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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Sunday Classics Preview: "This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter"

As if last night's clip of the "Paradox" trio from the New York Shakespeare Festival film version of The Pirates of Penzance wasn't alarming enough, they also managed to shoehorn in a clumsy rewrite of the patter trio from Ruddigore for Frederic (Rex Smith), the Pirate King (Kevin Kline), and Ruth (Angela Lansbury).

by Ken

In last night's preview I offered ventured that what Arthur Sullivan, the composing half of the Gilbert and Sullivan team, "did better than most anything, and than most anybody," is writing trios. Tonight we have another one, as we revisit some old friends, the Bad Baronets of Ruddigore. You may recall lived under a witch's curse -- as in Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse -- which distinctly reminded me of a certain seemingly compulsively law-breaking American president and vice president. As Dame Hannah explains the curse early in Act I:

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!


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

The dramatis personae of our trio tonight, which comes from well into Act II, in fact includes not one but two lords of Ruddigore: the current one, Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, and his younger brother and immediate predecessor, Sir Despard. Despard, we learned in Act I, had been shanghaied into acceding to the title upon the disappearance and presumed death of Ruthven (pronounced "Rivven"), the rightful heir. However, by the end of Act I he had been freed from "this doom" by the revelation that Ruthven didn't die, but merely fled -- into the picturesque guise of a humble farmer, Robin Oakapple. Robin, er Ruthven, was forthwith restored to his rightful accursèd title. (In his first week on the job, he has proved himself a singularly inept Bad Baronet, a point driven home by a visit from the ghosts of his awful ancestors, who at such strategic moments emerge from the frames of the portraits of them hanging in the castle picture gallery.)

Freed of the curse, Despard has shed his evil ways and even married Mad Margaret, the young woman he so cruelly led astray in his days of Bad Baronetcy. Now the good Murgatroyds, Despard and Margaret (the stage direction says, "They are both dressed in sober black of formal cut, and present a strong contrast to their appearance in Act I"), who "rule a national school," have arrived to importune their errant relation to give up his evil ways, and have been so successful that in this trio Ruthven declares himself prepared to confront the ghost of their formidable uncle, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, the last really Bad Baronet.

Ruddigore: Act II, Trio, "My eyes are fully open"

PATTER-TRIO: ROBIN, DESPARD, AND MARGARET.

ROBIN. My eyes are fully open to my awful situation --
I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration.
I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses,
And I don't care twopence-halfpenny for any consequences.
Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger,
But a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger,
And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter,
But I've got to die tomorrow, so it really doesn't matter!
DESPARD. So it really doesn't matter --
MARGARET. So it really doesn't matter --
ALL. So it really doesn't matter, matter, matter, matter, matter!

MARGARET. If I were not a little mad and generally silly
I should give you my advice upon the subject, willy-nilly;
I should show you in a moment how to grapple with the question,
And you'd really be astonished at the force of my suggestion.
On the subject I shall write you a most valuable letter,
Full of excellent suggestions when I feel a little better,
But at present I'm afraid I am as mad as any hatter,
So I'll keep 'em to myself, for my opinion doesn't matter!
DESPARD. Her opinion doesn't matter --
ROBIN. Her opinion doesn't matter --
ALL. Her opinion doesn't matter, matter, matter, matter, matter!

DESPARD. If I had been so lucky as to have a steady brother
Who could talk to me as we are talking now to one another --
Who could give me good advice when he discovered I was erring
(Which is just the very favour which on you I am conferring),
My existance would have made a rather interesting idyll,
And I might have lived and died a very decent indiwiddle.
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!
ROBIN. If it is it doesn't matter --
MARGARET. If it is it doesn't matter --
ALL. If it is it doesn't matter, matter, matter, matter, matter!

John Reed (b), Robin Oakapple (Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd); Jean Allister (c), Mad Margaret; Kenneth Sandford (bs-b), Sir Despard Murgatroyd; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962


George Baker (b), Robin Oakapple (Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd); Pamela Bowden (c), Mad Margaret; Owen Brannigan (bs), Sir Despard Murgatroyd; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 11-14, 1962

Following the same backwards procedure we used last night with The Pirates of Penzance, now we're going to listen to the Overture to Ruddigore, where you're going to hear some familiar music, at 3:48 of the Godfrey recording, 3:42 of the Sargent.

Ruddigore: Overture (later version)

(I should explain that by "later version" I mean the Overture that's generally performed with the operetta. Following the not-wildly-successful premiere of Ruddigore, which had the misfortune to be the piece that immediately followed the unprecedentedly triumphant run of The Mikado, the creators did some major revisions, including cutting a number that figured prominently in the original Overture. Another number that was included became a common omission from performances.)


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


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST --

We dip into one of the all-time supreme stage entertainments, The Mikado, through the medium of the trio (and the "expanded" trio).


ANOTHER REMINDER: NOW YOU CAN NOW
ACTUALLY HEAR THOSE CHOPIN PRELUDES (I HOPE)

Again, a reminder that the March 21-23 posts focusing on the first two of Chopin's preludes, with performances of them by (count 'em) seven distinguished pianists, have been upgraded to include (I hope) actually playable audio clips! (What'll they think of next?)


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The new and boldly improved version of the list is here.

#

"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?

"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 Witch's curse, from Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, or the Witch's Curse


Hey, didja hear what those "nonpartisan" sumbitches at the Government Accountability Office went and done? Them goddamn Commies--or fags, or immigrants, or Canadians, whatever the hell they are--tried to find out whether the president, our very own Chimpy, been thumbing his nose at laws he said in his patriotic "signing statements" he didn't have to pay no mind to.

'Signing Statements' Study Finds
Administration Has Ignored Laws

By Jonathan Weisman

For the first time, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office -- Congress's investigative arm -- tried to ascertain whether the administration has made good on such declarations of presidential power. In appropriations acts for fiscal 2006, GAO investigators found 160 separate provisions that Bush had objected to in signing statements. They then chose 19 to follow.

Of those 19 provisions, six -- nearly a third -- were not carried out according to law. Ten were executed by the executive branch. On three others, conditions did not require an executive branch response.

The instances of noncompliance were not as dramatic as some of the signing statements that have caused the most stir, such as Bush's suggestion that he was not bound by a ban on torture in U.S. military detention facilities. But congressional aides said they were significant.

Non-friggin'-partisan, they calls theirselves? Not like real patriots who don't happen to be regular GOP-ers and instead call theirselves BUY-partisans, like His Holiness Rabbi Joe Lieberman from the great Nutmeg State of oblivion.

It ain't really fair for these non-friggin'-partisan sumbitches to go singlin' out the laws our Chimpy already said he didn't have to pay no mind to. Anybody can break them laws! The imperiality of our president shows when you lookit what laws he ain't broke, which is most all of 'em. Why, they prolly gives out a prize every day for who in the White House broke the most laws. Break enough of 'em and you bought the damn place.

It's like that other Tricky Dick, Pres. Richard Millstone Nixon, used to say: "The president am the law!"


SIR RUPERT MURGATROYD: THE FIRST WATER-BOARDER?

Carole Round as Dame Hannah tells the tale of the Witch's curse

in the 1999 SavoyNet Performing Group production of Ruddigore

In case you were wondering how the Bad Baronets of Ruddigore got themselves into this fix, and how it turned out, here is the full text of Dame Hannah's telling of the legend. (If I had a clue how to pass on a sound file, you could hear it. But alas we will have to settle for those "words, words, words" Liza Doolittle pronounces herself so sick of.)

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:
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
Seized 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:
And thus, with sinning cloyed,
Has died each Murgatroyd,
And so shall fall,
Both one and all,
Each coming Murgatroyd!