In the song “When a Felons Not Engaged in His Employment,” Arthur Sullivan’s character, Sergeant of Police, is depicted as a man who is not engaged in his job and is not engaged in his duties. The lyrics of the song are sung by Owen Brannigan and DOyly Carte, and are available for download and print in PDF or MIDI. The song highlights the importance of constabulary duty and the need for honest men to take one’s duties seriously. The lyrics also emphasize the importance of a policeman’s capacity for innocent enjoyment, as it is just as great as any honest man. The song is a reminder that a policeman’s job is not a happy one, and they must take one’s duties seriously. The song is a popular song from Arthur Sullivan’s “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and “Thespis: No. 3 Valse.” The lyrics emphasize the importance of honest men and the need for a policeman to be engaged in their duties.
📹 When afelon’s not engaged in his employment
No, I’ll be brave (Mabel, Sergeant, and Chorus of Police) “Sergeant, approach!” (Mabel, Sergeant of Police, and Chorus of Police) …
📹 When A Felon’s Not Engaged in His Employment
Featuring Tim Tyler from the Gilbert & Sullivan classic The Pirates of Penzance.
I sang in an amateur community version of The Mikado, as one of the alto chorus. It was one of those brilliant memories you keep forever… we had enough professionals to raise the standard to wonderful and the rest of us, mere chorus singers- learned and learned and learned. Five hour rehearsals left us breathless and perspiring for hours in winter. Just wonderful stuff, Gilbert and Sullivan- this is beautiful too!!
Back in 1956 I was a 12 year old choirboy. I was one of the sisters in my Boy’s boarding school production of The Pirates of Penzance. The following year I was down for one of the fairies in Iolanthe, but my voice broke during rehearsals so I was told to just mime. I quite enjoyed the drag and the make up, but this was the fifties and boys couldn’t admit to such things after about age 7.
Tony Azito is amazing. I could watch him reprise this role forever until Sunday. In fact, I have. I continue to do. I really can’t believe how good he is at this what-would-be a forgettable role in a forgettable parlor opera. I really can’t believe they killed him. Jesus, what a shit-show cosmos I wound up in. In my cosmos, though, Tony Azito gets to play this role, and any other role he prefers, now until the ending of the world.
@WisemanSam599 One of the loudest songs in the production is called ‘With Cat-Like Tread’, and the Pirates are the least successful in the entire world. The entire play is silly satire, and so I don’t see why it should be serious. True, pretending to be serious would be funny, but I like this as well if not better.
Anyone EVER found it strange that England would send a civilian police force out to repel a pirate attack rather than a military platoon? I’m a civilian and I know nothing about the military or police, but, this always seemed strange to me about “The Pirates of Penzance”. Maybe things were different back in the late 1800s.
@cuckthefardinals It’s more than light opera, it’s also satire. Gilbert and Sullivan always set out to mock theater that was ridiculously self-important like the Pirate melodramas of the period. Opera, light or otherwise, falls into the trap just as much. So what do you do then? Take the parody further.
It was very good of this production to avoid the stiff near-morbidity of many G&S companies…but I think they overdid the ‘business’, and the synthesiser is generally very annoying. That Little-Richard-like ‘whooing’ was…well, not done one-tenth so well as Little Richard would have done, and were more honourable in the omission….
How spooky is this… I wrote that comment 6 mths ago and tonight I got your reply. Why spooky? I have just arrived home from seeing “The Rock Show” starring a host of young and very talented people headed by … Jon English. If you get the chance to see it do so. There is so much talent out there, including Jon.
Well, in the movie, they cast Tony Azito. He was a dancer, and they cast him in it so they could go more into choreography. He wasn’t really much of a singer, and his voice certainly wasn’t the deep bass voice you’d want for the Sergeant. They didn’t even go down to the F in this song. Still a good performance, just not what Sullivan had written for it.