Although
only fourteen, Balfe moved to London after his father's
death. There he was accepted as a violinist in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane orchestra
and was given lessons by C. F. Horn, organist at St. George's Chapel, Windsor
who had acted as his mentor. Balfe later became leader of the Drury Lane theatre orchestra
which, one day, would play most of his 28 operas. Balfe
then began a career on the continent,
first as a singer but later also
as a composer. As a gifted baritone, Balfe sang at La Scala
before moving to Paris where he met
Rossini and was engaged to sing in operas by Auber at the Paris Op�ra.
Thus both French and Italian influences are prominent in his work.
In 1835
he returned to London, although he continued
to visit the Continent and fulfil
commissions there for much of his
career, an experience which not
only gave him the friendship and
acquaintance of many continental
musicians but also kept him fully
abreast of the latest musical trends.
Nowadays,
Balfe is mainly remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl and this
is principally because it contains the aria "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls",
a favourite of many sopranos. By
1950, the very existence of this composer had almost been forgotten, but when
Sir Thomas Beecham was asked to present an opera to represent British
sentiments for the Festival of Britain he looked no further than Balfe's Bohemian
Girl. Before the appearance of The Bohemian Girl, Balfe had
already written 11 operas, four of which were presented in Italian. His first
opera to be put on the London stage was The Siege of Rochelle (1835),
and was an overnight success that promoted a following.
The Maid of Artois, his fifth opera, we
believe possesses one of his finest scores. This is understandable since the
composer was youthfully inventive, still fresh with the European colour of his
tours and fired by the outstanding success of his previous opera, The Siege
of Rochelle. He was also eager to impress Maria Malibran, the diva of the
day, who promised to appear in the new opera.
Operatic groups have access to all
Balfe's operas thanks to his manuscripts being given to the British Library by
his widow, Lina Balfe. A number of the original sets of opera band parts have
survived and have found their way into the Carl Rosa Trust Archive, Liverpool and the
Henry Watson
Library, Manchester.
If you are interested in
learning more about Balfe then please go to the British and Irish World web
site run by Basil Walsh:- www.britishandirishworld.com .
Commercial
Opera Recordings
The Maid of Artois,
Victorian Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Philip Mackenzie,
Cameo 2042-3, 2005 (2
CD set including libretto).
This
was the second of Balfe's operas to hit the London stage following the success
of Siege
of Rochelle.
It was written for diva Malibran in the title role of Isoline, at a time when
the young Balfe was out to impress the critics. See
here
for a review and here
for details of the recording and how to obtain it
from Victorian Opera Northwest.
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Falstaff,
RTÉ
Concert Orchestra, Marco
Zambelli, RTE CD119,
2008. This
is a recording
(in Italian) of
a concert performance by Ireland's lyric fm on September 25, 2008. See here
for more details and review1
and review2 can
be found by clicking on their links. This CD is available from Victorian Opera Northwest,
contact us
for
details.
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The Bohemian Girl, National
Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Richard Bonynge, re issued on
Decca 473 077-2 in 2002.
Private
Opera
Recordings
The Siege of Rochelle. John Lewis
Partnership Music Society, Derek Carden, 1987.
The Daughter of St. Mark, Gala
Opera Group Orchestra, Ken Jones,
Rare Recorded Editions SRRE 141/2,
1973.
The Rose of
Castile,
The Radio Eireann Light Orchestra, Dermot O'Hara,
Rare Recorded Editions RRE 191/2, 1951.
Satanella, Opera Integra, Brian
Galloway, Rare Recorded Editions SRRE 173/4, 1977.
Ballads, songs,
opera excerpts
and other works
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Guild
(www.guildmusic.com)
have released a CD of
Balfe songs on
GMCD 7359 entitled
Michael William Balfe 1808-1870 - Songs and Ballads Rediscovered. They are sung by Sally
Silver with Richard Bonynge
on the piano. An excerpt from
"The green trees whispered",
one of seven Longfellow poems that
Balfe set, can be found here.
Except for one
song, they are a
different selection from that
recorded by Victorian Opera
Northwest on WRW 204-2.
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Michael William Balfe: Songs and Arias.
with Kay Jordan, Peter Dempsey and Guy Rowland
(piano) on Victorian Opera Northwest, WRW 204-2, 2008. This CD complements a new Balfe songbook by Roy Mowatt. It
includes many Kipling ballads never recorded before as well as arias from The
Bohemian Girl, The
Maid of
Artois, Satanella, The Maid of Honour and Il Talismano.
See here
for details of the recording and how to obtain it
from Victorian Opera Northwest.
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Further
recordings are listed at
http://www.englishromanticopera.org/composers/balfe.htm .
The most recent book on Balfe's life is Basil Walsh's, Michael W.
Balfe, with a forward by Richard Bonynge, published by the Irish Academic Press.
For more details see http://www.britishandirishworld.com/. This biography is also available from Victorian Opera Northwest, as is Michael William Balfe, his life and his English operas
by William Tyldesley, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003. Contact us
for details. A slightly older book is George Biddlecombe's English opera from 1834 to 1864 with
particular reference to the works of Michael
Balfe. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1994.
There are also two 19th
century books: William A. Barrett, Balfe, His life
and Work, London: Remington and Co., 1882 (also
published by London: William Reeves Booksellers Ltd.,
no date) and Charles L. Tinsley, A Memoir of
Michael William Balfe, London: Tinsley Brothers,
1875 (reprinted by De Capo Press, New York, 1978). Both
books are available online at www.archive.org.
More
generally, The
Romantic Age 1800-1914, edited
by Nicholas Temperley, London: Athlone Press, 1981, reissued as The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, Vol.5,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988 includes a chapter by Michael Hurd
on "Opera: 1830-1865".
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