Vaughan Williams wrote six works for
the musical stage (he was working on
a seventh, Thomas the Rhymer at
the time of his death) but called only
two of them simply 'opera'. It was as
if he had reservations about mixing
florid operatic convention with his
own very English 'take' on musical culture.
Opera is after all very much bound up
with Italianate and Teutonic models
- exemplars unsympathetic to Vaughan
Williams’ natural inclinations.
Let’s look at the ‘operas’:
The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains
is called 'a Pastoral Episode',
Pilgrim's Progress is a 'Morality'.
Hugh the Drover is a 'Romantic
ballad opera' with only Riders to
the Sea and Sir John in Love
sporting the unadorned subtitle
'opera'.
In keeping with this
opera-averse practice Vaughan Williams
called The Poisoned Kiss, a 'romantic
extravaganza'. It is the sort of work
where, when we see an equal number of
men and women in opposing camps, we
should know that 'happy ever after'
indicates that, after tribulation, they
will pair off. And so it proves for
Hob, Gob and Lob (men), assistants to
the Wizard Dipsacus and the three mediums
(women), assistants to Empress Persicaria.
Angelica and Gallanthus pair off and
so of course do the romantic leads,
Amaryllus and Tormentilla.
This is the one Vaughan
Williams opera where the plotline is
advanced by both singing and speaking.
The casting must be of singers who can
act or actors who can sing. There is
a substantial amount of speaking and
Chandos have redacted much of this to
produce a piece that focuses on the
music. Not all the spoken dialogue has
been removed. There is still sufficient
to allow the listener to follow the
narrative. The rest can be read in
situ in the booklet; spoken dialogue
which has not been recorded is reproduced
in the booklet against a grey-filled
background.
And what of the plot?
Empress Persicaria and Magician Dipsacus
are disaffected lovers and they plan
revenge on each other. The magician's
daughter Tormentilla has been brought
up on poison so that she kills the first
person she kisses. The Empress's son,
Amaryllus, has of course, been
raised on antidotes. Neither of the
young people know about the other’s
history. The two meet, fall in love
and kiss. Amaryllus falls, seemingly
poisoned, but has in fact lost his senses
through the pure joy of the moment.
The two are separated but eventually
the Empress gives in and allows Amaryllus
to see Tormentilla. Not only are these
two to wed but Empress and Magician
are reconciled and their long dead love
revives. Their faithful retainers marry.
The companions to the young people,
Angelica and Gallanthus also marry each
other. Well, this is opera so
the usual sensibilities and scepticism
need to be put on hold. If you can do
it for Verdi and Puccini you can do
it for Vaughan Williams!
Word games and rhymes
are features of The Poisoned Kiss.
Examples abound. There is the quickfire
rattling rhyming of "drat ... a bat
... a rat .... a cat ... (CD1 tr.3).
On CD2 (tr.18): "love in a hut is picturesque
... but". There is the relished Sondheim
premonition of "I could do without Tudor
.... imitations are cruder" in the by-play
between Amaryllus and Tormentilla. Now
what a partnership there 'might-have
been'. if only Vaughan Williams and
Stephen Sondheim had been contemporaries.
Sadly they were separated by two generations.
The rapier dazzling word-play of The
Poisoned Kiss as well as its pantomime-poignancy
are the sort of thing you can find in
the multi-faceted Into the Woods
as well as the intricately rhymed
and constructed songs for Mrs Lovett
and Joanna and the Fairground hair-cutting
‘duel’ in Sweeney Todd. I couldn’t
help thinking about Sondheim when hearing
the serenade ‘That’s all very well’
which looks forward to the dysfunctional
Robert in Company. But the ‘conquest
catalogue’ is a long tradition stretching
all the way back to Don Giovanni
and no doubt further.
This is a work brimming
with good tunes and delightful strokes
of imaginative power. For a start there
are the thunder and lightning-punctuated
quartets of Angelica and Gallanthus
and Tormentilla and Amaryllus. The grating
and grinding threat of CD1 tr. 2 links
with the music for Vanity Fair and
for Apollyon in Pilgrim's
Progress. It is made even more intriguing
by the hiccuping ‘edge’ imparted by
the woodwind in CD 2, tr.2 at 1.55.
We must forgive the
occasional resort to stagy G&S clichés
as in "A sorcerer bold" sung by Neal
Davies’s Dipsacus without a smirk. It
returns in CD1 tr. 7 in Dipsacus’s song
"North wind ... south wind ...". For
every wince the tenderer listening souls
may suffer there are at least three
delights to encounter. Try the lovely
serenade at CD1 tr. 8 ‘That’s all very
well’. This is the sort of romance heard
in My Pretty Bess from VW’s Five
Tudor's Portraits; absolutely irresistible.
The ‘Poison Quartet’
is full of cleverly-crafted chatter
and runs over with delight (CD1 tr.
10) as does the love duet of Amaryllus
and Tormentilla. They sing of the things
they love: he of ‘a sea-gull pausing
wing stretch'd’ (gloriously inspired
writing) and she of ‘a hooded cobra
up-reared ... the sting in a cobra's
tail’. This is all set to music of relaxed
romance; vintage RVW.
Orchestral touches
also reward close listening as the exquisite
decorative solo violin emotes through
a cloud of melody close to the world
of the Serenade To Music (CD2
tr. 6). The music develops a Sibelian
chatter at CD2 tr. 9 which relaxes into
sweetly-contoured string writing from
which emerges a bizarre tango. The Sibelius
of the theatre music also comes to mind
in the light-as-down serenading at CD1
tr.19.
The recording is strongly
cast across the board but I must just
single out Anne Collins who sounds both
suitably mature and adroitly imperious
as Empress Persicaria (CD2 tr.10). She
too is not denied sensitivity, serenade
and delight. Try ‘can you, can you remember?’
(CD2 tr. 17).
Tormentilla’s lullaby
to her cobras is really whimsical with
her entreaties for ‘anything to soothe
my nerves ... vitriol or cyanide’ (remember
that she has been brought up
on poisons). The gawky humour continues
in the hands of the chorus who adopt
a Cockney commentary in their own ‘oh-so-perfect’
English in ‘here we come our hands full-laden’
(CD 1 tr. 20). Try their singing of
‘Sent with love to Tormentilla (much
as we would like to kill 'er)’. I thought
about similar moments in My Fair
Lady.
The chorus is also
called on to touch on the wellsprings
of a very English pastoral beauty. There
is some remarkably lovely and vertiginous
singing at CD1 tr. 21 which sounds as
if Vaughan Williams had provided inspiration
for the stratospheric pianissimo writing
of Patrick Hadley in The Trees So
High as well as for Constant Lambert's
Dance of the Followers of Leo from
Horoscope.
This work is not wholly
like any of the other RVW stage works.
Riders to the Sea is unalloyed
tragedy and turmoil. Pilgrim’s Progress
is spiritual, tormented and finally
exalted. Hugh The Drover is rather
too ‘cod-rustic’ for my taste. The closest
approximation is to Sir John in Love
... but it is only an approximation.
The humour of Sir John makes
some connection in its portrayal of
the antics of the corpulent, horny,
sentimental Knight and in the ribald
revels of Dr Caius, Slender, Peter Simple,
Bardolph, Nym and Pistol. The serenading
pages for Fenton and Mistress Anne Page
also relate to similarly romantic writing
in The Kiss.
There is one other
comparator I must mention. I am sure
it must have provided some inspiration
to Vaughan Williams. His friend, Gustav
Holst, who had died four years before
the premiere wrote the opera The
Perfect Fool in 1921-22. It too
is replete with spells, incantations,
wizards and spirits. It has a sleepy
yawning fool and a host of fairy-tale
archetypes. The parallel is very close:
Imps and Demons; Gods and Elves; a Richard
Dadd 'fairy fellah' scene if ever there
was one. Surely there is a link. I am
sure that, one of these days, we will
be treated to a recording of that opera.
BBC broadcasts of studio productions
of The Perfect Fool by Groves
(1972) and Handley (1995) promise well
(after that Sita please ... but
that’s another story altogether).
This very strongly
cast and executed recording completes
the representation of Vaughan Williams'
operas on disc and does so 46 years
after the composer's death and 64 years
after this opera’s premiere in Cambridge
on 12 May 1936. By the way the U.S.
premiere took place on 21 April 1937
at the State Theater, New York.
This set joins the
strong representation of RVW Hickox-conducted
operas on Chandos: Sir John in Love
(CHAN 9928(2)) and Pilgrim's
Progress (CHAN 9652(2)).
One aside. It is good
to see prominence given in the booklet
to the RVW Society. There is a
full page advert on p. 224 of the booklet
but no sign of an email address. If
there is a wish to promote membership
this omission is a missed trick. The
set will travel far and wide. I would
expect lively interest in the USA for
a start. Societies not offering e-mail
contact are likely to be passed by.
The RVW Society is admirable in its
activities and I can well believe its
claim to be thriving. How much more
would it flourish if the advertisement
had recognised that email is a significant
medium for promotion and communication
generally.
Each of RVW’s stage
works, like his symphonies, is very
different. The experience of one does
not go far in preparing you for hearing
another. The Poisoned Kiss is,
for all its occasional echoes elsewhere,
sui generis, as the lawyers say
- one of a kind. Representing a serenade
for a summer’s night, it is by no means
perfect. While it creaks from time to
time don’t deny yourself this music
of undemanding delight, witty repartee
and romantic enchantment.
Rob Barnett
Detailed Track Listing
Compact Disc One
1 Overture 7:09
Act I
2 No. 2. Opening Chorus: 'Secret are
the sounds . . .' 2:43
3 No. 3. Scena. Gallanthus: 'What's
that?' 1:38
4 No. 4. Scena. Angelica: 'Day is dawning'
5:54
5 No. 5. Duet. Gallanthus: 'It's really
time . . .' 3:07
6 No. 6. Ensemble. Hob, Lob and Gob:
'Here we come . . .' 2:24
7 No. 7. Duet and Chorus. Dipsacus:
'I'm a sorcerer bold' 1:54
8 No. 8. Duet. Amaryllus: 'It's true
I'm inclined . . .' 2:41
9 No. 9. Ensemble. Tormentilla: 'Hush,
lovely cobra' 2:04
10 Amaryllus: 'Desist, lest you die!'
0:59
11 No. 10. Duet. Amaryllus: 'I know
we see . . .' 0:10
12 Amaryllus: 'Blue larkspur in a garden'
3:01
13 No. 11. Ensemble. Dipsacus: 'Who's
in my forest?' 0:15
14 Dipsacus: 'North wind, south wind'
1:01
15 Tormentilla: 'Angelica?' 0:29
16 Amaryllus and Gallanthus: 'O, come
to our arms' 2:37
17 No. 12. Song. Tormentilla: 'O, who
would be . . .' 2:49
18 No. 13. Finale. Dipsacus: 'All is
ready!' 3:10
Act II
19 No. 14. Introduction 1:04
20 No. 15. Chorus: 'Here we come' 1:47
21 No. 16. Song and Chorus. Angelica
and flower girls: 'By all the powers
. . .' 3:36
22 No. 17. Trio. Lob: 'Ho there!' 1:56
23 No. 18. Duet. Angelica: 'It does
not appear . . .' 2:17
24 No. 19. Trio. Third Medium: 'If you
want to escape' 3:02
Compact Disc Two
Act II (continued)
1 No. 20. Chorus: 'Tormentilla! Tormentilla!'
2:23
2 No. 21. Song and Duet. Tormentilla:
'There was . . .' 5:40
3 No. 22. Ensemble. Amaryllus: 'Twas
here it bade . . .' 4:08
4 No. 23. Serenade. Amaryllus: 'Dear
love, behold . . .' 3:07
5 No. 24. Duet. Tormentilla: 'Sleeping
or waking' 1:27
6 Tormentilla: 'You must not kiss me'
4:23
7 No. 26. Finale. Tormentilla: 'Too
dark for me . . .' 2:56
Act III
8 No. 27. Introduction 1:13
9 No. 28. Trio. Mediums: 'Behold our
mystic . . .' 3:25
10 No. 29. Ensemble. Empress: 'Monstrous
vision!' 1:28
11 No. 30. Ballad. Empress: 'When I
was young . . .' 2:48
12 No. 31. Ensemble. Empress: 'You can
leave us' 0:43
13 No. 32. Duet. Tormentilla: 'Is my
love alive?' 0:28
14 Empress: 'Love breaks all rules .
. .' 3:25
15 No. 33. Invocation. Empress: 'Imps
and Demons' 2:24
16 No. 34. Ensemble. Empress: 'Come,
O gentle powers' 5:36
17 No. 35. Duet. Empress: 'Can you,
can you remember' 2:40
18 No. 36. Quartet. All: 'Love in a
hut . . .' 1:21
19 No. 37. Sextet. First Medium: 'Horrid
monster!' 2:36
20 No. 38. Duet. Gallanthus: 'It's the
proper thing to do' 1:58
21 No. 39. Finale. Chorus: 'Love has
conquered!' 3:31
BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Richard
Hickox