British
Opera Overtures recording
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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:-
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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
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 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
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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
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Title
sheet of the score of Mlle. Darcier's song from
the opera. With thanks to Basil Walsh
http://www.britishandirishworld.com/
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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)
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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.
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Title
sheet of songs from
the opera. With thanks to https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/
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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)
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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 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.
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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)
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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.
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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)
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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
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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)
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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
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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.
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