The World Record Club Pirates (1962)

Cast Major-General Stanley Patrick Halstead Pirate King William Dickie Samuel Christopher Keyte Frederic Edward Darling Sergeant of Police John Gower Mabel Elizabeth Harwood Edith Barbara Elsy Kate Patricia Beech Ruth Noreen Willett The Linden Singers Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Alex Faris

Light Music Club SLZ.7030

Tring SYM071 The photo, misleadinigly, is of the Papp production.

Most of the singers do not seem to have had extensive G&S backgrounds (at least, I've never heard of them). The exception is Elizabeth Harwood (Mabel), who sang Phyllis in the Sadler's Wells Iolanthe, some small soprano parts in the Sargent/Glyndebourne series, and made guest appearances on two of the D'Oyly Carte recordings made in the 1960s and conducted by Sargent (Ida and Yeomen). She never sang on stage with D'Oyly Carte, though. Harwood's cadenza on "Poor wand'ring one," with flute accompaniment clearly modeled on Lucia di Lammermoor, is the best on records. The tenor, Edward Darling, is the brother of John Wakefield (real name Darling), who sang Nanki-Poo on the Sadler's Wells Mikado.

Summit SUM 1025

The selections, listed below, comprise very nearly the entire opera:

"Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry"
"When Frederic was a little lad"
"I am a Pirate King"
"Oh, is there not one maiden breast"
"Poor wandering one"
"What are we to do....How beautifully blue the sky"
" "Stay, we must not lose our senses....Too late"
"Hold, monsters"
"I am the very model of a modern Major-General"
"When the foeman bares his steel"
"When you had left our pirate fold"
"Stay, Frederic, stay"
"When a felon's not engaged in his employment"
"With cat-like tread"
"Hush, hush"....through Finale