[1/28/2011] Flashback/preview, part 3: Traveling with Valerie Masterson from 1994 to 1967 (continued)

RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN: The King and I: Act I, Anna, "When I think of Tom" . . . "Hello, young lovers"

When I think of Tom, I think about a night
when the earth smelled of summer
and the sky was streaked with white,
and the soft mist of England was sleeping on a hill.
I remember this, and I always will.

There are new lovers now on the same silent hill,
looking on the same blue sea.
And I know Tom and I are a part of them all --
and they're all a part of Tom and me. . . .

Valerie Masterson (s), Anna; National Symphony Orchestra, John Owen Edwards, cond. Jay, recorded July 1994


YES, THE SONG IS "HELLO, YOUNG LOVERS," BUT IT'S
REALLY NOT THE SONG ITSELF I WANT YOU TO HEAR

When I wrote about the vicar Dr. Daly's first song in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer, I suggested that while the ballad itself, "Time was when love and I were well-acquainted," is quite lovely, it's the introductory recitative, "The air is filled with amatory numbers," that really gets to me, that rises to the level of musical magic. I would say the same thing about Anna's remembrance of her dead husband in The King and I. While the song proper, "Hello, young lovers," is just fine, and became justly famous, the emotional dynamite is in the introduction, or verse, or recitative -- however composer Richard Rodgers thought of it.

Melodically and harmonically, what Rodgers does here looks ridiculously simple, even obvious. The only thing is that nobody else did it, or I think could have done it -- with a tip of the hat to the simple but simply magical orchestration of Robert Russell Bennett. Rodgers's lyric-writing partner Oscar Hammerstein II could write corny, and I think there are traces of that in the song, but not here. The words are not only simple and beautiful but emotionally explosive.

It's all so stunningly written that the performers don't have to do much more than, well, just do it, unless you count the small (I'm being ironic) matter of meaning it, as it seems to me Valerie Masterson does so hauntingly in this recording.

Now we're going to jump back to 1967 and hear, well, not quite the full scene, but more of the early scene from The Pirates of Penzance, starting from the moment when young Frederic announces his ex-piratical presence to General Stanley's daughters, who are about to roll up their stockings, unaware that they're in the presence of (gasp) a man!

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Pirates of Penzance: Act I, Frederic, "Stop, ladies, pray" . . . "Oh, is there not one maiden breast?" . . . Mabel, "O sisters deaf to pity's name" . . . "Poor wandering one"

Philip Potter (t), Frederic; Jean Allister (ms), Edith; Pauline Wales (ms), Kate; Valerie Masterson (s), Mabel; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded Dec. 4-8, 1967

As we've heard in Masterson's Julius Caesar, Faust, and Traviata excerpts, the voice retained most of the brightness and flexibility of her D'Oyly Carte years for a couple of decades. Here, from the 1982 G&S program with tenor Robert Tear from which we've already heard excerpts, is a 1982 "Poor wandering one" (without chorus).

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Pirates of Penzance: Act I, Mabel, "Poor wandering one"

Valerie Masterson (s), Mabel; Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Kenneth Alwyn, cond. EMI, recorded June 23-24, 1982


NOW WE HAVE TWO BONUSES (WHICH I THINK
SOUNDS MORE DIGNIFIED THAN "LEFTOVERS")

I made these two audio clips thinking I might find a place for them in a flashback/preview that has already grown to more-or-less full post length. I hate to waste them, though.

First, from the complete King and I recording, we have the lovely "March of the Siamese Children." I imagined using it to lead into the Schoolroom Scene, but for technical reasons that didn't work out.

RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN: The King and I: Act I, "March of the Siamese Children"

National Symphony Orchestra, John Owen Edwards, cond. Jay, recorded July 1994

Finally, another excerpt from the 1972 "Gilbert and Sullivan for All" series, recordings made in conjunction with the hour-long film versions of eight G&:S operas (plus the Burnand and Sullivan Cox and Box) featuring the touring troupe of that name assembled by former D'Oyly Carte tenor Thomas Round, with (by then also former) bass Donald Adams. Masterson sang four of the heroines: her old standbys Mabel, Yum-Yum (The Mikado), and Josephine (HMS Pinafore), all of which she recorded complete during her tenure with the D'Oyly Carte company, plus a role she hadn't sung much, the "strolling singer" Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard.

As you may have suspected from "Poor wandering one," these are not among Masterson's happier recordings (that 1972 "Poor wandering one" is significantly less easily and luminously sung than the 1967 and 1982 ones we've also heard tonight), which I suspect reflects the conditions of haste and lack of care under which they were made. Nevertheless, given her suitability to the almost totally serious role of Elsie, here she is with her performing partner and fiancé, the jester Jack Point (sung by John Cartier, longtime backup to D'Oyly Carte principal comedy baritone John Reed, whose contributions are one of the most interesting things about the "Gilbert and Sullivan for All" series), introducing themselves to (hopefully) interested onlookers.

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN: The Yeomen of the Guard: Act I, Duet, Jack Point and Elsie Maynard, "I have a song to sing, O"

John Cartier (b), Jack Point; Valerie Masterson (s), Elsie Maynard; Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Peter Murray, arr. and cond. Pye, recorded 1972


I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO GET TO VIOLETTA's
BIG SCENE FROM ACT I OF LA TRAVIATA, BUT . . .

As I said, we're already pretty well over the border for a flashback/preview. I did kind of want to have Violetta's "Sempre libera" on hand here, since a lot of people think Sullivan had it in mind when he wrote "Poor wandering one," but, well, you can't always get what you want.

I still don't know when we're going to get to the promised Valerie Masterson post. Or maybe we'll just keep doing flashback/previews.


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