Sunday Classics: In Gilbert and Sullivan's hands, a madrigal can be buoyant, or sad, or sad and funny

The end of the Sextet in the Off-Monroe Players' 2010 production of Patience

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Patience: from the Act I finale, Lady Saphir, "Are you resolved to wed this shameless one? . . . Sextet with Chorus, "I hear the soft note"

Recitative
LADY SAPHIR [coming left of BUNTHORNE]:
Are you resolved to wed this shameless one?
LADY ANGELA [coming right of BUNTHORNE]:
Is there no chance for any other?
BUNTHORNE [decisively]: None!
[Embraces PATIENCE. Exit PATIENCE and BUNTHORNE.]

Sextet -- the Ladies Ella, Saphir, and Angela;
the Duke, Major, and Colonel
[ANGELA, SAPHIR, and ELLA take the COLONEL, DUKE, and MAJOR down, while GIRLS gaze fondly at other OFFICERS.]
I hear the soft note of the echoing voice
of an old, old love, long dead.
It whispers my sorrowing heart "Rejoice!"
for the last sad tear is shed.
The pain that is all but a pleasure will change
for the pleasure that's all but pain,
and never, oh never, this heart will range
from that old, old love again!
[GIRLS embrace OFFICERS.]
CHORUS: Yes, the pain that is all but a pleasure will change
for the pleasure that's all but pain,
and never, oh never, our hearts will range
from that old, old love again!
DUKE with CHORUS: Oh, never, oh never, our hearts will range
from that old, old love again!
SEXTET with CHORUS: Oh, never, oh never, our hearts will range
from that old, old love again!
[The GIRLS embrace the OFFICERS.]

Marorie Eyre (s), Lady Saphir; Nellie Briercliffe (ms), Lady Angela; George Baker (b), Reginald Bunthorne; Rita Mackay (s), Lady Ella; Derek Oldham (t), Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable: Martyn Green (b), Major Murgatroyd; Darrell Fancourt (bs), Colonel Calverley; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Sept.-Nov. 1930

Beti Lloyd-Jones (s), Lady Saphir; Yvonne Newman (ms), Lady Angela; John Reed (b), Reginald Bunthorne; Jennifer Toye (s), Lady Ella; Philip Potter (t), Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable; John Cartier (b), Major Murgatroyd; Donald Adams (bs), Colonel Calverley; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded September 1961

Elizabeth Harwood (s), Lady Saphir; Marjorie Thomas (ms), Lady Angela; George Baker (b), Reginald Bunthorne; Heather Harper (s), Lady Ella; Alexander Young (t), Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable; John Shaw (b), Colonel Calverley; Trevor Anthony (bs), Major Murgatroyd; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 17-20, 1961

by Ken

What we've just heard is a repeat performance, from a September post called "In Patience, 'The pain that is all but a pleasure will change for the pleasure that's all but pain'" -- which also referred back to an earlier post, "Poor Arthur Sullivan never knew how well he had succeeded as a 'serious' composer."


I KEEP LISTENING TO THESE CLIPS,
AND THEY KEEP OVERWHELMING ME

These excerpts required a deal of extraction editing, since in my experience this is not an excerpt you often hear outside performances of Patience itself. And when I did this post, I found myself listening to these clips a lot for weeks afterward. I still go back to them now and then. And each time I'm overwhelmed again by this music's aching beauty, the depth of characterization Sullivan's music gives to his and Gilbert's gloriously silly lovesick maidens and strutting dragoon guards.

It always seems to me that the fact that you can perform the G and S operas the way . . . well, the way they're usually performed doesn't mean that it's a good idea to perform them that way. Let's say some comical wizard showed us that you could perform Hamlet in the spirit of a Benny Hill sketch. This wouldn't mean that the world would be enriched thereby. No, of course G and S operas aren't Hamlet. (A Midsummer Night's Dream might be a closer correspondence.) But they sure ain't Benny Hill either.

In Friday night's preview we listened to another of Sullivan's most haunting numbers, the madrigal "Brightly dawns our wedding day" from Act II of The Mikado. As I indicated, this number has a joke built in, which was an even greater challenge for Sullivan: He managed to produce music of this beauty and depth while not only not compromising the joke but furthering it.


SO FAR, THERE'S JUST ONE SMALL HITCH IN
YUM-YUM AND NANKI-POO'S WEDDING PLANS

NANKI-POO: What's a month? Bah! These divisions of time are purely arbitrary. Who says twenty-four hours make a day?
PITTI-SING: There's a popular impression to that effect.

-- The Mikado, Act II

We've already spent a fair amount of time on Yum-Yum's gorgeous aria near the start of Act II, "The sun and I" (in the August "Poor Arthur Sullivan never knew how well he had succeeded as a 'serious' composer" post"), a piece of (potentially) such surpassing beauty that it can't help but shine a light into this precocious, blossoming girl's soul. In the spoken dialogue that immediately follows, her constant companions -- the other two of the "Three little maids from school" -- remind her of the hitch in the wedding plans (Peep-Bo) and also try to look at the, er, bright-ish side (Pitti-Sing). (I should explain that I've added the qualification to this one small hitch in the wedding plans that it's "so far." Another is about to descend on the happy-ish couple.)

Feel free to just read the text and skip the performance, given the way the performance is, you know, performed. But this is still the only Mikado recording that includes the spoken dialogue, so with grave reservations I'm offering it -- with just the single stanza of the Madrigal which is included in this live (or live-ish) performance.

Spoken dialogue
YUM-YUM: Yes, everything seems to smile upon me. I am to be married today to the man I love best, and I believe I am the very happiest girl in Japan!
PEEP-BO: The happiest girl indeed, for she is indeed to be envied who has attained happiness in all but perfection.
YUM-YUM: In "all but" perfection?
PEEP-BO: Well, dear, it can't be denied that the fact that your husband is to be beheaded in a month is, in its way, a drawback. It does seem to take the top off it, you know.
PITTI-SING: I don't know about that. It all depends!
PEEP-BO: At all events, he will find it a drawback.
PITTI-SING: Not necessarily. Bless you, it all depends!
YUM-YUM [in tears]: I think it very indelicate of you to refer to such a subject on such a day. If my married happiness is to be -- to be --
PEEP-BO: Cut short.
YUM-YUM: Well, cut short -- in a month, can't you let me forget it? [Weeping]
[Enter NANKI-POO, followed by PISH-TUSH.]
NANKI-POO: Yum-Yum in tears -- and on her wedding-morn!
YUM-YUM [sobbing]: They've been reminding me that in a month you're to be beheaded! [Bursts into tears]
PITTI-SING: Yes, we've been reminding her that you're to be beheaded. [Bursts into tears]
NANKI-POO [aside]: Humph! Now some bridegrooms would be depressed by this sort of thing! [Aloud] A month? Well, what's a month? Bah! These divisions of time are purely arbitrary. Who says twenty-four hours make a day?
PITTI-SING: There's a popular impression to that effect.
NANKI-POO: Then we'll efface it. We'll call each second a minute -- each minute an hour -- each hour a day -- and each day a year. At that rate we've about thirty years of married happiness before us!
PEEP-BO: And, at that rate, this interview has already lasted four hours and three-quarters!
[Exit PEEP-BO.]
YUM-YUM [still sobbing]: Yes. How times flies when one is thoroughly enjoying oneself!
NANKI-POO: That's the way to look at it! Don't let's be downhearted! There's a silver lining to every cloud.
YUM-YUM: Certainly. Let's -- let's be perfectly happy! [Almost in tears]
NANKI-POO: By all means. Let's -- let's thoroughly enjoy ourselves.
PITTI-SING: It's -- it's absurd to cry! [Trying to force a laugh]
YUM-YUM: Quite ridiculous! [Trying to laugh]
[All break into a forced and melancholy laugh.]

Madrigal, "Brightly dawns our wedding day"
[one stanza only]

Karla Hughes (s), Yum-Yum; Erica Post (s), Peep-Bo [speaking only]; Jessie Wright Martin (ms), Pitti-Sing; Kyle Knapp (t), Nanki-Poo; Boyd Mackus (b), Pish-Tush; Ohio Light Opera Festival Orchestra, J. Lynn Thompson, cond. Albany, recorded mostly live at the 2008 Ohio Light Opera Festival

Before we listen to the madrigal itself again, let me quote from that September post:

I know that legions of Savoyards will complain that I'm taking these pieces too "seriously," that they're frothy light entertainments. Well, that's fine if all they're interested in is the surface 10 percent -- and all indications are that that's all they're interested in. However, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't even a matter of taste or preference; they're wrong. As I argued recently, "Poor Arthur Sullivan never knew how well he had succeeded as a 'serious' composer." Poor Sullivan, who had his fancy snooty British-music-establishment chums whispering poison in his ears, spent much of his career wanting to rise above his collaborations with Gilbert, to write the "serious" music that one and all agreed was his destiny. And even in the continuing collaborations with Gilbert, he kept begging and demanding more real, human situations to work with.

Well, the "serious" music he wrote is junk. The whining and wheedling with Gilbert paid off, however, because however outlandish the settings of his stories, and even the labels stuck on his characters, his situations and especially his words gave Sullivan the scope for music dramas that -- just like the Pagliacci Prologue exhorts -- consider the characters' souls. . . .

Note: The point I made earlier -- that the Gilbert and Sullivan recordings made by Sir Malcolm Sargent in the '20s and '30s prefigure the added dimension he heard in the operas, as reflected in his EMI stereo recordings -- seems to me even more evident here. And here I would have to say that Isidore Godfrey lets us down a little. The setup for the sextet just isn't done with the care it calls for; note how little his oboist makes of that extraordinary little figure that heralds the return of that "soft note of the echoing voice of an old, old love, long dead." And Godfrey's female soloists, well, just aren't good enough. The detractors of the Sargent stereo recordings always prattle on about how dull they are, and how devoid of "characterization." Is there any question as to which among these performances is the most fully characterized? If you can't sing the music, how can you create a character with it?

Now before we listen again to the Mikado madrigal, I want to register astonishment at the idea of cutting the second stanza -- and the Ohio production isn't the first I've heard to do it. First, it means that don't have much regard for this amazing music, and second, it even diminishes the joke by half. No doubt the person who decides on such a cut thinks that the joke has already been delivered, and it's overkill to do it again, but one of the miracles of the number is the G and S are actually able to double down on the joke. The company is able to regroup and crank up its spirits as high as possible under the circumstances, only to suffere the same breakdown.


NOW FOR THREE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT PERFORMANCES

And the music makes a lovely effect in all three.

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Mikado:
Act II, Madrigal, "Brightly dawns our wedding day"

YUM-YUM: Brightly dawns our wedding day.
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]:
 Joyous hour, we give thee greeting!
Whither, whither art thou fleeting?
Fickle moment, prithee stay!
Fickle moment, prithee stay!
PISH-TUSH [or GO-TO]: What though mortal joys be hollow?
PITTI-SING: Pleasures come, if sorrows follow:
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]:
 Though the tocsin sound, ere long,
ding dong!
Ding dong!
Yet until the shadows fall

over one and over all,
YUM-YUM: Sing a merry madrigal!
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]: 
Sing a merry madrigal,
sing a merry madrigal:
Fa la,
fa la la la la la la.

YUM-YUM: Let us dry the ready tear,
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]:
 Though the hours are surely creeping,
little need for woeful weeping,
till the sad sundown is near,
till the sad sundown is near.
PISH-TUSH [or GO-TO]: All must sip the cup of sorrow --
PITTI-SING: I today, and thou tomorrow
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]:
 This the close of ev'ry song,
ding dong!
Ding dong!
What though solemn shadows fall,
sooner, later, over all,
YUM-YUM: Sing a merry madrigal!
YUM-YUM, PITTI-SING, NANKI-POO, and PISH-TUSH [GO-TO]: Sing a merry madrigal,
sing a merry madrigal:
Fa la,
fa la la la la la la.
[Ending in tears]

Deborah Rees (s), Yum-Yum; Thora Ker (ms), Pitti-Sing; Bonaventura Bottone (t), Nanki-Poo; Gareth Jones (bs), Pish-Tush; New D'Oyly Carte Opera Orchestra, John Pryce-Jones, cond. TER, recorded Feb. 10-16, 1990

Marion Studholme (s), Yum-Yum; Patricia Kern (c), Pitti-Sing; John Wakefield (t), Nanki-Poo; John Heddle Nash (b), Pish-Tush; Sadler's Wells Opera Orchestra, Alexander Faris, cond. EMI, recorded May-June 1962

Elsie Morison (s), Yum-Yum; Marjorie Thomas (c), Pitti-Sing; Richard Lewis (t), Nanki-Poo; John Cameron (b), Pish-Tush; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded May-Aug. 1956

And again, for me there's no question which performance lifts the music to its maximum expressive content. It seems to me only by an idiotically unreal cliché image of brightness and joy that they require speed for musical expression. In the Sargent performance the day seems to me to dawn with real brightness, and then to dissolve into tears with real feeling along with the joke.


RUDDIGORE HAS A MADRIGAL TOO

In the very next Savoy opera, Ruddigore, G and S found a place for another madrigal, in the finale of Act I, during the preparations for the wedding of the village sweetheart Rose Maybud and the young blade who has only just won her heart, the sailor Richard Dauntless. Let's start with two performances that I think you'll notice are very different, and no, I'm not referring to the gap in technical quality over this 36-year span. (The 1950 Decca Ruddigore was originally released on 78s as well as LPs.) One performance to note is the Rose of Margaret Mitchell, the best soprano I've heard plying the G and S repertory (and yes, that even includes Valerie Masterson).

Note that I've left in the Gavotte that follows the Madrigal. In a moment we're going to hear recordings in which we can plainly hear that something dramatic interrupts the proceedings.

Madrigal: Rose Maybud, Dame Hannah, Richard Dauntless, and Old Adam, with chorus

ROSE: When the buds are blossoming,
smiling welcome to the spring,
lovers choose a wedding day --
life is love in merry May!
GIRLS: Spring is green --
summer's rose --
QUARTET: It is sad when summer goes,
fa la la etc.
MEN: Autumn's gold --
winter's grey --
QUARTET: Winter still is far away --
fa la la etc.
CHORUS: Leaves in autumn fade and fall;
winter is the end of all.
Spring and summer teem with glee;
spring and summer then for me!
Fa la la etc.

DAME HANNAH: In the springtime seed is sown;
in the summer grass is mown;
in the autumn you may reap;
winter is the time for sleep.
GIRLS: Spring is hope --
summer's joy --
QUARTET: Spring and summer never cloy.
Fa la la etc.
CHORUS: Spring and summer pleasure you,
autumn, aye, and winter too --
every season has its cheer;
life is lovely all the year!
Fa la la etc.

Gavotte

Margaret Mitchell (s), Rose Maybud; Ella Halman (c), Dame Hannah; Leonard Osborn (t), Richard Dauntless;Radley Flynn (bs), Old Adam; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Promenade Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 21 and Aug. 24, 1950

Marilyn Hill Smith (s), Rose Maybud; Joan Davies (c), Dame Hannah; David Hillman (t), Richard Dauntless; John Ayldon (bs), Old Adam; New Sadler's Wells Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Simon Phipps, cond. Jay Productions-MCA, recorded Feb.-March 1987

And now let's listen to our stereo standbys, from Isidore Godfrey and Sir Malcolm Sargent. The performance to note hear is the Dame Hannah of our old friend, the constant contralto of the Sargent-EMI series, Monica Sinclair. Of course Elsie Morison is just fine as Rose as well, giving this rendering of the Madrigal a strong backbone. Note that Sir Malcolm's performance isn't notably slow, but it's still the most purposefully detailed of our four, not least because it has much the best singing.


Jean Hindmarsh (s), Rose Maybud; Gillian Knight (ms), Dame Hannah; Thomas Round (t), Richard Dauntless; Stanley Riley (bs), Old Adam; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962

Elsie Morison (s), Rose Maybud; Monica Sinclair (c), Dame Hannah; Richard Lewis (t), Richard Dauntless; Harold Blackburn (bs), Old Adam; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 11-14, 1962

#