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Please click on a production to read reviews for that production. Use the scroll bar on the right hand side of your page to move up and down between reviews.
5. Best of Gilbert and Sullivan Concert
8. Gwyneth and the Green Knight
The Mikado click to go back to menu
The Mikado – 2006 ENO.
‘Richard Suart is a joy as Ko-Ko.’
John Amis – The Tablet.
‘Suart has developed an entire gymnasium of contorted body language to express his guile, his anguish and his greed.’
Hilary Finch – The Times.
‘For me at least Suart with his magnificent comic timing and walk, a combination of Groucho Marx and Max Wall, was the runaway star.’
Peter Gruner – Camden New Journal.
‘Suart’s Ko-Ko may be approaching the limit of how much hamming-up one role can take, but it’s deservedly his show.’
Erica Jeal – The Guardian.
‘Since Suart changes the names regularly, they may well be different at the next show. But what won’t alter is the sheer quality and panache of his performance, which is a brilliantly sustained comic turn.’
George Hall – The Stage.
‘The fineness with which it is all judged is encapsulated in Ko-Ko’s famous list, here delivered with consummate panache by Richard Suart. I don’t know who compiles the list of dispensables who ‘won’t be missed’, but traditionally it is the singer himself. Suart is wonderful, taking the art of wincing to its limit, but knowing always where that is.’
Michael Tanner – The Spectator.
‘As Ko-Ko, baritone Richard Suart is so puke-makingly humble you want him sent for mercy killing! With a face so cheesily smarmy he makes Rowan Atkinson look paralysed; he effortlessly steals the show. You want live self-abasement? Well, this guy has it – in spades! Why, every dominatrix in the audience – male and female - must have been gagging at the prospect of this text-book slave!’
Fraulein Sasha Selavie – Gay Times.
English National Opera at the London Coliseum.
"Suart turns in one of his best performances as Ko-Ko. G&S is his stock-in-trade, we know, but the energy and comic precision of what he does comes so naturally that you are simply not aware of its skill. He’s a sharp mime and a sharp mimic (everything from Gordon Brown to Olivier’s Richard III)…"
Edward Seckerson: The Independent 7 April 2004
"As for Richard Suart’s Ko-Ko, what’s left to be said? He must be the most manically inventive G&S exponent of our era. Indeed, his impersonation of Olivier playing Richard III is worth the price of admission by itself. But it was when he added "George W. Bush’s poodle, whose name is Tony Blair" to Ko-Ko’s wishful list of those "who won’t be missed" that he brought the house down."
Richard Morrison: The Times 5 April 2004.
The Mikado for the Nationale Reisopera in Holland
"Richard Suart is de ideale operetteperformer…"
"…is Suart een entertainer van de eerste order."
"Voorop Richard Suart, een van Sullivans voornaamste profeten op aarde…"
de Volkskrant 22 March 2004
New York City Opera and ENO.
"
Above all there is Richard Suart as Ko-Ko, delivering his long little
list amply; Suart has developed the detail of his impersonation, performing
with irresistible inventiveness, amazing physical contortions, and exact
timing. Definitely an experience to catch".
London Evening Standard
"..an
unusually able comic as Ko-Ko".
New York Daily News
"Ko-Ko
was a fine singing comedian, Richard Suart, who moved as well as he patter-sang.
funny throughout."
Classics to-day, USA
"The
list was artfully delivered by Richard Suart in the role of Ko-Ko. Suart
has made the role something of a speciality, and he frequently stole the
spotlight from the surrounding leads."
Newsday, USA
"in
the star part as Ko-Ko, guest artist Richard Suart landed his comic moments
with style and wit"
LGNY, USA
"it
has become a marvellously ornate interpretation, but most remarkable is
the genuine modesty and economy with which Suart performs."
The Evening Standard
"..inimitable Ko-Ko..."
The Sunday Telegraph
D'Oyly Carte at the Savoy 2000, directed by Ian Judge.
" Richard
Suart plays Ko-Ko in time-honoured fashion, a masterpiece of comic timing
and diction."
The Times
"But it does
have the immeasurable benefit of Richard Suart's presence as Ko-Ko. With
years of Gilbert and Sullivan and opera experience, he gives a masterful,
delightfully detailed performance, timed to perfection..."
The Stage
The Yeomen of the Guard click to go back to menu
Welsh National Opera
" ...and
above all Richard Suart...a marvellously alert, lucid, not too tear-jerking
Jack Point".
The Independent
"At the centre
of the performance stands Richard Suart's Jack Point. The melancholy Jester
might be a gift of a role to a fine singing actor, but that in no way
diminishes the imaginitive artistry lavished on it by Suart, whose interpretation,
both in the larger view, and in the finer detail, is consummate".
Opera Now
"...Jack
Point (Richard Suart) reminding one of a furrow-browed Ronnie Corbett..."
The Daily Telegraph
Opera Holland Park
"But the
star of the show was Richard Suart, no stranger to the Merryman, 'moping
mum', with beautifully timed comedy and mock pathos, hilariously capering
with the Lieutenant, putting down the squawking peacocks with a gag, and
even winning his race against the conductor's high-speed baton."
The Stage
Iolanthe click to go back to menu
London Philharmonic Orchestra and chorus/ Roger Norrington/ Festival Hall
" ...Richard
Suart (The Lord Chancellor) has become the sine qua non of G & S in
this country. Beware inferior substitutes".
The Independent on Sunday
"The star
of the show was Richard Suart's well oiled and disingenuous Lord Chancellor,
making an art form of physical uncoordination ... His virtuosic 'Nightmare'
song - a compendium of every restless night you've ever endured - is Gilbert
at his dazzling best. Suart didn't drop a stitch."
The Independent
"Richard
Suart as The Lord Chancellor gave everyone a lesson in articulation and
shaping a Joke".
The Times
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Buxton.
" ...it
helps to have some of the best G & S performers around, and the audience
was clearly hard put to it to award higher honours to Richard Suart for
giving his wonderfully batty Lord Chancellor."
Manchester Evening News
" The evening
was mostly Richard Suart's. His Lord Chancellor was fruity, laid-back,
resourceful and shares with the great John Reed, indefinable charm."
Gilbert and Sullivan Society journal
Grange Park 2003
" Most outstanding
of the generally admirable performances was that of
Richard Suart's tongue-tripping Lord Chancellor. His wily Scottish accent
hinted at a
cross between Lord Irvine and Gordon Brown, and he projected his patter
songs, from the Act 1 'When I went to the bar' to the spine-chilling Act
2 'Nightmare Song', in which bedclothes were interfered with by unseen
fairies, with precise, punchy panache and not a lack of ad-lobbing."
Music and Vision
The Pirates of Penzance click to go back to menu
D'Oyly Carte at the Queens Theatre
" Richard
Suart is a splendid, batty Major-General..."
The Times
"Richard
Suart, a natural successor to the great John Reed, patters astoundingly,
and is gleefully funny..."
The Guardian
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Buxton
"Richard
Suart, who is making comic baritone roles his personal property, brought
his Mr Pastry-ish style to Major-General Stanley ..."
Manchester Evening News
English National Opera, December 2004
"…above all, Richard Suart, the perfect purveyor of patter as the Major-General himself."
David Mellor - The Mail on Sunday
"…and Richard Suart’s "modern" Major-General Stanley showed everybody up. He alone gave the old dialogue a lift; he alone filled the stage. And it needed filling, believe me."
Edward Seckerson - The Independent
"The cast needs every G&S pro it can lay its hands on, and it has one in Richard Suart’s exemplary Major-General Stanley."
Richard Fairman - The Financial Times
Best of Gilbert and Sullivan Concert click to go back to menu
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Cond. Bramwell Tovey.
" Last night,
Suart was back. And if you're a D'Oyly Carte historian, you needn't feel
uncomfortable placing him in the company of Martyn Green and Sir Henry
Lytton, Suart is that good. With consonants tripping along like a lithe
hammer tapping away, a sly wink exactly placed, unbridled lechery suggested
à la mode, Suart ruled every verse."
Winnipeg Free Press
Patience click to go back to menu
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Buxton.
" Richard
Suart's Bunthorne is near perfect, in appearance a combination of Walter
Crane.,Whistler, Charles Swinburne and Oscar Wilde. Suart is well aware
that Bunthorne is the chap who tries too hard and fails, but doesn't care
a hoot because he knows that tomorrow, he can begin the charade all over
again. This man is a serial sham."
Gilbert and Sullivan Society Journal
Princess Ida click to go back to menu
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Buxton.
" ...and the cast included Richard Suart as Gama, surely one of the few who could (and did) make an entertainment of the 'most disagreeable man'..."
Manchester Evening News
Gwyneth and the Green Knight click to go back to menu
Music Theatre Wales at the Linbury Studio, Covent Garden.
"That great
singing actor Richard Suart is in his element with his similarly
craven Arthur..."
The Times
Die Fledermaus click to go back to menu
Diva Opera at Les Azuriales Festival, Cap Ferrat
"The production,
by distinguished British baritone Richard Suart, who also played Frank,
was a great success. His staging had the pace and wit that Glyndebourne's
recent dim production conspicuously lacked.."
Sunday Express
The Parson's Pirates click to go back to menu
Opera della Luna at the Bridewell Theatre
"Richard
Suart, the leading Savoyard of our day..."
The Stage
The Marriage of Figaro click to go back to menu
Garsington Opera
"...a glorious
cameo performance from Richard Suart"
Oxford Times
"...expert
comic..."
The Times
La Vie Parisienne click to go back to menu
The D'Oyly Carte
" There's
also a wonderful role for Richard Suart, the ENO's best Ko-Ko - a Brazilian
millionaire throwing himself and money way over the top at passing fancies."
The Guardian
HMS Pinafore click to go back to menu
Proms 2005
‘Among the singers, much the best were….Richard Suart who made a splendidly fatuous Ruler of the Queen’s Navee.’
Ivan Hewett – The Daily Telegraph
‘Richard Suart as a veteran Sir Joseph Porter sang and acted everyone else off stage as an admirable Admiral.’
Hilary Finch – The Times.
