British Opera Overtures recording

 

Victorian Opera Northwest's most recent venture was a recording of overtures by British and Irish composers with the Victorian Opera Northwest orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge. It has now been released on SOMM CD 0123 : British Opera Overtures. See here for purchase details.

The rise of a distinctive English opera movement started with John Barnett's The Mountain Sylph in 1834 and the recording will enable opera lovers to trace the development of its style over a period of 60 years and understand its influence on later music.

The works featured are:-

 

 

 

The Mountain Sylph (Barnett, 1834)

The Siege of Rochelle (Balfe, 1835)

Le Puits d'Amour (Balfe, 1843)

The Night Dancers (Loder, 1844)

Lurline (Wallace, 1860)

The Amber Witch (Wallace, 1861)

The Lily of Killarney (Benedict, 1862)

Love's  Triumph (Wallace, 1862)

She Stoops to Conquer (Macfarren, 1864)

The Golden Web (Goring Thomas, 1893) 

 

The Mountain Sylph (John Barnett, 1834)   

The opera premiered at the English Opera House (Royal Lyceum Theatre), on August 25th, 1834 achieving such success that in 1863, George Alexander Macfarren was to write that it "opened a new period for music in this country, from which is to be dated the establishment of an English dramatic school"[1].  The first run of the opera managed around 100 performances and it was given occasionally throughout the century and even into the 20th century.  

The libretto was by Thomas J. Thackeray and was drawn from a number of  continental sources, most familiar being the ballet La Sylphide. Set in Scotland, a mountain Sylph, Eolia, falls in love with Donald, who is about to be married to Jessie, and with some effort replaces Jessie in his affections.  Hela, a wizard, tricks Donald into helping him kidnap Eolia but the Sylph Queen gives Donald a magic rose that renders him invisible and enables him to rescue Eolia. Eventually, the whole matter ends happily with the two united, although Eolia has to become a mortal.

The plot was denigrated but the music, even though it owed something to Weber and Spohr, was recognised as superior to the English opera of the preceding years.  This was partly by moving from the traditional dialogue and song model to a more through composed style in order to achieve a more coherent dramatic drive in some scenes (at one time it was thought to have been completely through composed) and partly by using largely original music rather than the adaptation and plagiarism, which was then common.  Barnett's chief influence was in breaking the old mould of English opera rather than in his music per se.

John Barnett (1802-1890) had been a child actor who then took up a varied career in the theatre including two short lived attempts at theatre management as well as composition.  The Mountain Sylph was followed by Fair Rosamond and Farinelli, neither of which managed anything like the same success. In 1841, Barnett moved to Cheltenham where he became a successful singing teacher.

 

The Siege of Rochelle (Michael William Balfe, 1835)  

The Siege of Rochelle was Michael William Balfe's first English opera and his first major success as a composer. The libretto was by Edward Fitzball based on the novel Le Siege de La Rochelle by Madame de Genlis, which had already been used by Luigi Ricci as the basis for his opera Chiara di Rosembergh.  The opera opened at Drury Lane on October 29th, 1835 to great acclaim.

For political reasons, Count Rosemberg had placed his baby daughter, Clara, with Montalban, whom she believes is her father. Clara is due to be betrothed to a widower, Count Valmour, and Montalban with an eye to Clara's future prospects murders Valmour's infant son.  Although Clara sees him do it, she does not want to betray the man she thinks is her father and instead is convicted of the crime and imprisoned.  She eventually escapes to St. Rochelle where events come to a climax  with  Montalban denounced, Rosemberg admitting to being her father and Clara and Valmour united.

Balfe went on to a highly successful career as an opera composer, following The Siege of Rochelle with The Maid of Artois (for Malibran) and, a few years later, the most popular English opera of the 19th century, The Bohemian Girl

 

Le Puits d'Amour (Michael William Balfe, 1843)  

 

Although Balfe's  composing career centred on English opera, he continued, on occasion, to write for the French theatre particularly when English opera was in one of its periodic doldrums.  In 1843, he had the opportunity to write Le Puits d'Amour to a libretto by the doyen of French librettists of the time, Eugene Scribe, and Adolphe de Leuven. The opera opened in Paris on April 20th at the Opera Comique in Paris with great success. The opera used some of the music initially earmarked for The Bohemian Girl, which had then to be replaced when that opera was given later in 1843.

The plot concerns Edward III and one of his companions, Salisbury, who, under a false name, has been courting a young woman called Geraldine. She has given him a ring as a token. Edward is determined to marry Salisbury off to someone else and so Salisbury returns Geraldine's ring. In despair Geraldine throws herself down what is known as the Love Well but which, in fact, leads to an underground room where Edward and his boon companions are feasting.  After a number of diversions during the course of which Edward gets arrested as an imposter, everything is straightened out and Salisbury gets permission to marry Geraldine.

An English version of Le Puits d'Amour   entitled  Geraldine, or The Lover's Well  was given at the Princess's Theatre on August 14th, 1843, with some success, although it was

Title sheet of the score of Mlle. Darcier's song from the opera.
With thanks  to Basil Walsh http://www.britishandirishworld.com/ 

never revived.

Balfe's success both with this opera and his English operas shows that his style was largely an international one rather than a specifically British or Irish one, although his talent for the ballad played particularly well in English opera, both in the theatre and to supply scores for the rapidly burgeoning domestic music market.

 

The Night Dancers (Edward James Loder, 1846)  

 

Edward James Loder's The Night Dancers (or The Wilis) opened at the Princess's Theatre on October 28th, 1846 to popular acclaim and was revived a number of times. The opening night almost ended in tragedy when the lead soprano, Madame Albertazzi's, dress caught fire when she brushed one of the lamps.  Fortunately, it was promptly put out and she gamely finished the duet wearing what remained of the dress. The libretto by George Soane was based to some degree on the ballet Giselle, which had enjoyed recent success.

"Wilis"  are young girls who die before their wedding day but who rise up at midnight to dance.  Giselle is to be married to Albert, a forester, and he serenades her the night before the wedding. As the serenade ends she goes to sleep and has a dream during which doubts are raised about Albert's identity and in which she believes she dances with the "Wilis".  The following morning, Giselle's father announces that the wedding will need to be postponed because the priest is ill. The Duke of Silesia arrives with a party and it turns out that Albert is the Duke's nephew and already betrothed leading to Giselle's death and her joining the "Wilis".  However, in line with the usual run of English opera of the time, a happy ending was engineered by the whole business having been an extended dream and the wedding going ahead as planned.

Title sheet of  songs from the opera.
With thanks  to https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/

Loder (1813-1865) was born in Bath and following study in Germany returned to England where he took up conducting posts in London and Manchester. He composed Nourjahad for the opening of Samuel Arnold's English Opera House in 1834. Unfortunately, he was very poor at organising his business affairs and, to make ends meet, signed up with the publisher D'Almaine & Co. to produce a new composition (songs and partsongs) every week over a number of years.  This was combined with conducting posts and the composition of several operettas and incidental music for plays.  Thus it is hardly a surprise that he only managed to compose three more weighty works, his final one being Raymond and Agnes in 1855. Eventually, he suffered a mental breakdown or illness and died in poverty some years later. Loder was a considerably gifted composer but the circumstances of the time and his own character meant that he never achieved his full potential.

 

Lurline (William Vincent Wallace, 1860)  

This is the overture from Victorian Opera NorthWest's 2009 recording of Lurline.  See here for details.

 

The Amber Witch (William Vincent Wallace, 1861)  

 

 

William Vincent Wallace had two short periods of opera writing, the first beginning with his best known opera Maritana in 1845 and the second with Lurline in 1860. The Amber Witch followed and was successfully premiered at Her Majesty's Theatre on February 28th, 1861, conducted by Charles Hallé. It transferred later to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and was revived a number of times but never achieved the popularity of Maritana or Lurline, even though Wallace considered it his best opera. The libretto was by the Athenaeum's critic Henry F. Chorley and based on Lady Duff-Gordon's translation of Wilhelm Meinhold novel, Die Bernsteinhexe Maria Schweidler. The opera is set in Germany during the Thirty Years War and tells the story of Mary, the "Amber Witch" of the title and the daughter of the local pastor. She has discovered a vein of amber in nearby mountains, which she uses to buy food and clothes for the starving villagers, but tells no one of the source of her apparent wealth. Count Rudiger falls in love with Mary and woos her disguised as a peasant. However, the local Commandant is also in love with her and, when Mary spurns his affections, he contrives with the aid of his jealous servant Elsie to have Mary accused of witchcraft and imprisoned. However, Count Rudiger manages to rescue her as she is about to be burnt at the stake.

Chorley, rather ingenuously, wrote a review of the opera in which he complained that the composer had not followed the librettist's instructions but had introduced a sprightly rondo into what was meant to be a tense situation. Like Balfe, Wallace also worked on the continent and was very much at home there and with continental styles.

 

The Lily of Killarney (Julius Benedict, 1862)  

The Lily of Killarney was based in Dion Boucicault's play The Colleen Bawn, itself based on a true story. Although Boucicault, the leading dramatist of his day, was credited with part authorship of the libretto, in practice it seems to have been down to John Oxenford, creator of the libretto for Macfarren's Robin Hood, as well as a good many other opera texts and plays. The opera opened on February 10th, 1862 at Covent Garden with great success, one of a number of premieres between 1858 and 1864 by the Pyne-Harrison company (Louisa Pyne and William Harrison, who also usually took the leading roles). The operais still occasionally performed, most recently in Dublin in 2007.

Hardress Cregan has recently contracted a secret marriage with Eily O'Connor. However, his family's lands are under threat of being confiscated for debt and as a solution, his mother arranges for his marriage to the heiress Ann Shute.  This leaves Cregan in a predicament which he tries to solve by asking Eily to give up the marriage contract, which she refuses.  Cregan's boatman, Danny Mann, then proposes that he should murder her and asks Cregan to send his glove should he want that.  In the event, Cregan's mother unwittingly sends the glove but Danny is killed while in the act of drowning Eily. Cregan is arrested for conspiracy to murder but eventually all is sorted out, Cregan admits his marriage to Eily and Ann Shute rather generously stumps up for his debt.

Although Benedict's compositions leant heavily on his German background, in this opera he successfully  wove Irish tunes and musical allusions into his score.

Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885) was born in Germany and had a much travelled early career beginning with a thorough grounding in music from his studies with Hummel and Weber, whose autobiography he was later to write. An appointment to the opera in Naples followed and then, in 1835, he found his way to London, where he settled for the remainder of his life, eventually taking British nationality and receiving a knighthood in 1871.  He had already composed three operas in Italy and once established in London created The Gypsy's Warning, which opened at in 1838. Two further operas were followed by a gap of some 17 years before The Lily of Killarney during which Benedict was busy conducting in various London theatres and at the Norwich Festival, performing as piano soloist and accompanist including accompanying Jenny Lind on her tour of the US and composing a number of oratorios, cantatas, piano concertos and songs. His next opera after The Lily of Killarney was The Bride of Song in 1864 but, with its failure, he gave up opera for good and concentrated on his many other activities, as well as trying his hand, unsuccessfully, as an opera impresario.  

 

Love's  Triumph (William Vincent Wallace, 1862)  

This comic opera was premiered at Covent Garden on November 3rd, 1862 by the Pyne-Harrison Company. The libretto was written by J.R. Planché, best known as the librettist of Weber's Oberon. Love's Triumph was his last opera libretto. Although well received on the opening night, the opera was not a great success. Planché claimed that the reason was that its opening shortly before Christmas meant that it was soon given in a shortened form with some music removed in order to accommodate the traditional pantomime. However, Charles Santley felt that Covent Garden was too large a stage for the nature of the piece.

The libretto was based loosely on a play of some 20 years before, Le portrait vivant, by Mélesville and Laya. Set in the early 1700's, Adolphe is employed at the court of the Princess de Valois and is in love with Therese, whose father is insisting that she wed another.  Therese and the Princess look very much alike (both played by Louisa Pyne), which sets the scene for confusion and cross purposes until, as usual, all works out well in the end.

Wallace was to write only one more opera, The Desert Flower, before his death in 1865 and never recaptured the success of Maritana or Lurline.

 

She Stoops to Conquer (George Alexander Macfarren, 1864)  

 

The libretto was written by Edward Fitzball and based on Goldsmith's play. By this time, George Alexander Macfarren had gone blind and relied on an amanuensis to write down the score as he dictated. The opera premiered at Covent Garden on February 11th, 1864 to an enthusiastic reception, "the event of the season"[2], but it was unlucky in that it opened less than six weeks before the Pyne-Harrison company folded, although they toured the opera shortly after that. There do not appear to have been any further revivals.

Compared to the play, the main characters were reduced in number and the role of the bemused but openhearted Squire Hardcastle fused with that of the scheming Mrs Hardcastle leading to a rather confused character for the Squire.  It used dialogue and song, although most of Goldsmith's dialogue had to be replaced in order to fit in the musical items including a scene of a village green with a cricket match, "one of the gayest and most animated" to have been seen on the opera stage[3].

Such tinkering with a classic of the English theatre inevitably invited unfavourable comparisons but many reviewers felt that Fitzball made a reasonable job of the libretto.  The "thoroughly English"[4] music was generally praised with the orchestral and ensemble

items, including the usual unaccompanied partsong, preferred to the solo items.  Macfarren became identified with trying to introduce a distinctive English element into his music, although it was confined to the use of  English tunes or forms, such the partsong, into the currently accepted musical structures and harmonic ideas rather than a more radical rethink.

 

The Golden Web ( Arthur Goring Thomas, 1893)  

The Golden Web was premiered by the Carl Rosa Company at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool on February 15th, 1893 and then at the Lyric Theatre in London on March 11th, 1893 with considerable success.  The libretto was by F. Corder and B. C. Stephenson and used the older English opera style of songs and dialogue.

The comic plot is based on the old tradition of the Fleet marriage, the area close to the Fleet prison being one of the best known for facilitating clandestine marriages.  Both Lord Silvertop and Geoffrey Norreys are enamoured of Amabel but Norreys is heavily in debt. Silvertop to rid himself of a rival offers to relieve the debt provided Norreys marries a masked woman that he will provide and Norreys agrees. However, when Amabel hears of it, she disguises herself and takes the place of the intended wife and thus marries Norreys in a pub called "the Golden Web".  Norreys then comes into a title and money and regrets his previous decision.  After suitably chastening him for his ill faith, Amabel reveals that she is, in fact, his wife.  In the meantime, Silvertop goes through with a marriage to a woman whom he supposes to be Amabel but who turns out to be her old spinster aunt. 

Arthur Goring Thomas (1850-1892) was born in Sussex into a wealthy household and showed an early aptitude for music, which he went on to study in Paris and London.  He

wrote five operas, the best known being Esmeralda and Nadeshda, both successful and both also performed on the continent. The Golden Web was premiered after his suicide in 1892.  Goring Thomas was particularly praised for his melodic gifts and his lightness of touch, no doubt a legacy of his French training.

 
References

[1] The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography,  Vol. 1 (London: William Mackenzie, 1863), p.389.

[2] Anonymous, "Royal English Opera", Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (February 21st , 1864), p.8.

[3] Anonymous, "Royal English Opera", Daily News (February 13th , 1864), p.3.

[4] Anonymous, "Royal English Opera",The Musical Times, Vol. 11, No.253 (March 1st , 1864), p.239.