the lights turn on and the actors walk onto stage, their hours of work and preparation will make for a near-perfect performance.

“It’s witty, clever and never dull,” Shell said. “This is the most fun students will have in the opera house all season.”