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The Boatswain's Mate, music and libretto by Ethel Smyth. Edition by Valerie Langfield Lontano Ensemble, conducted by Odaline de la Martinez Nadine Benjamin, sop; Edward Lee, ten; Jeremy Huw Williams, bar; Simon Wilding, bass; Ted Schmitz, ten; Rebecca Louise Dale, mezzo-sop; Mark Nathan, bar Retrospect Opera RO001, 2016 (2 CDs: 73 minutes, 74 minutes). - Pickwick, music by Edward Solomon and libretto by F.C. Burnand Cups and Saucers, music and libretto by George Grossmith. Simon Butteriss, bar; Gaylor Keeble, mezzo-sop; Toby Stafford-Allen, bar; and Alessandro MacKinnon, treble; directed from the piano by Stephen Higgins Retrospect Opera RO002, 2017 (1 CD: 74 minutes).

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2022

William A. Everett*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-Kansas City everettw@umkc.edu

Abstract

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Type
CD Review
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Bonynge also created the performing editions used in these recordings. William Vincent Wallace, Lurline, Victorian Opera chorus and Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, Naxos 8.660293–94, 2010; Alfred Cellier, Dorothy, Victorian Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, Naxos 8.660447, 2019.

2 ‘Retrospect Opera – About’ https://retrospectopera.org.uk/About.html (accessed 30 December 2020).

3 For more on Smyth, see the website Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), curated by Dr Amy Zigler, at www.ethelsmyth.org. The website includes biographical information, a list of works, information on recordings, published editions, and upcoming performances and much more. It is updated regularly.

4 Valerie Langfield uses this spot-on term to describe the piano version of Cups and Saucers in her recollections of recording the Grossmith work; see www.retrospectopera.org.uk/Forms/Retrospect_Opera_Pickwick_Newsletter_3_20160927.pdf (accessed 30 December 2020).

5 Fans of Broadway musicals may be reminded of Dave Malloy's immersive sung-through musical Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, which opened on Broadway in 2016 and treats a single 70-page segment of Tolstoy's gargantuan War and Peace.

6 Orientalism was a construction whereby Europeans imagined the ‘east’ as not being able to take care of itself so needs the ‘west’ to do so; see Said, Edward W., Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978)Google Scholar. For a discussion of Orientalism in the arts, including music and theatre, see MacKenzie, John M., Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995)Google Scholar. For an analysis focused on the visual arts, including works contemporary to Cups and Saucers, see Tromans, Nicholas, The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

7 For an engaging study of the British fascination with porcelain, see Chang's, Elizabeth Hope Britain's Chinese Eye: Literature, Empire, and Aesthetics in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

8 On the recording, Valerie Langfield played the cup and saucer; Pickwick Newsletter No. 3, 27 September 2016, 3; https://retrospectopera.org.uk/Forms/Retrospect_Opera_Pickwick_Newsletter_3_20160927.pdf (accessed 30 December 2020).

9 Curtain raisers were intended as entertainments for those who arrived at the theatre early, well before the curtain time for the main offering. Musica Britannica vol. 99 (London: Stainer and Bell, 2015) includes the complete scores and libretti for two curtain raisers that also played at the Savoy Theatre, Captain Billy by François Cellier and Mr Jericho by Ernest Ford, both edited by Christopher O'Brien.

10 Music of the United States of America (MUSA) is a national series of music published by A-R Editions under the auspices of the American Musicological Society and the Society for American Music.

11 Clague, Mark, ‘Portraits in Beams and Barlines: Critical Music Editing and the Art of Notation’, American Music 23/1 (2005): 45–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Clague, ‘Portraits in Beams and Barlines’, 57.