A fully staged production of the English opera
The production used a
New Performing Edition in Two Acts and Edited English Libretto
for reduced orchestra by Tom Higgins, Tom Hawkes & Guy Davenport
This performing edition was based on the new edition of the opera prepared by Dr. Valerie Langfield.
The production was performed at Haslemere Hall on 19th to 23rd February 2008
2008 is the bicentenary of the birth of the Anglo-Irish composer Michael William Balfe. Opera South marked this important anniversary with a revival of what is both his best known opera and probably the most successful opera by a British composer before 1945. It achieved enormous popularity, and abounds with a wealth of wonderful melodies, the best-known being “I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls”.
Cast (in order of appearance) | |||
| Lord Arnheim | baritone | Marc Callahan | Philip Spendley* |
| Arline (his daighter) as a child | Antonia Richards | Amelia Clarkson* | |
| Buda (Arline’s nursemaid) | Claire Wright | ||
| Thaddeus, a republican officer | tenor | Huw Llywelyn | Glen Tweedie* |
| Devilshoof, Captain of the Gypsies | bass | Nicholas Lester | Julien Debreuil* |
| A British Army officer | Joe Baker | ||
| Florestein, Arheim’s nephew | tenor | James Scarlett | Gareth Morris* |
| Queen of the Gypsies | contralto | Elizabeth Traill | Elizabeth Roberts* |
| Arline as an adult | soprano | Catriona Clark | Kristy Swift* |
| Police Sergeant | bass | John Braithwaite | |
| * cover | |||
The Opera South Chorus
| Sopranos: | Catherine Garner, Emma Hutcheson, Jessica Kettle, Denise Miles, Anjie Swayne, Linda Tolmie, Jane Wiltshire, Claire Wright |
| Altos: | Dorothee Burton, Sally Fentiman, Erica Kollek, Patricia Lambert, Rosemary Mawer, Beryl Northam |
| Tenors: | Stuart Fleming, Robert Jeffrey, Bertie Mawer, Anthony Ramsden |
| Basses: | Roger Barrett, John Braithwaite, Paul Ives, Andy Kettle, Clive Perry, David Swayne |
| Actors: | Joe Baker, John Barlow, Anthony Shaw |
Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra
| Flute: | Kate Hill |
| Oboe: | Jan Knight |
| Clarinet: | Hale Hambleton, Karl Durr-Sorensen |
| Bassoon: | Fiona Bryan, Shelly Organ |
| Horn: | David McQueen, Timothy Anderson |
| 1st Violin: | Martin Smith (Leader), Yuri Kalnits, Peter Newman, Julia McDonough, Laurine Rochut |
| 2nd Violin: | Jane Gomm, Andrew Bernardi, Anne-Marie Curran |
| Viola: | Justin Ward, Christopher Wellington |
| Violoncello: | Jeremy Cook, Leonie Adams |
| Double Bass: | Helen Rowlands |
| Conductor: | Tom Higgins Opera South Director of Music |
| Director: | Tom Hawkes |
| Artistic Director: | John Braithwaite |
| Costume Design: | Carol Stevenson |
| Lighting Design: | Roger Swift |
About the Director
Tom Hawkes comes to Opera South straight from Opera Holland Park. He has directed productions world-wide, including at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera House and Monte-Carlo Opera House. In 2002 his production of Pompeo Magno for the Varaždin Baroque Festival won the prestigious Ivan Luka prize.
About the production
From the librettist
“ In what is now a well established tradition, Opera South has taken a neglected masterpiece and prepared a new performing edition for its main production in February 2008. Originally in three acts, the work will now be presented in two. This new edition has been fashioned by the Music Director, Tom Higgins, and the Director, Tom Hawkes. They feel that the reduction to two acts (achieved in the main by making abridgements to music originally intended for extended scene changes) will make the work more relevant for today’s audiences.
Tom Higgins has rescored the music so that it can be performed by an orchestra suited to the size of the Haslemere Hall, and for this purpose the company is pleased to welcome back the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra.
Director Tom Hawkes is resetting the action to 1902/1914 in Northern Ireland. This required the few references to Poles and Poland to be changed to Irish and Ireland, with Count Arnheim 's title being changed to Lord. Otherwise, we merely changed those sentences that did not make sense to any of us and changed all the “thees” to “yous” and all the other slightly old fashioned words in the original.
Something in the music suggested that Lord Arnheim's cousin, Florestein, was not the bumbling fop of the original, but someone rather more sinister, and the libretto was changed to reflect this.
Libretto changes were made by me. However it was agreed that there was no need to change any of the words as long as they could be understood by a 21st Century audience. Consequently, much of the original by Alfred Bunn has been left alone.
As a team, we felt it important not to change anything for change’s sake. For example, Arline’s aria “I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls” has been left completely intact, even though serfs and vassals were probably thin on the ground in 1914 Ireland!
We feel confident that anyone seeing this new edition will enjoy the work’s great charm and power to amuse. ”
Guy Davenport — 30th October 2007
From the Director of Music
“Over the last three months or so, Tom Hawkes and I, in collaboration with Guy Davenport, have been refashioning The Bohemian Girl. It will be in our now well-established company tradition of producing a new performing edition especially for Opera South.
Tom and I have agreed a number of abridgements to the piece, which mostly concern the instrumental music rather than the vocal items. This, we feel, has freed the piece from its early Victorian melodramatic associations, and enabled us to make it more approachable and relevant for today’s audiences.
Of particular importance is the fact that we have metamorphosed a work that originally had three acts into a two-act opera. Again, we feel that this is more in accordance with contemporary taste.
There are many splendid chorus numbers, which will give our Opera South Chorus much to enjoy and get its teeth into.
Guy Davenport has updated much of the libretto and sung text, to bring it into line with Tom Hawkes’s ideas on how he wants to bring this work to the stage.
As usual, I am pleased to say, we are engaging the services of the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra and they will be using a reduced orchestration especially prepared by me for this production. I have based this reduced orchestration score on the new full orchestral edition, prepared from the original 1843 score by the musicologist Dr. Valerie Langfield to whom I am most grateful. ”
Tom Higgins — 10th October 2007
About the score
The full orchestra score for The Bohemian Girl was never published: even the great Carl Rosa Opera Company used only the vocal score published by Chappell. What we do have are two incomplete full scores of the opera, in Balfe's handwriting; they are in the British Library; we also have a set of orchestral parts, used by the Carl Rosa company.
Dr. Valerie Langfield went back to all these manuscripts, and made a new full score and set of parts, where possible from the original full scores, or — where the full score had not survived — from the parts; she matched it to the fairly readily available vocal score published by Boosey & Co. in their Royal edition. Some of the songs and choruses had been so heavily revised that occasionally she had to shine a light through the parts to see what was written underneath! It was a long and painstaking task which took her approximately a year to complete.
Dr Langfield is extremely grateful to the Carl Rosa Trust, for allowing her such very generous access to the orchestral parts, many of which date back to 1843; to Balfe’s wife Lina, who gave her husband’s manuscripts to the British Museum at the end of the nineteenth century; and of course, to the British Library itself.
Typical of operas of its era, the full score was for an orchestra which (with a variable but typical number of string players) would number about 70 players in total; that is:
- 1 piccolo
- 1 flute
- 2 oboes
- 2 clarinets
- 2 bassoons
- 4 horns (valved horns were still not in wide use)
- 2 trumpets (sometimes cornets)
- 2 trombones
- 1 bass trombone
- 1 ophicleide or serpent (both now long obsolete, since the tuba had scarcely been invented)
- timpani
- percussion
- harp and
- strings
Dr Langfield’s edition also allows the choice of 4 horns, or a reduction to 2.
There was room in the original theatre for 70 players, a not unusual size for a theatre band in those days. With the other instruments above, arithmetic tells us there might be up to 50 string players. All this is too large a number of players for the Opera South production. Therefore, taking Dr. Langfield's new full score as his starting point, Opera South Director of Music Tom Higgins prepared his special arrangement for a reduced orchestra of around 20 players, which is an ensemble suitable for the more intimate accommodation in Haslemere Hall, with its auditorium and orchestra pit that are rather smaller than in a great opera house. The full complement of instruments is indicated by the orchestra personnel list above.
As Tom and librettist Guy Davenport explain above, the performing edition performed in February 2008 in Haslemere also adapted the language to reflect Director Tom Hawkes’s very apt choice of a setting in Ireland in the early 20th century, and made some cuts, as well as altering the action from three acts to two so as to have just one interval in each performance.
Why are the numbers of players only approximate? You may perhaps wonder about this, if you are not an orchestral musician (or a composer or conductor). The answer is that, although for the wind and percussion instruments the various instruments required by the score is fixed to some extent (though even these can be increased by doubling the players for some parts, to make more sound!), the precise numbers of string players can be varied. In most music of the time, of which this opera is typical, there are parts for two violin sections, plus viola, cello and double bass parts. The numbers of violinists above all, and the rest of the strings, must be rather more than the numbers of any given wind instrument, so as to make enough sound for a good balance between the string section as a whole and the woodwinds, and the brass. However, as the precise numbers are a matter of acoustics in the venue being used, and the conductor's (and perhaps the orchestra leader's) judgement, as well as the demands of the work being performed, absolutely precise numbers cannot be given where the string section of any sizeable orchestra is concerned. The approximate size of the full orchestra for The Bohemian Girl is 70, and that of Tom Higgins's reduced scoring for this Opera South production is about 20. In fact, 21 players of the Guildford Philharmonic are named in the programme for the event, and above.