Dame Ethel SMYTH (1858-1944)
Fête Galante – A Dance-Dream in One Act [45:14]
Excerpts from Fête Galante, The Boatswain’s Mate, Entente Cordiale [9:32]
Liza LEHMANN (1862-1918)
The Happy Prince, after the story by Oscar Wilde [21:46]
Charmian Bedford (soprano), Carolyn Dobbin (mezzo soprano), Mark Milhofer (tenor)
Alessandro Fisher (tenor), Felix Kemp (baritone), Simon Wallfisch (baritone)
Dame Felicity Lott (reciter), Valerie Langfield (piano) (Prince)
Lontano Ensemble/Odaline de la Martinez (Fête)
The Light Symphony Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult (excerpts)
rec. St Mary’s Church, Walthamstow, 2018 (Fête); University of Surrey, Guildford, 2019 (Prince)
Smyth excerpts From HMV DB3762, March 1939
RETROSPECT OPERA RO007 [76:34]
Interest in that most unjustly neglected of British female composers, Ethel Smyth, has so far not really made much headway in the concert halls, though why her lovely Concerto for Violin, Horn and Orchestra and Serenade in D are not performed is something of a mystery. Loud hurrahs then, for a new Chandos recording of her Mass, which has just been released and is enthusiastically reviewed here.
Now, Retrospect Opera have issued a new recording of Fête Galante, her short Dance Dream, for so she called it, which is, in fact, a one act opera. Smyth composed it in 1921-22, taking inspiration from the commedia dell’arte tradition, and turned to her friend Maurice Baring for permission to use his story. After some initial hesitation, he agreed, and the work was versified into an opera libretto by the poet Edward Shanks.
The work had some initial success achieving a handful of early performances, and later a ballet and orchestral suite were adapted from it. Alas, as with so much of her work, it has lapsed into neglect, most people never having heard of it, but hopefully this modern recording will open more listeners’ ears to Smyth’s wide-ranging talent.
It is described as being neo-classical in style, but don’t think that this means the slightly acidulous neo-classicism that many composers adopted, in fact Smyth presents us with a graciously melodic score, where dances such as the Sarabande, Musette and Madrigal occur with a fluidity and freedom intermingled with the sung parts. She orchestrated it for small forces in two versions, and the one used here is for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, one player for both timpani and percussion and strings, with an onstage band. The opera itself could indeed be described as multi-media, in that it requires not only a small orchestra, soloists and chorus, but also professional dancers and trained mimes.
The booklet contains a full libretto and a detailed synopsis of the rather complicated plot that tells a morbid tale coupling a tragic case of mistaken identity with a moral on the perils of taking a joke too far. The music allows Smyth full reign of her melodic gifts, in fact on of the opera’s ‘standout’ movements, which was published separately in her lifetime is Soul’s Joy, a lively unaccompanied madrigal, a setting of a poem long attributed to John Donne.
The performance is truly excellent, with Odaline de la Martinez conducting a committed, well played performance, with excellent singing from all concerned.
Anyone interested in British opera in the late 19th and early 20th century will surely want to hear this piece, and now they can do so in really good modern sound. This is its first complete recording and Smyth devotees will also want to hear additional items included on the CD: 1939 HMV recordings of Sir Adrian Boult conducting extracts from Fête Galante, The Boatswain’s Mate and Entente Cordiale.
Because the opera is short, Retrospect Opera have included a first recording of the 21-minute “recitation” or melodrama The Happy Prince, by Liza Lehmann. It is a setting of Oscar Wilde’s story of the same name, and is spoken here by Dame Felicity Lott, with the Executive Producer of the entire CD, Valerie Langfield accompanying her on the piano.
I have to confess that I am not a great lover of the spoken word set to music, and the only such piece that I ever listen to is Vaughan Williams’ An Oxford Elegy of 1949. Consequently, it was with a distinct lack of enthusiasm that I turned to The Happy Prince. It is a children’s story wherein a richly ornamented statue of a happy prince asks a swallow to take its ornaments and give them to the poor. It does so, because in life the prince was completely unaware of the trials and tribulations of the common people, but now he sees life as it is lived, and wants to make amends for the prince’s neglect whilst alive. The swallow agrees and takes jewels and then the statue’s sapphire eyes and distributes them. Alas, it has delayed its migration to such a degree in carrying out the statue’s requests that it is caught in the winter chills and dies. The statue’s heart is broken, and because it is now shabby and stripped of its ornaments, the townspeople decide to scrap it. As it melts, they notice that its broken heart resists the flames, so it is thrown onto the scrap heap next to the dead swallow. Looking upon the city, God commands his angels to bring him the two most precious things, and they present God with the sparrow and the unmelted heart. God says that the swallow will sing for evermore in the paradise garden, and the Happy Prince shall stand in God’s city of gold.
The piano part is decidedly spare, often the voice being left unaccompanied. Lehman said that the recitation was a form that she much favoured, and which she felt could be much developed. Well, be that as it may, I sometimes felt that the piano part fell back on rather obvious pianistic devices, such as when (briefly) depicting the flight of the swallow. Dame Felicity Lott makes a really fine job of reading the text, and as a famed interpreter of song, she is more than capable of putting all the necessary expression into her voice. In fact, I obtained real pleasure from just listening to her words.
I repeat, these world première recordings are very good indeed, with the instruments and singers and Dame Felicity set in a pleasing acoustic. The booklet has been produced to the highest standards, with full texts, in-depth articles and photographs devoted to the performers and the music.
Jim Westhead
