Customer Reviews

Vaughan Williams: Hugh the Drover

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

SOURCE:
Studio recording made in London January 27-30, 1994, presumably in London at an unspecified location.

SOUND:
1990s digital stereo, although issued at such a low level that the sound will have to be set unusually high on your equipment. On the whole, it's perfectly adequate but nothing especially memorable.

CAST:
HUGH THE DROVER, a wandering collector of horses for His Majesty's cavalry during the late conflict with Old Boney - Bonaventura Bottone (tenor)
MARY, daughter of the Constable of the Cotswolds town of Cotsall, unhappily betrothed to John - Rebecca Evans (soprano)
JOHN, butcher to the Town of Cotsall, a course, grasping bully, a brawler and the local boxing champion - Alan Opie (baritone)
THE CONSTABLE, Mary's father and crony of John the Butcher, not a very likable chap who, nevertheless, may not be quite as awful as he first seems - Richard Van Allan (bass)
AUNT JANE, the Constable's spinster sister and the closest thing to a friend that Mary possesses in Cotsall - Sarah Walker (mezzo-soprano)
THE TURNKEY, the Constable's subordinate and ever-dutiful yes-man - Neil Jenkins (tenor)
A SERGEANT in His Majesty's Army and Hugh's old friend - Robert Poulton (baritone)
A SHOWMAN, promoter and referee of boxing matches, as well as instigator of village hysteria - Karl Morgan Daymond (baritone)
A CHEAP-JACK - Harry Nicoll (tenor)
A SHELLFISH-SELLER - Adrian Hutton (bass)
A PRIMROSE-SELLER - Julia Gooding (soprano)
A BALLAD-SELLER - Wynford Evans (tenor)
SUSAN - Jenny Saunders (soprano)
NANCY - Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)
ROBERT - Paul Robinson (baritone)
WILLIAM - Lynton Atkinson (tenor)
A FOOL - John Pearce (tenor)
THE INNKEEPER - Paul Im Thurn (baritone)

CONDUCTOR:
Matthew Best, with the Corydon Orchestra, Corydon Singers and the New London Children's Choir

TEXT:
Composer's revised text that includes some changes diplomatically delayed until after the death of the librettist. This recording is probably a fair representation of what Williams thought the opera should be at the time of his death.

FORMAT:
Disk 1 - Act I, tracks 1-24, 52 minutes, 17 seconds.
Disk 2 - Act II, tracks 1-11, 49 minutes, 42 seconds.

DOCUMENTATION:
Libretto. Short history of the composition of the opera and references to the first academic and professional performances, as well as to the first recording in 1924 under Malcolm Sargent. Track list and timings. No biographical material on the cast. Nothing on the circumstances leading to this recording.

COMMENTARY:
I came upon a used copy of this opera, which had been no more than a half-remembered name to me. I bought it simply out of curiosity. On the whole, it was a good purchase.

Ralph Vaughan Williams seems to have acquired a desire to write an opera centered on a boxing match in 1909 or 1910. With the aid of the Editor of the [London] Times Literary Supplement, Williams found his librettist in Harold Child, whose literary background was that of a writer of editorials. (Considering his work on "Hugh the Drover," it is clear that Mr. Child's fame, such as it may be, will not be based upon his talent as a librettist.)

Williams' surviving correspondence shows that he more-or-less established the basic lines of the plot and that he sometimes wrote in advance of the words, leading him to demand that Child produce doggerel to match rhythms already incorporated in his tunes.

The full title of the work is "Hugh the Drover or Love in the Stocks, A Romantic Ballad Opera." Well, so it is, I suppose, but it doesn't resemble that purest exemplar of the ballad opera form, "The Beggar's Opera," all that much. Williams himself wrote that he was trying to create something along the nationalistic lines of "The Bartered Bride," using an English setting, English characters and English tunes. As to the last, it can't be denied that there is a lot of jolly Olde English-type song material--even to the extent of a "brave boys" refrain in a patriotic ditty. On the other hand, Williams was never untrue to himself as a master orchestrator. This makes for a generally pleasing combination, despite the fact that it is a more than a bit lacking in the fire so prominently displayed in the operas of his verismo-era, Italian contemporaries. The love duets between Hugh and Mary are quite good and could have been even better if only Child had been able to provide Williams with more incisive writing and greater metrical inventiveness. (The correspondence of Verdi and Puccini shows that they were continually fighting for the same things from their respective librettists.)

I know only a handful of the cast members from other contexts, but I am willing to hazard that they are fairly representative of those to be found on stage with the English National Opera in the early 1990s. Best of the bunch, in my opinion, is Bonaventura Bottone, that very oddly-named Englishman, as Hugh the Drover. He was--and still is, for all I know--a fine lyric tenor, well above the English average. He is very good here, although that Good Grey English Magazine, The Gramophone, chose to point out that he lacked the drama possessed by the first recorded Hugh, back in 1924. Not having heard that ancient recording, I merely pass along the comment. Almost as good is Rebecca Evans in the not very demanding role of Mary. Richard Van Allan, a good character man, probably extracts about as much as may be got out of the Constable, as does Sarah Walker from Aunt Jane. Alan Opie is the weakest of the major performers; his light baritone voice simply fails to convey the innate, youthful thuggishness of the unpleasant town butcher and he underplays his eventual comeuppance to the point of invisibility--or so it seems to me. Karl Morgan Daymond is problematic; he assumes the most obvious country-ish accent among all the players, but my English-born wife haughtily sniffs that his Cotswolds accent resembles nothing ever heard by her when she was growing up in the Vale of Evesham.

Conductor Matthew Best keeps things moving at a fairly sprightly pace that sounds fine to me.

In general, I found "Hugh the Drover" to be a pleasant surprise. It is better described as pleasing to the ear than as dramatic. On disk it holds its own against some, if by no means all of its more famous contemporaries. On stage, I think it would be more problematic, not least for the large number of principal singers and choristers required--not to mention a team of Morris Dancers! And considering the physiques of most tenors, the boxing match in which Hugh knocks out John the Butcher would be a director's nightmare.

I think this recording is worth a solid four stars.

LEC/Am/10-09