Light side of opera.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

P i r a t e s of P e n z a n c e

`The Pirates of Penzance," which opens Friday and plays through the weekend at the Hult Center, has the potential to make or break the season for Eugene Opera this year.

That's because it is the season for Eugene Opera, an organization struggling to regroup after going so deep into the hole earlier this year that it laid off its artistic director and briefly closed its offices.

Now the opera is back in action.

Artistic director Mark Beudert, who's been brought in for this one production, is staking the organization's future on the absurdly clever wit and familiar music of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic (think, ``I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General'').

"Pirates" is a natural for Beudert, who sang in the chorus in the Broadway version of the show, later made into a movie that starred Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt.

And so Beudert, a sometime Eugene resident who teaches at Notre Dame University, has called in a bunch of markers to assemble a cast that spans the worlds of opera and Broadway.

He's even added a touch of television, in the form of local-boy-made-good Eric Millegan, the Fox TV star who's in town to play Frederic.

Some of the connections run pretty deep.

"My parents taught Mark `Pirates' way back when he wasn't even a singer yet," says Christiane Noll, whom Beudert drafted to play the role of Mabel.

The New York actress, who played Emma in the Broadway show "Jeckyll & Hyde," is the daughter of Emmy Award-winning conductor Ronald Noll, known for his Gilbert and Sullivan interpretations.

Her mother is a soprano who has sung all of Gilbert and Sullivan, so Noll grew up hearing the music, though this is the first time she's sung it as an adult.

She also performed in the national tour of "Urinetown," where she got to know two other singers appearing in Eugene's "Pirates" - Ann Allgood, who plays Ruth, "a Piratical Maid of all work," and Richard White, who plays the Pirate King.

White, who was the voice of Gaston in the Disney film "Beauty and the Beast," knew Beudert when they were both in a production of "The New Moon" at New York City Opera in the 1980s.

White was strapping on knee pads before a rehearsal the other night in Eugene to help him deal with the athletic staging of the show.

"Ever since Kevin Kline did it in New York, the Pirate King has been a very athletic role," he laughed. "I have done this show half a dozen times. People are much more willing to have fun with it now."

Kline's interpretation has been called "swashbuckling and libidinous."

"I hope to have a little of each," White said.

White talked about the "crossover" nature of the production. Gilbert and Sullivan operetta is crossover by its nature, he said, mixing elements of opera with popular music. This cast, he said, is definitely crossover, with its mix of singing styles.

"Crossover is a negative term in some people's minds," he said. "And sometimes, yes, it's just dreadful. But you know this show was originally done on Broadway" - the Englishmen Gilbert and Sullivan held the premiere of "Pirates" in New York for copyright reasons - "and we've got a nice combination of crossover in the cast. It should be interesting."

Joining the cast from the world of straight opera comes baritone Andrew Wilkowske, a St. Paul, Minn., singer who isn't afraid to tackle the high-velocity "patter" songs that make Gilbert and Sullivan shows so distinctive and funny.

He's singing the Major General.

"I've had the chance to do patter singing in several different languages," Wilkowske said. "And it's always a challenge. You build it slowly, ratchet it up one syllable at a time. It has to be second nature. If you get off track there is no hope of ever getting back on track.

Wilkowske is an accomplished comic actor.

His Papageno "stole the show" in Virginia Opera's "Magic Flute," the Washington Post said. Earlier this year he sang Yamadori in Los Angeles Opera's "Madame Butterfly."

OPERA PREVIEW Pirates of Penzance What: Eugene Opera stages the Gilbert and Sullivan comic light opera Where: Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street When: 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2:30 p.m. Saturday; and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The opera's New Year's gala, in the Hult's Studio One, follows Sunday's show. Tickets: Friday and Saturday, $15 to $49; Sunday, $20 to $55; gala, $50. Free preview: Eric Millegan, Richard White, Christiane Noll, Ann Allgood, Sandy Naishtat and Kevin Boling will perform excerpts at 12:15 p.m. today in the Hult Center lobby.