Opera in England

            England’s relationship with opera has existed at angular intervals in history. The first major star being Henry Purcell with his Dido and Aeneas, followed by a gap, and later George F. Handel followed by a longer, more significant gap. Of course, it should be mentioned that music in the theatre did not disappear as there was the incredibly successful “Beggar’s Opera” which spawned many adaptations and revisions as well as international tours. But as far as works for the stage that were continuously sung on which one composer was responsible, this did not fully return to Great Britain until the composers Ralph Vaughn Williams, Gustav Holst, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett all of which lived and worked almost entirely in the 20^th century.

            Both Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst produced a hand full of pieces, Vaughan Williams winning out with a total of 5 operas whereas for Holst the situation is difficult due to the fact that he wrote several works for stage, but many of them are incredibly short pieces.  The most successful of the Vaughan Williams operas (or the one that is written on the most in historical websites) seem to be The Pilgrims’’ Progress (1951) an allegorical story about a pious Pilgrim who encounters sinful situations he must fix. As far as Gustav Holst is concerned; his only full-length opera is; Sita, which is a retelling of the epic poem The Ramayana from classical Carnatic mythology.  This might go some way to being a precursor to Michael Tippett’s interest in Indian music and Hindustani music theory.

            Michael Tippett was born in London but spent most of his childhood in Suffolk. In many ways he was fortunate that his parents lived abroad in France and Corsica due to the fact that he could visit them and thus gave the young Michael a very worldly view very early on in life.  Tippett was a graduate of the Royal College of Music and also studied counterpoint under R. O. Morris. His first major success in terms of music for the theatre was his oratorio A Child of Our Time which was first performed in 1944 (the text was written by the composer, an important trend since the time of Wagner).  As far as “pure” opera is concerned, the most important work of Tippett’s output was The Midsummer Marriage (1955). Midsummer tells the story of two couples, one royal and one common (much in the way of Die Zauberflote), the challenge in the piece is what characters have to go through before their union is complete, the author of chapter 9 in the Oxford text, Paul Griffiths writes: “The Midsummer Marriage concerns a pair of lovers, each of whom has to achieve a psychical completeness before their union is possible, she has to learn earthliness, he spirituality…” The work relies heavily on dance in order to get across the process to the characters. There are a few notable things regarding the composition of Midsummer, first that it was written/composed one act at a time and second that Tippett, in the libretto did not shy away from the fantastical nor use of contemporary slang in language.

           Benjamin Britten was one of those composers who showed an immense talent for music at a young age. In his youth he studied piano and viola as well as composing as early as age 5.  Like Tippett, he enrolled at the Royal College of Music but found success hard to come by as a composer in an academic setting. Where Britten did find substantial success was in the film industry, first scoring documentaries and later motion pictures. He would take the dramatic side of his film compositions into other corners of his compositional output including opera. It should be noted that Benjamin Britten was a homosexual who spent a fair amount of his life with his partner the singer Peter Pears. Many older history texts shy away from this fact, as an example, the “Dictionary of Composers” published 1977 refers to Pears simply as “friend.” This is important due to the fact that not only did Britten frequently write for, and with Pears’ voice in mind it also adds clarity to the notion of persecution present in so many of Britten’s works for stage, especially Peter Grimes (1945). Peter Grimes was a landmark piece, it was a British opera that was significant internationally (really the first to be so since G.F. Handel). It is a largely tonal opera that tells the story of a fisherman who is under constant suspicion from his fellow townsfolk. The piece is a tragedy and used large orchestral color and even polytonality to aurally describe the stage scenario. Of course, Peter Grimes was not the only opera of Britten. He would go on to compose The Rape of Lucretia (1946) which is a story of a faithful woman who is raped by the prince of Rome and later kills herself for fear that she will never recover from the ordeal. A fascinating subject matter for the 20^th century, especially when one considers the taboo nature of the subject of rape happening to live characters on stage (although it was not graphically shown in its production), and when we think of the censorship of the film industry going on at the same time in the United States it is a wonder that this piece was staged at all. Britten also wrote the comic piece Albert Herring (1947) which is a thankfully less repulsive tale revolving around a May-day celebration and townsfolk involved in tame debauchery.  Britten through his compositions of not only opera but also works for film, orchestra and chamber ensembles was able to aid in the reestablishment of Great Britain as a cultural center for innovation in music, especially that of music for the theatre.