After the Premiere: Cal McCrystal, Comic Tradition, and the Serious Work of Making Opera Welcoming

After the Premiere: “Three Visions of Opera Now”  (2/3)

In this short series — “Three Visions of Opera Now” — I draw on recent conversations with three major figures working across very different corners of today’s operatic landscape: stage director Christopher Alden, theatre director Cal McCrystal, and conductor André de Ridder. Rather than presenting these as conventional interviews, each post reflects on how their artistic choices reveal broader questions about opera’s future: how productions change meaning over time, how audiences are cultivated rather than assumed, and how musical leadership intersects with institutional survival. Together, these perspectives form a triptych of how opera is being reimagined from the stage, the rehearsal room, and the podium.

By Justin Vickers

When Cal McCrystal returns to Gilbert and Sullivan, he does not treat the operettas as antiquated or old-fashioned pieces. Nor does he approach them as nostalgic curiosities in need of ironic quotation marks. Instead, he treats them as living, theatrical machines; in his eyes they are designed to produce laughter, create community, and foster recognition of bits of ourselves and our neighbors, provided these operettas are permitted to proceed ahead at full speed.

In recent seasons at English National Opera, McCrystal has staged Iolanthe and HMS Pinafore with productions that are unmistakably physical, unapologetically funny, and deeply attentive to how audiences actually experience comedy in real time. What emerges is not merely a style of comic direction, but a philosophy of access: comedy not as mere embellishment, but as a primary vehicle through which opera can still reach new publics without surrendering musical or theatrical complexity.

Comic Tradition and Why Period Still Matters

Unlike many contemporary opera productions that displace familiar works into abstract or modernized settings, McCrystal insists that Gilbert and Sullivan “won’t work well” without their period frames. This is key. His Pinafore remains visually Victorian, complete with ship’s rigging, uniforms, and social hierarchies that establish clear theatrical expectations. The logic is disarmingly simple: comedy thrives on surprise, and surprise requires stable rules before they can be broken.

“If I did Pinafore in front of a big titanium orb,” he remarked, “there’d be no context for any of the jokes.” For McCrystal, the audience must first feel that they know what kind of world they are watching before he begins to undermine it. Only then can physical disruptions, political insertions, and character reversals land with maximum force.

This approach also respects Gilbert’s original satirical apparatus. It’s true that McCrystal does not hesitate to augment jokes that have lost their cultural referents. However, he wants audiences to laugh at moments that still feel organically embedded in the original structure, and not to sense that a director has inserted topical commentary as an external layer on top of it.

The result is paradoxical: productions that look traditional, yet behave unpredictably. It’s in those moments of unpredictability when McCrystal’s ingenuity shines brightest.

The cast of ENO’s HMS Pinafore, 2025 © Craig Fuller

Physical Comedy, Musical Precision, and the Myth of Distraction

McCrystal’s theatrical background is steeped in physical comedy and circus practice, and those influences shape his opera direction decisively. He is not content to let comedy reside only in the pages of a long-silent libretto. Instead, he choreographs bodies in constant motion: characters climbing rigging, sliding across decks, flying on wires, or colliding in meticulously timed sequences. Physicality that is alive with energy and life.

Opera, he suggests, places unusual demands on audience attention. Even when sung in English, extended patter and repeated musical forms can lull listeners into passive reception. Physicality becomes a way of keeping visual engagement alive without undermining musical structure. “If someone’s repeating a verse for the third time,” he noted, “then something a little bit funny in the background can happen.”

This is where McCrystal’s work often provokes debate. Critics occasionally accuse such staging of distracting from musical line. ENO administrators, he joked, sometimes ask why he cannot simply “let her sing the bloody aria.” But McCrystal insists that he knows where to draw the line. Patter songs, with dense verbal content, are usually staged conservatively, allowing words to land clearly. Moments of repetition, however, invite visual, action-oriented counterpoint.

The key, however, is calibration, not constant activity.

Building Trust with Singers and Chorus

One of the more revealing aspects of McCrystal’s rehearsal process is how deliberately he builds performer confidence before pushing physical limits. Prior to rehearsals, he meets individually with principal singers, candidly explaining to them that much of the comedy would occur “at [their] expense,” and ensuring their consent for such vulnerability before staging began.

With the chorus, he frequently requests workshops designed not only to introduce style, but to create shared laughter early in the process. “I wanted them to see I was a safe pair of hands,” he said, and to know that he would treat them as individuals rather than some interchangeable mass. That respect translates into staging choices. Rather than treating the chorus as decorative blocks who only sing and then exit, McCrystal blurs the boundary between principals and ensemble, distributing comic business, dialogue, and visual focus throughout the group. This democratization of stage presence aligns closely with his broader philosophy: opera works best when audiences perceive collective joy rather than isolated virtuosity.

Physically demanding staging, he emphasized, is rarely resisted by singers when trust is present. Adjustments are negotiated collaboratively, not imposed. If a movement interferes with breath or line, it is shifted. The point is not spectacle for its own sake, but embodied storytelling that remains musically viable.

Political Satire (sans Didacticism)

For all his emphasis on laughter, McCrystal is acutely aware that Gilbert and Sullivan were political writers. Pinafore’s satire of bureaucratic cronyism, embodied in Sir Joseph Porter’s improbable career path, remains painfully recognizable in contemporary governance. McCrystal does not hesitate to sharpen its piquancy.

In earlier productions, figures resembling contemporary politicians may have appeared briefly onstage, but such moments provoke immediate recognition without requiring explicit editorializing. The joke lands not because of ideological messaging — specifically recognizing Margaret Thatcher or Boris Johnson in the moment, for instance — but because institutional absurdity remains structurally unchanged.

Yet McCrystal is careful not to overload the satire. His goal is to let Gilbert’s mechanisms continue doing their work while amplifying them through physical gesture rather than rewriting the texts. Audiences should feel that the comedy arises from the operetta itself, not from some external commentary layered atop it.

This approach allows productions to feel politically alert without becoming doctrinaire.

Nostalgia, National Identity, and the Ethics of Laughter

One of the most delicate balancing acts in Pinafore involves the patriotic anthem “He Is an Englishman.” Here, McCrystal recognizes that nostalgia can be emotionally powerful but also politically volatile. Celebrating national identity uncritically in a moment marked by Brexit debates and populist rhetoric would risk reinforcing precisely the ideologies Gilbert originally sought to satirize.

McCrystal’s solution was theatrical rather than rhetorical. During the song’s first appearance, performers wave Union Jacks in a kind of exuberant affirmation. Later, however, when the theme returns, the chorus replaces those flags with banners representing their own diverse heritages: Caribbean, Asian, African, and various European backgrounds. Flags representing the various forms and possibilities of Englishness. The effect is both humorous and quietly corrective, reframing national identity as plural rather than cliquish.

Importantly, this transformation occurs without breaking musical continuity. The audience laughs, then recognizes that the joke carries emotional heft. Nostalgia may be acknowledged, but it is not allowed to harden into some baseless political fantasy.

Sincerity as Structural Necessity

Despite his reputation for exuberant staging, McCrystal treats moments of genuine emotion with surprising restraint. Aria-like confessions, such as Buttercup’s revelation or Josephine’s lament, are staged as full melodrama, with lighting, chorus response, and stillness creating temporary suspension of comic rhythm.

“These are turning points,” he explained, and the audience needs to feel emotional temperature shift before comedy can return with renewed force. Even if the lyrics remain playful, the dramaturgical function is serious: revelation must register as consequence, not merely as punchline.

Similarly, Josephine and Ralph Rackstraw’s duet is staged with operatic intensity rather than parody. “I directed it as if it were full-on grand opera,” McCrystal said, allowing emotional stakes to temporarily eclipse satire.

Comedy, therefore, depends upon genuine emotional contour. Without it, laughter is diminished into senseless background noise.

Accessibility as Artistic Responsibility

When asked what he hopes audiences take away from his comic stagings, McCrystal’s answer is disarmingly blunt: “I want people to say, ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’” Yet behind that simplicity lies a serious ethical commitment. He is acutely aware that one of the many strengths of comedy is that it may remove barriers otherwise denying entry to first-time opera-goers. People who might fear not understanding opera feel permitted to enjoy it when laughter becomes the primary currency.

Comedy therefore subverts and destabilizes gatekeeping.

Accessibility, however, does not mean dilution. McCrystal aims simultaneously to satisfy devoted G&S enthusiasts and to welcome newcomers who have never set foot in an opera house. That dual obligation shapes everything from pacing to staging density to casting choices. One of the most meaningful affirmations of that philosophy came not from mainstream critics but from the Gilbert and Sullivan Society itself, whose review of Iolanthe praised the “palpable sense of joy in the opera house.” For McCrystal, that response mattered precisely because it came from traditionalists who nonetheless recognized theatrical vitality when they encountered it.

After the Premiere: Comedy as Cultural Infrastructure

McCrystal is candid about the increasing pressures surrounding comedy in publicly funded institutions, where offense can generate formal complaints and trigger institutional caution. Yet he remains convinced that obstacles, rather than limiting invention, often sharpen it. Negotiating what can be laughed at — and how — becomes part of the artistic problem to be solved.

What ultimately distinguishes McCrystal’s operatic work is not simply its volume of gags or athletic choreography, but his conviction that laughter itself constitutes cultural infrastructure. Comedy builds communities in real time. It invites participation rather than reverence. It teaches audiences how to listen, watch, and belong.

In the triptych this post belongs to, McCrystal occupies a distinct panel: where Christopher Alden emphasizes how opera’s meanings shift as the world shifts, McCrystal shows how opera’s audiences are cultivated; not through dilution, but through craft, generosity, and the rigorous engineering of joy. The point is not that laughter is easy. The point is that making an opera house laugh together — and bringing new participants into that laughter without losing longstanding supporters — may be among the most serious work the art form now requires.

That philosophy aligns closely with the broader premise of After the Premiere: that opera’s meaning continues to evolve not only through the reinterpretation of canonical works, but through changing relationships between institutions and audiences. In the next installment, I turn from the stage to the podium, and from comic tradition to musical leadership, in a conversation with conductor André de Ridder about commissioning, repertoire, and what it now means to imagine opera’s future at a national scale.

© Justin Vickers, 2026

This is the second of my “After the Premiere” blog posts. The weekly posts — I love setting aside Monday mornings before the week gets the better of me — will continue to address opera, vocal music, archives, pedagogy, and the contemporary musical economy, with particular attention to how works and institutions continue to shape meaning long after their first performances. It is hard to believe that February is just around the corner, and with it, the next in the series of blog posts. Please continue to share my “After the Premiere” blog among your own social networks, and as always: thank you for taking this journey with me! —JMV