Word: gondolieri
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...chief virtue of the production is a cast of exceptionally high-quality voices which is agreeably suited to comic opera. Unfortunately, the acting is not always so successful, at least it is not up to the calibre of the singing. In the title roles of the two primi gondolieri and pretenders to the throne of Barataria, Bruce Macdonald and George Brown both sing remarkably well and elicit a great deal of satire from their acting. Neither of the pair strikes one as of the gondoliering or the regal type, but this only serves to heighten the humor...
...when the curtain went up at the Hollis, the flower-girls shouted their lovely and ethereal opening chorus, "List and Learn," too heartily and too fast; and the Gondolieri sang "Buon' giorno, signorine" like students at a Biergarten, "We're called Gondolieri" came off with speed and good-spirits, but without the whirling, infectious momentum that the song is capable of. In contrast to the chorus, the contadine Tessa and Gianetta showed from the moment that they were picked out of the crowd of flower-girls by the blindfolded young men that they were going to make the most...
...They can shake the deck of the good ship "Pinafore," snapping their fingers at a foeman's taunts, along with their sisters and their cousins and their aunts. Or, transformed into Pirates, they can sally forth to seek their prey and help themselves in a royal way. But as Gondolieri, whose life is "loving and laughing and quipping and quaffing," they miss the right note of delicate gayety. They sing "Buon' giorno, signorine!" like the police in "The Birates" who found the wisest thing, tarantara, tarantara! was to slap their chests and sing, tarantara...