With a courage bordering on chutzpah, Peter Mulloy’s remarkable Carl Rosa Opera is touring this autumn with a repertory of three G&S classics – Iolanthe, Patience and The Yeomen of the Guard. No amplification, no updating, no gimmicks; a full orchestra and chorus; a performing text that restores usual cuts – this is manna to traditionalists, sick of jazzed-up Mikados and punk Gondoliers, and it puts ENO’s feeble efforts in this department to shame.

What makes Carl Rosa doubly impressive is that it achieves a very respectable standard without any public subsidy and only minimal private sponsorship. It’s a miracle that the show keeps on the road: how does Mulloy do it, and could I please have the name of his obviously sympathetic bank manger?

The Yeomen of the Guard isn’t an easy piece to bring off. It contains some of Sullivan’s most ambitiously operatic music in the Verdian finales and Gilbert’s libretto is couched in a pseudo-Tudor fustian which can quickly descend into Monty Python bathos. Nor does the attempt at a half-serious “thriller” plot carry much conviction – Gilbert always floundered once he strayed from the realms of topsy-turvydom.

But in a performance as spirited as Carl Rosa’s, it can still work a treat. Martin Handley conducts with great panache, though there were moments (such as “I have a song to sing-o”) when he could have lingered on the sentiment more lovingly. Michael McCaffrey’s staging is well drilled and unfussy, with a lovely “realistic” set and period costumes designed by Peter Mulloy. It’s the sort of production that modestly trusts the authors’ stated intentions: would that there were more such.

I can’t pretend that any of the singing was fabulous, but at least you felt everyone was giving it all they’d got. Charlotte Page made a tough and knowing Elise Maynard, well matched against Barry Clark’s rough-edged Jack Point. Darren Fox (Colonel Fairfax), Thora Ker (Phoebe Meryll) and Henry Newman (Wilfred Shadbolt) all presented vivid characterisations, and the chorus sang with vigour.

A jolly good effort, much enjoyed by a large audience at the Theatre Royal, Bath. Isn’t it time the Arts Council gave Carl Rosa some support?

It was one of those difficult decisions that don’t come along every Tuesday night. Was it to be a tempting, lightning visit to Glasgow for the football or a trip t Belfast Grand Opera House for a rare professional performance of The Yeomen of the Guard? The match was only a friendly – albeit a glamour one – while the show was by a company very serious about restoring light opera to its proper place, I eventually reasoned. And once again the re-incarnated Carl Rosa Opera didn’t let me down.

Michael McCaffrey’s version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s darkly beautiful Yeomen, who make its British bow last night, is one every person interested in musical theatre should see. It’s fine traditional interpretation enacted by a company striving to give professional light opera the future it deserves. And it manages to throw up a few surprises. Just where did Meryll’s first act song A Laughing Boy come from for instance?

Not everything is perfect though. Carl Rosa is trying to build on and off stage with no State or local government subsidy – a situation the Europeans would laugh at more quickly than a Gilbertian joke. At times the lack of a few more bob does show. Scarce resources have been poured into Ian McMillan’s 34-piece orchestra. Don’t get me wrong, the players give value for money with an excellent reading of Sullivan’s best score, but the company needs more vocal resources.

In general things are fine, there are some excellent solos, duets and quartets but when McMillan lets his orchestral forces off the leach to give weight to Sullivan’s majestic pomp, the chorus tends to come off second best. Six more voices would make all the difference. Unfortunately, it would also add around £100,000 to the autumn tour bill. The principal line-up is also still a little uneven although the role of Fairfax suits Ivan Sharpe’s light tenor much better than his portrayal of Nanki-Poo in last year’s Mikado. And he gels well with Wexford-born Kathleen Tynan’s lyrical Elsie.

However, the company has pure gold in Simon Butteriss, excellent as Ko-Ko last time out but simply outstanding as the jilted Jack Point. This guy acts not only with his voice but with every part of his body. Catching up fast is the effortlessly elegant excellence of Sarah Sweeting as Phoebe, Bruce Graham’s wonderfully rich Meryll and a Shadbolt from David Stephenson that’s full of promise. Richard Morrison’s strikingly austere Scottish Cholmondeley grew on me while Nuala Willis makes a convincing old battle axe of Dame Carruthers.

Tonight many of the players show another side of their own and Gilbert and Sullivan’s characters when they stage Iolanthe.