Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Trump is no stable genius. He is getting more and more untethered to the gravitational pull of reality every damn day. A few days ago, Trump said that he could get elected to any office in Europe. Yeah, right. Well, maybe, just maybe he could, but only with the help of his buddies like Vlad Putin or Kim Jong-un. So that might not be quite so insane of him, at least if measured on any scale of Trump insane pronouncements or actions.

But, when Trump also said that he thought he would make a great general... well, a great Benedict Arnold maybe. The way he's fighting to destroy America, he's obviously that. But Trump longs to be a great general in the 2-bit dictator sense. No wonder he keeps firing generals. He wants to be the only one. He can give himself all the medals, weighing himself down so much that he gives himself a heart attack or falls face first into a puddle and drowns. Oh, happy day!

Sunday Classics snapshots: Aren't the jolly boys and girls of "The Gondoliers" really somebodies after all?

"The Piazzetta in Venice, Looking East with the Doge's Palace, the Columns of Saint Mark and Saint Theodore, the Riva degli Schiavoni and the Bacino di San Marco," oil painting by Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780)

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Gondoliers: Act I, Francesco, Good morrow, pretty maids . . . Antonio, For the merriest fellows are we

During the previous chorus, in which the CONTADINE (peasant girls) have been discovered in the Piazzetta in Venice arranging floral bouquets, ANTONIO, FRANCESCO, GIORGIO, and other GONDOLIERS have entered unobserved by the girls -- at first two, then two more, then half a dozen, then the remainder.

FRANCESCO: Good morrow, pretty maids. For whom prepare ye
these floral tributes extraordinary?
FIAMETTA: For Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri,
the pink and flower of all the gondolieri.
GIULIA: They're coming here, as we have heard but lately,
to choose two brides from us who sit sedately.
ANTONIO: Do all you maidens love them?
CONTADINE: Passionately!
ANTONIO: These gondoliers are to be envied greatly.
GIORGIO: But what of us, who one and all adore you?
Have pity on our passion, we implore you!
FIAMETTA: These gentlemen must make their choice before you.
VITTORIA: In the meantime we tacitly ignore you.
GIULIA: When they have chosen two, that leaves you plenty.
Two dozen we, and ye are four and twenty!
FIAMETTA and VITTORIA : Till then, enjoy your dolce far niente!
ANTONIO : With pleasure, nobody contradicente!
Song, Antonio and Contadine
ANTONIO : For the merriest fellows are we, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : That ply on the emerald sea, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : With loving and laughing
and quipping and quaffing,
we're happy as happy can be, tra la.
With loving and laughing
and quipping and quaffing,
we're happy as happy can be, tra la.
ALL: Tra la-la-la-la, etc.
ANTONIO : With sorrow we've nothing to do, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : And care is a thing we pooh-pooh, tra la.
CONTADINE: Tra la, tra la, tra la, tra la-la-la, tra-la-la-la la.
ANTONIO : And jealousy yellow,
unfortunate fellow,
we drown in the shimmering blue, tra la.
And jealousy yellow,
unfortunate fellow,
we drown in the shimmering blue, tra la.
ALL: Tra la-la-la-la-la-la-la, etc.

Alexander Young (t), Francesco; Stella Hitchens (s), Fiametta; Helen Watts (c), Giulia; James Milligan (bs-b), Antonio; James Milligan (bs-b), Giorgio; Lavinia Renton (s), Vittoria; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Mar. 11-15, 1957

Dawn Bradshaw (s), Fiametta; Joseph Riordan (t), Francesco; Daphne Gill (ms), Giulia; Michael Wakeham (b), Antonio; George Cook (b), Giorgio; Ceinwen Jones (s), Vittoria; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded September 1960

Enid Walsh (s), Fiametta; Thomas Hancock (t), Francesco; Joyce Wright (ms), Giulia; Geoffrey Sanders (b), Antonio; Radley Flynn (bs), Giorgio; Yvonne Dean (ms), Vittoria; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Promenade Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded Mar. 11, 1950

by Ken

This week's late-scheduled musical snapshot is kind of blurry, I'm afraid, but seems important nevertheless. I expected to be proceeding, finally, with Part 2 of the "Sound of Aging, Verdi-style" miniseries I began a few weeks ago with Giorgio Germont's calculatedly fatigue-ridden appeal to his wayward son Alfredo to abandon wicked Paris and come home to beautiful, sunny, wholesome Provence -- in the form of the celebrated baritone aria "Di Provenza il mar, il suol." But Friday night I attended a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers which went beyond good-or-bad (there were good things and there were bad things) to show me something about the piece I've never heard before, and that's always exciting.


THE PROBLEM IS . . .

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Sunday Classics snapshots: "Is life a boon?"

Longtime D'Oyly Carte Opera Company principal tenor Thomas Round was not only long gone from the company but, unfortunately, in his late 50s by the time he made the recordings below.

Is life a boon?
If so, it must be befall
that Death, whene'er he call
must call too soon.
Though fourscore year he give,
yet one would wish to live
another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
who perish in July?
who perish in July?
I might have had to die
perchance in June!
I might have had to die
perchance in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it
soon as he's born.
He should all means essay
to put the plague away,
to put the plague away;
and I, war-worn,
poor captured fugitive,
my life most gladly give.
I might have had to live
another morn!
I might have had to live
another morn!

Revised (standard) version

Thomas Round (t), Col. Fairfax; Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Orchestra, Peter Murray, cond. G and S for All, recorded 1972
Original version

Thomas Round (t), Col. Fairfax; Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Orchestra, Peter Murray, cond. Pearl, recorded in Battersea Town Hall (London), Sept. 12, 1972

by Ken

We'll come back to "Is life a boon?," the song that blossomed from tedium to magnificence when the composer was nudged by his wordsmith partner to start over. But first, let me explain as quickly as possible that it and our other musical snapshot today arise from two convergences:

• While I was waiting for the Museum of the Moving Image screening of Paddy Chayefsky and Delbert Mann's 1957 film The Bachelor Party (an adaptation of their 1953 live-TV version), part of the Matthew Weiner-curated series of films that impacted him in the making of Mad Men, I forced myself to finally finish Ben McGrath's April 13 New Yorker piece on fantasy sports, from which I learned that fantasy sports has pretty well eliminated any connection to the play of sports even as it has exploded all over the place and apparently provided the only reason to live for a lot of people who therefore may be thought to have no reason to live. This was a dangerous convergence because The Bachelor Party depicts a night in the life of five humdrum office mates, where four of them take the fifth out for a bachelor party that unswittingly slipslides into a crossroads that none of them is well-equipped to cope with, at least not without throwing open the question of what meaning or purpose, if any, their lives have.

• And the musical snapshots by that convergence further converged with one of last week's musical snapshots: the tenor's "Ingemisco" from the awesome "Dies irae" of the Verdi Requiem. For me personally, the other peak of Verdi's "Dies irae," the mezzo-soprano's "Liber scriptus proferetur" -- we heard the two together in the April 2011 Sunday Classics post "Verdi blows the lid off the whole Krap Kristian hypocrisy."

So I thought we would just listen again to the three complete performances of the "Liber scriptus" we heard back then -- sung, as I wrote then, by two suitably deep-voiced mezzos (Jard van Nes and Florence Quivar) and a genuine contralto (Lili Chookasian)."(We also heard Ebe Stignani's recording broken into segments.)

VERDI: Requiem: ii. "Dies irae": mezzo-soprano solo, "Liber scriptus proferetur" ("A written book shall be brought forth")

A written book shall be brought forth
in which all is recorded,
whence the world shall be judged.

Therefore, when the Judge shall be seated
nothing shall be held hidden any longer,
no wrong shall remain unpunished.

Jard van Nes (ms); Munich Bach Choir, Frankfurt Singing Academy, Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hanns-Martin Schneidt, cond. Arte Nova, recorded Oct. 30, 1988

Florence Quivar, mezzo-soprano; Ernst-Senff Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. DG, recorded April 1989

Lili Chookasian, contralto; Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 5-6 1964, Apr. 5, 1965


KEEP THE "INGEMISCO" AND "LIBER SCRIPTUS" IN MIND

We're going to be coming back to them.


MEANWHILE HERE AGAIN IS "IS LIFE A BOON?"

A song of the splendor of (the second) "Is life a boon?" deserves a comparably magnificent performance, and unfortunately I don't have one of those to offer. Still the closest to me is Leonard Osborn's, which for all the familiar problems of his singing is the performance the not only has plenty of real vocal ring but a goodly helping of dramatic importance. Although as I've said I'm not a great fan of onetime D'Oyly Carte Opera Company principal tenor Derek Oldham, I kind of like both of his recordings, though I'm still bothered by the fake-classy verbal frilliness -- much better controlled, it seems to me, in the 1928 version. I suppose Richard Lewis's recording represents something of a compromise between the two, though you certainly can't say it's beautifully sung.

Which is why I've included the remaining two versions, which are both quite prettily sung but don't seem to me to carry any vocal or emotional weight, and pretty much miss the point of the piece.

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Yeomen of the Guard: Act I, Ballad, Col. Fairfax, "Is life a boon?"

Is life a boon?
If so, it must be befall
that Death, whene'er he call
must call too soon.
Though fourscore year he give,
yet one would wish to live
another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
who perish in July?
who perish in July?
I might have had to die
perchance in June!
I might have had to die
perchance in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it
soon as he's born.
He should all means essay
to put the plague away,
to put the plague away;
and I, war-worn,
poor captured fugitive,
my life most gladly give.
I might have had to live
another morn!
I might have had to live
another morn!

Leonard Osborn (t), Col. Fairfax; New Promenade Orchestra, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 18, 1950

Richard Lewis (t), Col. Fairfax; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 10-14, 1957

Derek Oldham (t), Col. Fairfax; D'Oyly Carte Opera Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 29-Dec. 4, 1928 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Derek Oldham (t), Col. Fairfax; orchestra, George Byng, cond. EMI, recorded Mar.-Oct. 1920 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Philip Potter (t), Col. Fairfax; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded Apr. 5-11, 1964

Kurt Streit (t), Col. Fairfax; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded May 1992

#

Q: How can you tell when "Holy Joe" Lieberman is lying? A: His lips are moving.

Yes, it's b-a-a-c-k!

-- from today's WaPo Monday "Opinions" e-mail

by Ken

Okay, it's an ancient joke, the one I've recycled above. But tell me it doesn't apply exactly to former CT Sen. "Holy Joe" Lieberman, aka "The Holiest Joe of Them All."

Is it a moon phase or what? 'Cause we've really got the right-wing scum-loons pouring out of the woodwork. For how many days now have we had to listen to that lying scumbag-thug Rudy Giuliani blithering psychotically about President Obama? And now here, telling the 23 members of the House officially disaffected by the scheme to turn a joint session of Congress into a campaign rally for the Israeli Likud Bund -- and any other suckerable saps who'll listen -- that they should just forget about the circmstances of this appalling pile of political skulduggery cooked up in cahoots by the Israeli and U.S. Far Right, to rise above politics and listen politely to the lying scumbag-thug who occupies the post of prime minister of Israel.

Since, His Holiness says in a Washington Post op-ed, "Hear out Israel's leader," "it is absolutely clear" that House Speaker "Sunny John" Boehner "will neither postpone nor rescind his invitation, the prime minister will be there to speak." Apparently the 23 House Democrats are supposed to shut the fuck up and listen to Holy Joe, but there are no words for Sunny John, who's principally responsible for this goddamn mess to begin with. Welcome to HolyJoeWorld.

Now what Holy Joe knows about foreign affairs would fill . . . well, no container that I know of -- unless we count lies and imbecilities, and for once, just this once, I say we don't. No, all our Joe knows is that an inviolable tenet of U.S. foreign policy must always be that we bow down and kiss the smelly toes of the vilest fascists in Israel.

Nevertheless, in the interest of fairness (and what are we here if not fair?), here are the reasons why His Holiness thinks those grumpy congressmembers should show up on March 3 and listen politely to Prime Minister Bib's prime-ministerial crock:

● Go because this is about determining how best to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and not just another Washington test of partisan and political loyalty.

● Go because — regardless of what you think of the leaders involved or their actions in this case — you are a strong supporter of America’s alliance with Israel, and you don’t want it to become a partisan matter.

● Go because you know that the Constitution gives you, as a member of Congress, the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations,” “define and punish . . . offenses against the law of nations,” “declare war,” “raise and support armies” and “provide and maintain a Navy,” and Netanyahu might say some things that will inform your exercise of those great powers.

● Go because you know that Israel is one of our closest and most steadfast allies and you feel a responsibility to listen to its leader speak about developments that he believes could threaten the safety, independence and even existence of his country, as well as that of our closest allies in the Arab world.

● Go because you worry that it is not just the security of Israel and the Arab nations but the security of the United States that will be threatened if a bad agreement is made with Iran that enables it to build nuclear weapons it could put on its increasingly capable long-range missiles.

● Go because you are concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation and believe that a faulty deal with Iran will not only put it on the road to becoming a nuclear power but will also lead some of Iran’s Arab neighbors to acquire nuclear weapons as soon as possible.

It's not that what happens with Iran is of no consequence to us as well as Israel, but that that inveterate dirty-toe-licking Holy Joe and his political brethren know and understand less about the situation than possibly any people on the planet.


HOW CONGRESS COULD RESPOND TO
AN "ILL-OMENED OWL" LIKE HOLY JOE

Now Holy Joe could hardly qualify more exactly as an "ill-omened owl," and if the son of a bitch insists on trying to spoil our "gay gambado," one obvious solution Congress might try is this trick employed in the Act I finale of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, as the frightful old frump Katisha tries in vain to reveal to the assembled Japanese town of Titipu the true identity of the fellow they know as the minstrel Nanki-Poo, who it seems is the son of their . . . well, we never do find out! (Hmm, what rhymes with "bravado," "tornado," and "gambado"?)

KATISHA: I'll tear the mask off your disguising!
NANKI-POO [aside]: Now comes the blow!
KATISHA: Prepare yourself for news surprising!
NANKI-POO [aside]: How foil my foe?
KATISHA: No minstrel he, despite bravado!
YUM-YUM [aside, struck by an idea]: Ha ha! I know!
KATISHA: He is the son of your --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
KATISHA: In vain you interrupt with this tornado!
He is the only son of your --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
KATISHA: I'll spoil --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
KATISHA: . . . your gay gambado!
He is the son --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
KATISHA: . . . of your --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
KATISHA: . . . the son of your --
TOWNSFOLK [interrupting]: O ni! bikkuri shakkurito!
Oya, oya!
KATISHA: Ye torrents roar!
Ye tempests howl!
Your wrath outpour
with angry growl!
Do ye your worst,
my vengeance call
shall rise triumphant over all!
TOWNSFOLK: We'll hear no more,
ill-omened owl!
To joy we soar,
despite your scowl!
The echoes of our festival
shall rise triumphant over all!
KATISHA: Prepare for woe,
ye haughty lords!
At once I go
Mikado-wards!
TOWNSFOLK: Away you go!
Collect your hordes!
Proclaim your woe
in dismal chords!

-- from the Act I finale of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado

Ann Drummond-Grant (c), Katisha; Thomas Round (t), Nanki-Poo; Jean Hindmarsh (s), Yum-Yum; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded October 1957

The only thing is that Katisha, monstrous as she is, is made way more sympathetic in Arthur Sullivan's music, as this scene plays out, than any power known to man could make Holy Joe. (I'm pretty sure we've already heard this great scene whole, but I couldn't quickly find a link. If anybody cares, I'll pursue it.)

#

Ghost of Sunday Classics: I have a song to sing, O!

Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland sing the "Brindisi" from Act I of Verdi's La Traviata, with Richard Bonynge conducting, at the Met in October 1970.

ALFREDO: Let’s drink, let's drink
from the joyous chalice where beauty flowers.
Let the fleeting hour
to pleasure’s intoxication yield.
Let’s drink to love’s sweet tremors –
to those eyes that pierce the heart.
Let’s drink to love -- to wine,
that warms our kisses.
ALL
: Ah! Let’s drink, let's drink to love --
to wine, that warms our kisses.
VIOLETTA [rising]: With you, with you
I would share my days of happiness.
Everything is folly in this world
that does not give us pleasure.
Let us enjoy life,
for the pleasures of love are swift and fleeting,
as a flower that lives and dies
and can be enjoyed no more.
Let’s take our pleasure!
While its ardent, brilliant summons lures us on.
ALL: Let’s take our pleasure
of wine and singing and mirth,
till the new day dawns on us as in Paradise.
VIOLETTA [to ALFREDO]: Life is just pleasure.
ALFREDO [to VIOLETTA]: But if one still waits for love --
VIOLETTA [to ALFREDO]: I know nothing of that --
don’t tell me --
ALFREDO [to VIOLETTA]: But there lies my fate.
ALL: Let’s take our pleasure
of wine and singing and mirth,
till the new day dawns on this paradise of ours.

by Ken

Extra credit if you saw the title of this post and sang back, "Sing me your song, O!"

In a moment we'll come back to "I have a song to sing, O!," but first, by way of sort-of-explainaton of what we're up to today, it's not exactly a rarity in opera where one character or another is asked to sing for the entertainment of a gathering, often with drinking involved. Nor is it a rarity for one character or another to offer a song to a gathering for their entertainment. I have such a scene in mind, and to get there I thought we'd hit some of the more notable specimens, and we've started with perhaps the most famous of all, the "Brindisi" (drinking song) sung by Alfredo, and joined by Violetta, at the start of Act I of La Traviata.

In fact, we're going to hear the full setting of Alfredo's "Libiamo," but first --

"I HAVE A SONG TO SING, O!"

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Ghost of Sunday Classics: At Castle Adamant, behind enemy lines, the truth is found, the truth is found!

How we got here: Hilarion, Cyril, and Florian make their entry into the grounds of Castle Adamant, from a Savoynet production in Bruxton.

"Darwinian Man, though well-behav'd,
at best is only a monkey shav'd!"

-- Lady Psyche, in Act II of Princess Ida

by Ken

Last week, in "Prince Hilarion's mission of the heart," we left our royal wooing party -- comprising Prince Hilarion and his childhood friends Cyril and Florian -- safely embedded behind enemy walls, in the garden of Castle Adamant, seat of the woman's college founded by Princess Ida, Hilarion's betrothed since she was a 12-month-old and he was twice as old. The princess, alas, has shown herself unwilling to honor her infant betrothal. In fact, in her 21 years she has had quite her fill of men, and has forsworn them; hence the college for women only.

As I noted last week, the common assumption that it's the women being ridiculed in Princess Ida seems to me utterly unsustainable by anyone who has eyes, ears, and a working brain. The lofty goals of Ida and her protégées may be tainted with charming silliness, but at least they have goals that go beyond fighting the next battle. By comparison, the behavior of the men -- whether of the martial or the poetical strain (our dramatis personae includes a quantity of each) -- ranges from preposterous to ludicrous and back.

Two plans are afoot to bring Princess Ida around, and at the moment we've been following the quest of Prince Hilarion to penetrate Castle Adamant and woo his child bride. To that end he, Cyril, and Florian have succeeded in disguising themselves as students of the college, and have even withstood the scrutiny of the princess herself, though in fairness what she has been scrutinizing these ungainly young maidens for isn't male impersonation but the earthly disappointment that is the true mark of an educable young woman.

Last week we heard our young gentleman agreeing with the princess, in a beautiful quartet, that "The world is but a broken toy, its pleasures hollow, false its joy." At this point, a new disaster befalls.

[Exit PRINCESS. The three gentlemen watch her off. LADY PSYCHE enters, and regards them with amazement.]
PRINCE HILARION: I'faith, the plunge is taken, gentlemen!
For, willy-nilly, we are maidens now,
and maids against our will we must remain.
[All laugh heartily.]
LADY PSYCHE [aside]: These ladies are unseemly in their mirth.
[The gentlemen see her, and, in confusion, resume their modest demeanor.]
FLORIAN [aside, to HILARION]:
Here's a catastrophe, Hilarion!
This is my sister! She'll remember me,
Though years have passed since she and I have met!
PRINCE HILARION [aside, to FLORIAN]:
Then make a virtue of necessity,
and trust our secret to her gentle care.
FLORIAN [to PSYCHE, who has watched CYRIL in amazement]:
Psyche!  Why, don't you know me? Florian!
LADY PSYCHE [amazed]: Why, Florian!
FLORIAN: My sister! [Embraces her.]
LADY PSYCHE: Oh, my dear! What are you doing here -- and who are
these?
PRINCE HILARION: I am that Prince Hilarion to whom
your Princess is betrothed.
I come to claim
her plighted love.
Your brother Florian
and Cyril came to see me safely through.
LADY PSYCHE: The Prince Hilarion? Cyril too? How strange!
My earliest playfellows!
PRINCE HILARION: Why, let me look!
Are you that learned little Psyche who
at school alarmed her mates because she called
a buttercup "ranunculus bulbosus"?
CYRIL: Are you indeed that Lady Psyche, who
at children's parties, drove the conjuror wild,
explaining all his tricks before he did them?
PRINCE HILARION: Are you that learned little Psyche, who
at dinner parties, brought in to dessert,
would tackle visitors with "You don't know
who first determined longitude -- I do --
Hipparchus 'twas — B.C. one sixty-three!"
Are you indeed that small phenomenon?
LADY PSYCHE: That small phenomenon indeed am I!
But gentlemen, 'tis death to enter here:
We have all promised to renounce mankind!
FLORIAN: Renounce mankind!? On what ground do you base
this senseless resolution?
LADY PSYCHE: Senseless?  No.
We are all taught, and, being taught, believe
that Man, sprung from an Ape, is Ape at heart.
CYRIL: That's rather strong.
LADY PSYCHE: The truth is always strong!

John Bernard (Prince Hilarion), Melanie Melcher (Lady Psyche), Bradley Wilson (Florian), Christopher Swanson (Cyril). Newport Classic, recorded live at the 1999 Ohio Light Opera Festival


IF THIS SOUNDS LIKE A SONG CUE, IT IS

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Ghost of Sunday Classics: Prince Hilarion's mission of the heart

"The world is but a broken toy": Disguised as students of the woman's college established by the Princess Ida, Florian (William Whitefield), Cyril (Patrick Hogan), and Prince Hilarion (Colm Fitzmaurice) meet Ida, Hilarion's betrothed (Kimilee Bryant), in the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' January 2008 Princess Ida.

by Ken

We've already dealt somewhat with the more martial aspects of Princess Ida, the mortal struggle between Kings Gama and Hildebrand -- the fathers of the bride and groom, respectively -- over the consummation of the union between Princess Ida and Prince Hilarion plighted when she was a 12-month-old and he was twice as old, he's told. The hitch, now that Ida is 21 and Hilarion 22, is that the princess has had quite her fill of men and has sequestered herself in Castle Adamant as the headmistress of a woman's college.

The arrangement ordered by King Hildebrand, you'll recall, is that Gama and Ida's "three hulking brothers" are to be held hostage (an exceedingly kindly and gracious hostagedom, as it turns out) while Hilarion avails himself of one opportunity to persuade his child bride to accept him. Naturally Hilarion chooses to have his childhood friends Cyril and Florian at his side, and one of the keys to the flood of amazing music Sullivan produced, especially in Act II, is this core trio he had at his disposal. As we've often remarked, something about the trio medium set his genius ablaze, and that extends to "expanded" trios -- trio-plus-one quartets (of which we'll hear an instance today) and trio-plus-two quintets (of which we'll hear an instance next week).

In last night's preview we made the acquaintance of the prince himself. Now without further ado, here is Hilarion announcing what we might call --

THE PLAN

I should probably say something about the performances, which span three-quarters of the century, dipping back into the acoustical era. You can follow individual performances throughout our excerpts, or listen to the very different treatments accorded individual numbers. There seems to me no question, though, that the strongest "Hilarion and Friends" trio, is that of the 1954 Decca recording -- with a just-right pair of tenors and a fine baritone. The 1965 Decca team (with the same baritone) holds its own, though.

Princess Ida: Act I, Recitative and Trio, "Come, Cyril, Florian" . . . "Expressive glances shall be our lances"

Recitative, Hilarion
Come, Cyril, Florian, our course is plain,
tomorrow morn fair Ida we’ll engage;
but we will use no force her love to gain,
nature has armed us for the war we wage!
Trio, Hilarion, Cyril, and Florian
HILARION: Expressive glances
shall be our lances,
and pops of Sillery
our light artillery.
We’ll storm their bowers
with scented showers
of fairest flowers
that we can buy!
CHORUS: Oh, dainty triolet!
Oh, fragrant violet
Oh, gentle heigho-let
(Or little sigh).
On sweet urbanity,
through mere inanity,
yo touch their vanity
we will rely!
CYRIL: When day is fading,
with serenading
and such frivolity
we’ll prove our quality.
A sweet profusion
of soft allusion
this bold intrusion
shall justify.
CHORUS: Oh, dainty triolet! etc.
FLORIAN: We’ll charm their senses
with verbal fences,
with ballads amatory
and declamatory.
Little heeding
their pretty pleading,
our love exceeding
we’ll justify!
CHORUS: Oh, dainty triolet! etc.

Derek Oldham (t), Prince Hilarion; Leon Darnton (t), Cyril; Sydney Granville (b), Florian; Light Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Harry Norris, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 14, 1924

Derek Oldham (t), Prince Hilarion; Charles Goulding (t), Cyril; George Baker (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 27, 1932 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Thomas Round (t), Prince Hilarion; Leonard Osborn (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded cOct.-Dec. 1954 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Phiip Potter (t), Prince Hilarion; David Palmer (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

John Bernard (t), Prince Hilarion; Christopher Swanson (t), Cyril; Bradley Wilson (b), Florian; Ohio Light Opera Chorus and Orchestra, J. Lynn Thompson, cond. Newport Classic, recorded live at the 1999 Ohio Light Opera Festival


PENETRATING THE PERIMETER

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Ghost of Sunday Classics preview: Could we have a royal operetta without a dreamy prince?

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Princess Ida: Act I, Introduction and Opening Chorus, "Search throughout the panorama for a sign of royal Gama"

Pavilion attached to KING HILDEBRAND's palace. Soldiers and courtiers discovered looking out through opera glasses, telescopes, etc., FLORIAN leading.

CHORUS: Search throughout the panorama
for a sign of royal Gama,
who today should cross the water
with his fascinating daughter --
Ida is her name.
Some misfortune evidently
has detained them -- consequently,
search throughout the panorama
for the daughter of King Gama,
Prince Hilarion's flame! Prince Hilarion's flame!
FLORIAN: Will Prince Hilarion's hopes be sadly blighted?
CHORUS: Who can tell? Who can tell?
FLORIAN: Will Ida break the vows that she has plighted?
CHORUS: Who can tell? Who can tell?
FLORIAN: Will she back out, and say she did not mean them?
CHORUS: Who can tell?
FLORIAN: If so, there'll be the deuce to pay between them!
CHORUS: No, no,
we'll not despair, we'll not despair!
For Ida would not dare
to make a deadly foe
of Hildebrand, and so --
search throughout the panorama
for a sign of royal Gama,
who today should cross the water
with his fascinating daughter --
Ida, Ida is her name.

[Opening Chorus at 3:41] George Baker (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 26 and 28, 1932 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

[Opening Chorus at 4:12] Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded cOct.-Dec. 1954 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

[Opening Chorus at 4:01] Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

[Opening Chorus at 3:54] Bradley Wilson (b), Florian; Ohio Light Opera Chorus and Orchestra, J. Lynn Thompson, cond. Newport Classic, recorded live at the 1999 Ohio Light Opera Festival

by Ken

As I mentioned last week, I finally got wise to the existence of the "Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Edition" of the vocal score of Princess Ida (edited by Paul Howarth, first published in 2007, with a somewhat corrected edition published in 2013), and on arrival it has yielded an immediate discovery. You may recall that I had made the momentous decision to downgrade the "stub" of an overture to the opera from "overture" to "prelude." As it happens, I had never seen this piece in score, because the old Chappell edition, which until now was my only Princess Ida score, like the Chappell vocal scores of several other G-snd-S operas, didn't include the overture! These editions seem to have been frozen in time from the moment of original publication, when the publisher apparently hadn't yet received the overtures.

So what do I discover upon opening my new score? Two things:

(1) The orchestral introduction isn't called "Overture," it's called "Introduction"!

(2) The end of the Introduction is marked "attacca," meaning that it's meant to flow directly into the following number, the opera's opening chorus. I had had some reservations about the designation "prelude," since the piece is self-standing, but I harked back to the examples of the Preludes to Verdi's Rigoletto and Traviata. The attacca marking vindicates this, and I would go ahead comfortably calling the piece a "Prelude" if not for the possibility that the score designation "Introduction" actually traces back to Sullivan. So, "Introduction" it is -- and I thought our first order of business now should be to hear the opening of the opera this way. Like we just did above!

Beyond this, I thought that since we slipped into Princess Ida by focusing on the two kings, the fathers of our royal non-couple, this week we might focus on the young bridegrom, the son of King Hildebrand, Prince Hilarion -- and his friends Cyril and Florian (whom we just heard briefly in the vigil for the arrival of King Gama and his daughter).


SO LET'S MEET PRINCE HILARION

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Ghost of Sunday Classics: Let's meet "a genuine philanthropist" ("All other kinds are sham")

Martyn Green (b); Lehman Engel, cond. Columbia, recorded 1953

John Reed (b); Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

by Ken

Yes, we're still in Gilbert and Sullivan's treasurable if troubled musico-dramatic trove Princess Ida, which we dipped into last week to continue spotlighting the great Gilbert and Sullivan bass, specifically the role Arac, the most talkative of Princess Ida's "three hulking brothers." In a moment I'll share with you the logic whereby we've arrived at this week's ghost post, but first --


LET'S GO BACK TO THE PRELUDE

Yes, I know we already listened to what we decided we were going to call the Prelude (rather than Overture), including the two stereo versions below conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent. This week, however, we're going to add the performance from his 1932 complete recording of Princess Ida, one of the recordings he made in his days as music director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. If you listen to the three performances in sequence, I think you'll hear why I've presented them here not quite chronologically. (Note that the 1965 version was made as part of Sir Malcolm's guest-conducting of the D'Oyly Carte's stereo Princess Ida. The 1961 EMI version was a stand-alone recording for a Sullivan overtures LP.)

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Princess Ida: Prelude


D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 26, 1932 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded c1961


NOW, THE LOGIC, OR AT ANY RATE THE
HISTORY, OF THIS POST GOES LIKE THIS

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Ian Welsh asks what you plan to do with the "toy" that is your life -- and how your choice may impact other lives

PRINCESS IDEA: The world is but a broken toy,
its pleasure hollow — false its joy.
Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.
HILARION: The world is ev'rything you say.
The world we think has had its day.
Its merriment is slow, alas!
We've tried it, and we know, alas!
We've tried it and we know.
ALL: Unreal its loveliest hue,
its pains alone are true --
PRINCESS IDA: Alas!
ALL: The world is but a broken toy,
its pleasure hollow — false its joy.
Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.
FLORIAN: Unreal its loveliest hue.
HILARION, CYRIL, and FLORIAN: Unreal its loveliest hue.
ALL: Unreal its loveliest hue, alas!
Its pains alone are true, alas!
Its pains alone are true.

Ellizabeth Harwood (s), Princess Ida; Phiip Potter (t), Prince Hilarion; David Palmer (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded May 1965

Victoria Sladen (s), Princess Ida; Thomas Round (t), Prince Hilarion; Leonard Osborn (t), Cyril; Jeffrey Skitch (b), Florian; New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded Oct.-Dec. 1954

Muriel Dickson (s), Princess Ida; Derek Oldham (t), Prince Hilarion; Charles Goulding (t), Cyril; Geoge Baker (b), Florian; D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 27, 1932 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

by Ken

True to his word since his fund-raising drive, when he encouraged readers who appreciate what he has to say to contribute or subscribe, Ian Welsh has been producing a steady stream of posts -- mixing observations long and short on current developments with the larger-perspective commentaries and reflections he's been primed to share. If you haven't been keeping up, I encourage you to visit the site and rummage around the archive (and, if you enjoy what you see, to contribute or subscribe).

Obviously in the category of "larger-perspective commentaries and reflections" is Thursday's "Life Is a Toy, Not a Game," which has been rattling around my head. If it winds up rattling around yours, I apologize, but, well, that's life.

First we need to grasp this idea that "life" is a "toy," with which any number of "games" can be devised. I'm not going to try to paraphrase Ian's discussion of the point, which would in addition take a good measure of the fun out of it. Instead let's jump to --


A CLASSIC LIFE-GAME CHOICE (AND ITS
WIDER EFFECTS): SUBURBAN LIVING

Ian looks in toy-and-game terms at a game choice that should be familiar to us, after setting forth a basic principle about such choices: "[T]he choice of what games societies support is largely non-rational, and based on esthetic, moral and ethical choices, along with pure power considerations."

Bankers in the Western world were a net negative through 00s but they had the power and were valued deeply enough by certain parts of society that they were bailed out for a cost of trillions. Suburbs are economically unproductive, pure consumption to a degree that shames monastics and hermits, yet US society is largely set up as a giant subsidy for the suburban lifestyle, because Americans value having a house with a yard away from a lot of other people, surrounded by a bunch of other houses very similar to there’s inhabited by people very much like them, generally far from any productive activity.

That’s an esthetic choice: it’s a choice about what the good life is, “the good life is living in suburbs, therefore we will subsidize suburbs massively, because that’s how we want to live”.

That subsidy is a direct drain on all the people who look at suburbs and hate them, and don’t want to live in them. Living in suburbs requires economic relationships, embedded in law and custom, which are coercive and unequal.

“You win if you buy a big house in the suburbs, have 2 cars and 2 kids and die comfortably.”

That’s a game statement.

Ian has a lot more to say about this distinction between life-as-toy and the games people play, and brings in SimCity as an example of a toy that can be used to play just about any sort of game the player wishes. "Winning" or "losing" at SimCity has no meaning except what meaning you give it. Just as with life.

Who wins life? If you die with the most power or money, did you win? If you did the most good, do you win? If you enjoyed yourself the most? Made great art? Raised great kids? Went fishing as often as you wanted?

"Humans set up games all the time," Ian says. Capitalism is one, democracy another. Not surprisingly, then, "Different societies love different games."

Each game favors a certain type of person: the men and women who rise to the top of the capitalism game have almost no qualities in common with those who rise to the top of the renunciate game [favored by "the truly faithful" in medieval monasteries], and almost nothing in common with the scholar-bureaucrats who ran the Chinese empire so often. Different qualities and different development were rewarded.

WE GET TO CHOOSE OUR OWN LIFE-GAME,
BUT THE CHOICE ISN'T ENTIRELY FREE

Personally, this is the point in Ian's essay which has resonated most for me, because it's a lesson it took me a hellishly long time to learn, and by the time I did, I didn't see a whole lot that could be done about it.

None of this alters the fact that life is a toy, like a ball or SimCity. You can add rules to it, and enforce those rules with sanctions, but ultimately each person decides their own win conditions. One of the decisions is whether to play one of the approved games, of course, and many people don’t realize they can opt out of much of those games.

A society’s level of coercion is easily measured when thought of in these terms: how hard is it to opt out of the socially mandated games; or at least how onerous are the requirements of those games? Will you die? Go hungry? Just not get as much approval? How many different games are there, and how easy is it to move between them, so that you can find a way of playing with your toy that isn’t obnoxious to you, and is at least somewhat socially approved. It’s hard, today, for example, to be a monastic or a hermit; society in the West isn’t set up for it: people won’t feed you. In Thailand, on the other hand, it’s pretty easy. People not involved in the monastic or hermit life think those lives are valuable and are willing to support them.

It's possible that way back when somebody tried to make me understand how much trouble you can be setting yourself up for if you choose not to play your life as one of the conventionally accepted games. Thinking back, I kind of realize that actually most of the people I encountered were doing everything in their power to make me understand this, and I didn't get it, or didn't believe them, maybe because they didn't come right out and put it in such bald terms. I'm not sure what I could have done in any case, though, since it was pretty clear that I would both hate and be no good at any of the "games" I saw in the toy store of life.


FINALLY WE GET TO THE PAYOFF
OF THE TOY-AND-GAME MODEL

"Now some people have probably been offended by me calling life a toy," says Ian --

because we think of toys as trivial and disposable and we like to think that lives aren’t, even though we certainly very often act as if other people’s lives are disposable. But the word communicates that life is something you decide what you’re going to do with. Life always ends: there are no immortals—so what enjoyment or satisfaction are you going to get out of your toy before you no longer are able to play with it?

And, perhaps, what sort of society do you want to live in, so that you can get the most out of that toy? And do you care if others are able to use their toys as they want, or not?

There’s no bedrock here, there’s no ultimate source of authority. Unless you believe in God, there is no system of reason which can logically prove that we should be kind or cruel, want money or not want it, be hermits or epicures; or anything else.

So, what are you going to do with your life, your toy, and how are you going to help, or hinder, others in their enjoyment of their toy?

#

Ghost of Sunday Classics: Yes, it's more Donald Adams!

Princess Ida's three "hulking brothers" are bested by Prince Hilarion and his friends Cyril and Florian in Act III of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' Princess Ida.

Politics we bar,
they are not our bent!
On the whole we are
not intelligent!

-- Ida's brother Arac, in Act I of Princess Ida

by Ken

So far in this series we've heard our Donald as the army-besotted landlord Sergeant Bouncer in Burnand and Sullivan's Cox and Box and as the Usher in Trial by Jury, and most recently as the specter of the late Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore. And I thought we should start by finishing up with Sir Roderic, since we gave rather short shrift to the great scene in which the ancestral Murgatroyds step out of their picture frames in the great hall of the Bad Baronets of Ruddigore to torment the recently entitled Sir Ruthven over his failure to live up to the fabled Witch's Curse -- to "do one crime or more, once every day forever." After all, it was supposed to be our goal in last week's post, "When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls."

So we're going to return to the Picture Galley, then push farther into Ruddigore, and then we're going to hear Donald in another role, one he didn't have occasion to sing often, but sang wonderfully on two recordings of Princess Ida.

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Ghost of Sunday Classics: When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls

With update, in which I actually include the texts
and music for the meeting of the two Bad Barts

Carole Round in the 1999 SavoyNet Performing Group Ruddigore

DAME HANNAH [quoting the burning witch]:
"Each lord of Ruddigore,
despite his best endeavour,
shall do one crime, or more,
once every day forever.
This doom he can't defy,
however he may try.
For should he stay
his hand, that day
in torture he shall die!"

[We heard the story in full in this week's preview, "The Witch's Curse."]

Gillian Knight (ms), Dame Hannah; Orchestra or the Royal Opera House, Covent Gardn, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962

Monica Sinclair (c), Dame Hannah; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 11-14, 1962

SIR DESPARD SOLILOQUIZES ABOUT HIS PICTURE GALLERY

Ruddigore, Act I: All the village girls express their horror of SIR DESPARD MURGATROYD, Bad Baronet of Ruddigore. As he approaches them they fly from him, terror-stricken, leaving him alone on the stage.

SIR DESPARD MURGATROYD: Poor children, how they loathe me -- me whose hands are certainly steeped in infamy, but whose heart is as the heart of a little child! But what is a poor baronet to do, when a whole picture gallery of ancestors step down from their frames and threaten him with an excruciating death if he hesitate to commit his daily crime? But ha! ha! I am even with them! [Mysteriously] I get my crime over the first thing in the morning, and then, ha! ha! for the rest of the day I do good -- I do good -- I do good! [Melodramatically] Two days since, I stole a child and built an orphan asylum. Yesterday I robbed a bank and endowed a bishopric. Today I carry off Rose Maybud and atone with a cathedral! This is what it is to be the sport and toy of a Picture Gallery! But I will be bitterly revenged upon them! I will give them all to the Nation, and nobody shall ever look upon their faces again!

by Ken

Before we continue with Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, we're going to observe our frequent custom of starting at the beginning, with the Overture. For our purposes, as I hope you'll hear, it's especially important here. (Note that this is the "later" overture, in which Sullivan had no hand. But something had to be done when for the 1920-21 revival of the show -- after the deaths of both Gilbert and Sullivan -- the tune that had served as the big "developoment" tune of the original Overture, Robin's "When a man has been a wicked baronet" from the Act II finale, was cut. I happen to think that the replacement Overture, generally credited to Geoffrey Toye, a longtime assistant of Sullivan's, is quite dandy.)

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Ruddigore: Overture (1920)


Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962

Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Nov. 3, 1960


ON TO BUSINESS -- ABOUT THAT PICTURE GALLERY

This is officially, or at least this post began life as, a continuation of last week's idea of a tribute to the great G-and-S bass Donald Adams. Well, things happen. Much of the text was written on paper napkins in the shadow of the Harkness Tower at Yale, with a carillon ringing that included "Send in the clowns." (I was hoping for "Send in the clowns," but that wasn't bad.) We actually will get to Adams. But first . . . .

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Ghost of Sunday Classics preview: The Witch's Curse

Dame Hannah (Maya Stroshane) tells the impressionable young village bridesmaids the story of the Witch's Curse in Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan's 2010 Ruddigore.

by Ken

We first pondered "The Witch's Curse," though at the time I wasn't able to enable you to hear it, in a June 2007 post called "'Laws? I don't obey no stinkin' laws!' Are Chimpy the Prez and his partner in crime 'Big Dick' Cheney blood brothers of the Bad Baronets of Ruddigore?," in response to a Washington Post report, "'Signing Statements' Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws." Right-wing scum pols ignoring the law -- what a surprise! This has a special resonance now when degraded and demented right-wing life forms like Darrell "The Unembarrassable" Issa have made a daily habit of persecuting the Obama administration for sins that were in fact spécialités de maison of the Bush regime, when they went routinely unremarked upon, even defended, by degraded and demented right-wing life forms like Darrell "The Unembarrassable" Issa.

Though I wasn't able to enable you to hear it back in 2007, we did eventually hear one of our versions of Dame Hannah's song in June 2010. We actually have entirely other-than-political reasons -- leftover business from last week, to be exact -- for returning this week to the ghost of Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, the first and baddest of the whole long line of Bad Baronets of Ruddigore. But I think it's never out of place to recall the curse that lay so heavily upon the bad barts, as explained by the doughty Dame Hannah early in Act I of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore.


GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Ruddigore, or The Witch's Curse: Act I, Song, Dame Hannah and chorus, "Sir Rupert Murgatroyd, his leisure and his riches"

DAME HANNAH: Sir Rupert Murgatroyd,
his leisure and his riches,
he ruthlessly employed
in persecuting witches.
With fear he'd make them quake—
he'd duck them in his lake—
he'd break their bones
with sticks and stones,
and burn them at the stake!
CHORUS OF BRIDESMAIDS: This sport he much enjoyed,
did Rupert Murgatroyd—
no sense of shame
or pity came
to Rupert Murgatroyd!



DAME HANNAH: Once, on the village green,
a palsied hag he roasted,
and what took place, I ween,
shook his composure boasted.
For as the torture grim
aeized on each withered limb,
the writhing dame
'mid fire and flame
yelled forth this curse on him:
     "Each lord of Ruddigore,
     despite his best endeavour,
     shall do one crime, or more,
     once, every day, forever!
     This doom he can't defy,
     however he may try,
     for should he stay
     his hand, that day
     in torture he shall die!"

The prophecy came true:
each heir who held the title
had, every day, to do
some crime of import vital;
until, with guilt o'erplied,
"I'll sin no more!" he cried,
and on the day
he said that say,
in agony he died!
CHORUS OF BRIDESMAIDS: And thus, with sinning cloyed,
has died each Murgatroyd,
and so shall fall,
both one and all,
each coming Murgatroyd!

Monica Sinclair (c), Dame Hannah; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 11-14, 1962

Gillian Knight (ms), Dame Hannah; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962

Ella Halman (c), Dame Hannah; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Promenade Orchestra, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 21, 1950

Bertha Lewis (c); D'Oyty Carte Opera Chorus, orchestra, Harry Norris (or maybe George Byng?), cond. EMI, recorded June 30, 1924

I don't suppose we can any longer call the more-than-50-year-old EMI and Decca recordings "modern," though they sound better to me than an awful lot of recordings that are unquestionably "modern" chronologically. Stil, we have to distinguish them somehow from the two "historical" recordings I've included. Ella Halman, who recorded most of the G-and-S contralto roles in the late '40s and early '50s, has ardent Savoyard admirers, which has always mystified me. The greatness of Bertha Lewis, however, seems to me to glow through the 1924 sound.


IN THIS WEEK'S GHOST OF SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We'll meet the ghostly Bad Baronets of Ruddigore, including their spokesghost, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd.

#

Ghost of Sunday Classics: Rataplan!

How many "Rataplan"s can you count in these 33 seconds?

rataplan  n.  A tattoo, as of a drum, the hoofs of a galloping horse, or machine-gun fire. [French, of imitative origin.]

-- The American Heritage Dictionary

by Ken

So this is what I suddenly found going through my head this week. And once it was lodged in there, it was mighty hard to get out. Then it occurred to me that we've never listened to this wonderfully goofy moment from the little one-act farce Cox and Box, with a libretto by F. C. Burnand, here in Sunday Classics. (Regular readers will know that my admiration for Sullivan as musical dramatist in his partnership with W. S. Gilbert is something like reverence. However, Cox and Box is the only music he wrote without Gilbert which I return to with real pleasure.) I figured that while the lights are still on here at Sunday Classics, however dimly, we ought to rectify this omission.

In a moment we'll hear a little more music to place the above in context. Then I thought, since the delicious Bouncer of these excerpts is the beloved (by me, anyway) Donald Adams, we should do some sort of Donald Adams retrospective, but that project quickly got out of hand, so maybe we'll do it some other time. For the record, though, as I recall we've already heard him in his most famous role, the Mikado (and he's still the best I've ever heard, without even a close second), and also as Colonel Calverley in Patience, as Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre in The Sorcerer, and even in a snippet from a role that as far as I know he never sang, the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance. (The Pirate King was another of his most famous roles, and we have heard him in a snippet from that, the incandescent Paradox Trio.)

I love the idea of a Donald Adams retrospective, but for now, in order to make this a proper post, even a proper "ghost" post, after we've dealt with the rataplanning Sergeant Bouncer, we'll hear quite a different "Rataplan."


OF COURSE WE WANT TO START FROM THE BEGINNING

This is an old Sunday Classics habit, and in this case it's pays quick dividends, as I think you'll hear pretty quickly. You'll also note very different approaches to our material from our first two conductors, our old G-and-S friends Isidore Godfrey and Sir Malcolm Sargent. For the heck of it, I've thrown in the perfectly solid Overture from the generally lackluster later D'Oyly Carte recording of Cox and Box, also of basically the "Savoy edition," which chops the show down to a half-hour -- a loss that's almost pure gain.

F. C. BURNAND and ARTHUR SULLIVAN:
Cox and Box: Overture


New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded 1961

Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded 1961

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royston Nash, cond. Decca, recorded February 1978


NOW LET'S MEET SERGEANT BOUNCER

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Ghost of Sunday Classics: Why the heck are Mary Martin and John Raitt singing "There's No Business Like Show Business"?

A cheery thought from Roz Chast in the May 12 New Yorker

IRVING BERLIN: Annie, Get Your Gun: Overture and "There's No Business Like Show Business" (plus "They Say It's Wonderful")

Mary Martin (Annie Oakley), John Raitt (Frank Butler), 1957 NBC TV Cast ensemble. Capitol-EMI

There lived a king, as I've been told,
In the wonder-working days of old,
When hearts were twice as good as gold,
And twenty times as mellow.
Good temper triumphed in his face,
And in his heart he found a place
For all the erring human race
And every wretched fellow.

-- the Grand Inquisitor, in Act II of The Gondoliers

by Ken

In the end it was all the Gilmore Girls' fault. Maybe not "all," but for sure some, especially in that "end." Yesterday I had this idea for a Sunday Classics post. On the bus heading upstate when there wasn't going to be any time to write. I was already on the bus for my daylong Wolfe Walkers trip up the Hudson with Justin Ferate, to several fascinating Hudson River destinations he'd cunningly stitched together, I found myself hearing Leporell's great catalogue aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni, which we'd listened to just last Novermber.

You recall:

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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

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Sunday Classics preview: "You hold yourself like this; you hold yourself like that; by hook and crook you try and look both angular and flat"

"You hold yourself like this; you hold yourself like that" -- from the Bournemouth G-and-S Society's 2011 production of Patience

Enter LIEUTENANT THE DUKE OF DUNSTABLE, COLONEL CALVERLEY, and MAJOR MURGATROYD, right. They have abandoned their uniforms, and are dressed and made up in imitation of Aesthetics. They have long hair, and other signs of attachment to the brotherhood. They walk to center. As they sing they walk in stiff, constrained, and angular attitudes -- a grotesque exaggeration of the attitudes adopted by BUNTHORNE and the young LADIES in Act I.

TRIO -- the DUKE, MAJOR, and COLONEL:
It's clear that mediaeval art alone retains its zest;
to charm and please
its devotees
we've done our little best.
We're not quite sure if all we do has the Early English ring,
but, as far as we can judge, it's something like this sort of thing:
You hold yourself like this [attitude];
you hold yourself like that [attitude];
by hook and crook
you try to look
both angular and flat [attitude].
We venture to expect
that what we recollect,
though but a part
of true High Art,
will have its due effect.

If this is not exactly right, we hope you won't upbraid;
you can't get high Aesthetic tastes, like trousers, ready-made.
True views on Mediaevalism Time alone will bring,
but, as far as we can judge, it's something like this sort of thing:
You hold yourself like this [attitude];
you hold yourself like that [attitude];
by hook and crook
you try to look
both angular and flat [attitude].
To cultivate the trim
rigidity of limb,
you ought to get
a marionette,
and form your style on him [attitude].
[Attitudes change in time to the music.]

Derek Oldham (t), Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable: Martyn Green (b), Major Murgatroyd; Darrell Fancourt (bs), Colonel Calverley; D'Oyly Carte Opera Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Sept.-Nov. 1930

Alexander Young (t), Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable; John Shaw (b), Colonel Calverley; Trevor Anthony (bs), Major Murgatroyd; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 17-20, 1961

by Ken

Do we really need an excuse to conjure this immortal trio from Act II of Patience? In it we see our three Dragoon Guards officers -- Lieut. the Duke of Dunstable, Major Murgatroyd, and Colonel Calverley -- making unholy fools of themselves, naturally over a woman, or rather three women, the Ladies Angela, Saphir, and Ella. Like all the women in this rural village, they're enraptured with their new local high priest of Aestheticism, the poet Reginald Bunthorne, and for his ethereal sake have thrown over their previous sweethearts, the dragoon officers. Here the officers try to show that they can be just as Aesthetic, just as Medieval, as any damned poet, though with conspicuous lack of success.

Actually, we do have a reason to be detouring through the Aesthetic shrubbery of Patience. But I think we can talk about that in this week's Sunday Classics post.

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For a "Sunday Classics" fix anytime, visit the stand-alone "Sunday Classics with Ken."

Sunday Classics postscript: Poor Arthur Sullivan never knew how well he had succeeded as a "serious" composer

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Mikado: Act II: Song, Yum-Yum, "The sun whose rays are all ablaze"

In the film Topsy-Turvy (of which I might say I'm not a big fan), Shirley Henderson fake-rehearses, then fake-sings, Yum-Yum's Act II spoken dialogue and song, "The sun whose rays."

YUM-YUM [looking at herself in her mirror]: Yes, I am indeed beautiful! Sometimes I sit and wonder, in my artless Japanese way, why it is that I am so much more attractive than anybody else in the whole world. Can this be vanity? No. Nature is lovel, and rejoices in her loveliness. I am a child of Nature, and take after my mother.
Song
The sun whose rays
are all ablaze
with ever-living glory
does not deny
his majestry;
he scorns to tell a story.
He don't exclaim,
"I blush for shame,
so kindly be indulgent."
But fierce and bold,
in fiery gold,
he glories all effulgent!
    I mean to rule the earth,
    as he the sky.
    We really know our worth,
    the sun and I.
    I mean to rule the earth,
    as he the sky.
    We really know our worth,
    the sun and I.

Observe his flame,
that placid dame,
the moon's Celestial Highness:
There's not a trace
upon her face
of diffidence or shyness.
She borrows light
that, through the night,
mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
she lights up well,
so I, for one, don't blame her!
    Ah, pray make no mistake,
    we are not shy;
    we're very wide awake,
    the moon and I.
    Ah, pray make no mistake,
    we are not shy;
    we're very wide awake,
    the moon and I.

by Ken

I don't want to get into an extended discussion of the above "performance." I grant that it does try to do something with the song (after doing whatever it did with the spoken dialogue, which seems just a way around dealing with its over-the-top giddy content), more in fact than most performances of it I've seen and heard, but when the singer can't sing the song, it doesn't count for much.

It's possible to react as one commenter does:

The sheer fragility in Ms Henderson's performance is heartbreaking and just downright beautiful. Yes, there are more exacting performances of this piece, but none touch the heart the way this one does. Probably one of the most moving scenes in any film.

Or it's possible to suggest that among those "more exacting" performances would be an entire category of ones by singers who can actually sing the piece.

I'm sorry I can't embed the young Valerie Masterson's performance from the 1966 D'Oyly Carte company Mikado film. It isn't acted at all, and as a commenter comments, "She looks like a sexy extra from the original Star Trek series . . . what a hairdo!" But at least you can close your eyes and hear the genius of Arthur Sullivan, lifting a potential cartoon character into the realm of the sublime. (In a moment we're going to hear Masterson sing this extraordinary song even better, in the later D'Oyly Carte audio recording.)

There's a lesson here, which I want to draw in returning to last week's post, "Dance a cachucha! Returning to the Gondoliers Overture." And that lesson is: Contrary to popular impression, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas are hard to perform well -- extremely, and sometimes even excruciatingly hard.

That is, if you actually want to perform them well.

FOR ALL THE TROUBLE IT TOOK ME
TO PRODUCE LAST WEEK'S POST . . .

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