English Opera from 1834 to 1864 with Particular Reference to the Works of Michael Balfe by George Biddlecombe

Author:George Biddlecombe [Biddlecombe, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780429774638
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2018-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Raymond and Agnes

Raymond and Agnes is Loder’s only opera conceived on a scale comparable to those of his contemporaries such as Balfe and Wallace. It portrays a wider range of characters and is musically more continuous than any of his other theatrical pieces. The work has a quality of invention and dramatic power that raises it to an unusual position in English nineteenth-century opera.

It was selected to open the season given by Augustus Braham’s company at the St James’s in June 1859. The choice was probably influenced by the tenor, George Perren, who had played Raymond in the Manchester cast, and the conductor, the composer’s cousin, George. (Augustus was a son of the famous John Braham.) Some revisions, involving a reduction from four to three acts, were made for the new production. The following study is based on the revised version.

To place the work in context we may recall that the London performances took place a quarter of a century after Loder’s first opera, Nourjahad, had appeared, and thirteen years after The Night Dancers. The most recent English operas given in London were Balfe’s The Rose of Castille and Satanella, performed by Louisa Pyne’s and William Harrison’s company in 1857 and 1858. Due to the summer season, Braham’s competitors were the rival Royal Italian Opera companies, one performing Don Giovanni and Otello at Covent Garden (with a cast including Grisi and Mario), and the other Il Giuramento, by Mercadante, and La Traviata at Drury Lane. Competition also came from the Handel Festival at the Crystal Palace. In these circumstances high standards of performance were all the more important, but Chorley reported that the first night ‘was better attended than performed.’3 Perren and Hamilton Braham, Augustus’s brother, who played the villainous Baron of Lindenberg, were far weaker than the women singers. The part of Agnes was performed by Madame Rudersdorff, a soprano with some experience in Italian opera,4 and that of Madelina by the mezzo-soprano Susan Pyne, sister of the more illustrious Louisa. The remaining female role (Ravella, mute for most of the work) is a speaking part. The Times allowed less space for its review than for a report of the recent Oxford ceremony in which young John Stainer received his Bachelor of Music degree.5 Performances ceased after a week.

The opera suffers from a poor libretto. Fitzball’s plot is an uneasy rendition of an episode from Lewis’s novel The Monk. The young Spanish nobleman, Raymond, is in love with Agnes, the ward of the Baron of Lindenberg, who himself intends to marry her. Raymond’s discovery that it was Lindenberg who, years previously, killed his father and kidnapped his mother leads to his imprisonment in the Baron’s castle. The villain’s remorse is heightened by the spirit of the heroine’s holy namesake, St Agnes. Raymond and Agnes take advantage of this to escape, but unwittingly seek succour from a gang of robbers led by Antoni, once the Baron’s lieutenant. The Baron and his men recapture the couple, and Lindenberg plans Raymond’s death with his old henchman.

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