At Cadogan Hall, London on 30th November, there will be a performance of Stanford's last and possibly best opera, 'The Travelling Companion'. which is based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy story. The conductor is Toby Purser and the orchestra is The New Sussex Orchestra, although not widely known both have good track records having received much praise in the past.
What do we know about this opera? Style, for example? Does Dibble tell us?
There was a broadcast of extracts, which some members may have heard. Reminded me a little of Tchaikovsky's operas, plus one prelude that sounds very like the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin. I would love to hear the full opera. But I would love to hear all Stanford's operas.
I have a dreadful recording, seemingly made using two cans and a piece of string in a swimming pool, of a 1995 BBC broadcast of the complete work, conducted by Barry Wordsworth. Beyond the facts that it lasts around 3 hours 20 minutes, and appears to be very much in Stanford's usual romantic style, there's not much to be gained by trying to listen to it unfortunately.
I also have a recording in much better sound of an hour-long BBC program of excerpts, taken from this performance, which gives a much better impression of the work. It comes across as a full-blooded romantic opera, rather reminiscent of Sullivan's late attempts at "serious" opera, but with the benefit, according to the presenter, of a witty, rhyming libretto. There's plenty of Stanfordesque orchestral colour and generous melody in these excerpts, and they also point to the work having its fair share of drama.
If members are interested, I'll upload the recording of the BBC excerpt programme.
If that's not too onerous, I would certainly appreciate hearing the broadcast, Mark. Thanks for offering! ;)
May I second that request for the excerpts?
cheers,
Daniel
I've posted a link in our Downloads board here (http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,6975.msg73978.html#new). If anyone knows of a recording in good sound of the original 1995 performance of the full opera, from which these extracts are taken, I'd be very grateful to hear about it. Although I generally dislike listening to English language opera performances because they somehow take my attention away from the music, I must say that listening again to these extracts has whetted my appetite to hear the whole work, which sounds to be a very fine piece.
I wonder if people whose native language is Italian, German or Russian have the same experience with Italian, German or Russian-language opera, other things being as equal as possible. Anyhow, thanks :)
The details for the BBC programme from which the excerpts come can be found at:
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/963690f3476c495aa3432b61b4743fc0 (https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/963690f3476c495aa3432b61b4743fc0)
The recording is perfectly good for my worn out auditory system! Despite the rather strange storyline, I am really enjoying it, aided by the intermittent commentary. I think the overture is very fine indeed - classic Stanford - and worthy of a place on concert programmes. So, thanks Mark!
btw in response to my comment of the 19th I'm sure the answer is "of course they do, silly Eric." Sorry 'bout that.
Mark Thomas: "I have a dreadful recording, seemingly made using two cans and a piece of string in a swimming pool, of a 1995 BBC broadcast of the complete work, conducted by Barry Wordsworth."
I suspect you may be thinking of the 1981 Reading University production, a poor quality in-house recording of which (coupled with a marginally better in-house of Stanford's "Much Ado About Nothing" from 1985 given at Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre) has been in circulation among some collectors for some time now. My copy is sourced from cassette tapes, two sides of which were apparently blank (!); thus, "Act 4 of Much Ado and Act 2 of Travelling Companion are missing" (to quote directly from the notes provided with the recordings). Barry Wordworth conducted the excerpts that were broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1995 as part of the series "Britannia at the Opera."
Ah, thanks. I had assumed that the rather good Wordsworth excerpts were extracted from a full recording, which lurked somewhere in the BBC's archives. Heigh ho. Did anyone go to the performance in London, mentioned by Giles in the first post on this thread?